#317

My mother threw a tantrum on a high terrace

hurling down water-bombs on my brother & me,

none of which landed?

after a panic scene in a restaurant

& in the street: I had picked out for her a peach sweet

instead of one with a Catholic name.

Amongst a-many terrible bright scenes,

in the submarine’s sick-bay a fire began

which we all fought in the aisle,

pillowcases exploded into flame, & fiends

swept the length of the great ship of man

cleaning out the good & the vile.

Henry with joy lay down for his next bout of rest,

in happy expectation of the next

assault on his divided soul.

Does the validity of the dream-life suppose a Maker?

If so what a careless monster he must be, whole,

taking the claws with the purr.

The first two stanzas are a pair of dreams. The first somehow reflects maternal strife. He chose a “peach sweet” instead of one with a “Catholic name” which is what set the whole thing off—what that might be is escaping me. Water, in my dreams, always stands for a woman, or more generally for the female, somehow. Almost never fails. So a water-bomb makes sense to me as a woman’s weapon, though the fact that they never arrive is telling: He’s immune, as a boy or as an adult, from attacks from his mother. Why is she mad? The sweet, the affection that he offered is too “peachy”—too nice, too girly, maybe. Not tough enough? She had wanted that something with a Catholic name, which may mean more if I ever figure out that little riddle the poet dropped, but which at any rate has a more solemn, hierarchical quality than that sweetly peachy thing he got in such trouble for. This one’s not too hard. Neither is the next: In a submarine, down under the water this time, which means somehow subsumed deep within the psychological feminine, which is where all children begin. In the sick-bay—the poet, we know, is sick—a fire began. This is the fire of his artistry, located inside of that big phallic submarine swimming around deep within that ocean of female sexuality. Pillowcases are symbols of rest and comfort, but the fire eats them up—no rest here, not for this male poet. It’s all madness, with demons now sweeping up and down, “cleaning out”, i.e. annihilating, everybody regardless of their goodness or value, their wickedness or sin. All are cleaned out by the horde of artsy fire-demons. It’s not fair, which is a good reflection of the poet’s vision of himself—unjust victim or deserving one, doesn’t matter here. His sexualized artistic fire inside the tenuous shelter of his phallic shell is what dooms him. The dreams contradict, but they’re both manifestations of the male psyche locating himself or his art in relation to the female, both through his relationship with his mother, but also within the context of a broader sexuality. In simpler terms, he got away from his mother. But his uninhibited philandering enabled his art along with the booze, but it also burned him up.

I really don’t think we need to invoke the Maker here, but he does it. Probably the dreams really disturbed and really frightened him. Actually, they absolutely did. That was a major part of his lifelong struggle—that “bout of rest” that assaults his divided soul is an oxymoron that sums it up pretty clearly. But if dreams are the sign of a Maker, they’re indirect, I think. They’re sign of a consciousness first, and it’s hardly a secret that all perceiving human consciousnesses have subliminal layers. Dreams can expose these layers, and if we pay proper critical attention, we can learn a lot from them. If there is anything of the Godlike divine in dreams, it comes with the consciousness as the conduit through which the divine manifest itself. The fact that I can look into your eyes and know you’re there, in all your analogous complexity, looking right back at me? That’s the divine miracle! I think that’s what Jesus was talking about when he said, I am the light. He is the personification of the same light that is in us all. It’s not even that controversial, and he doesn’t need to be the Son of God to make that claim. Everyone shines the Light. B. isn’t thinking along these line, though. He’s passively receiving the dreams, that frighten him, and his only response is, whatever deity is sending me these things (I detect a shade of narcissism here—can’t help it!), he’s as violent as he is comforting. Well, don’t go blaming it on God, Henry. These nightmares are all your own doing, trust me.