Pale faces thronging the dark —
the dream only fragments now,
fag ends or tangles of smoke ...
athletic bodies fighting
fierce and fast, like acrobats.
The dim light caught shaven heads,
naked limbs white against grey.
Or tumbling on a trapeze
higgledy-piggledy, but
there was still room for singing.
Singing and swinging alive,
disappearing in distance.
I was caught, one leg fastened
by intertwining others.
Perilous extrication
leaving me fully alone,
leaving me lying alone
on a floor I could not see,
surrounded by smoke too thick
to discern any image.
A distant smell of burning.
Seven turns of the clock face,
seven lean hours of the night.
Seven — number of challenge.
Seven explores the unseen.
I woke. My cat on the bed
leaping, pouncing on nothing,
continued to wrestle air.
The seventh night of the year
I made a spell for dreaming.
Did it gather all the dreams —
dreams of the politicians,
dreams of teenagers mingling,
pooling inside my one skull
in frantic kaleidoscope?
I remember a woman.
My dress was red and purple.
'These,' she said, 'are the colours
designating a priestess:
from base chakra up to crown
where the light collects and blooms
like an explosive flower.’
(When I was seven I knew
I would always be alone
inside the populous town
and the warm family home.
For why? I was the dreamer
'head in the clouds' and my feet
trailing behind, straying slow.)
At Poets United, our Midweek Motif is January Seventh and we are asked to write anything to do with the number seven. In this piece the structure echoes the theme: each line, including title, has seven syllables; and there are seven verses, each of seven lines.
