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Passionville

Dreamed 1982/7/10 by Chris Wayan

Dad drives us round
this hollow town.
All color grayed down.
All fled? No, there's one:
child sails a windup bird.
Steps ticktock. No man.

Stone, dust, stucco
stage-lit. Dun shadow
beyond our little radius,
creepy as Chirico.
Courtyards. Flooded
streets. Dead ends.
Dad hunts a friend
who lives at number 28
on 32nd Street. But

all the signs are passions!
Joy, Fear, Rage, Sorrow,
and they change. Just follow
Rage Road. Turns to Giggle.
Envy Avenue becomes
Terror Terrace, then becomes
Boredom Boulevard becomes
Joy Way. In name. But real?

Route detoured against our will.
Devious town, this Passionville.

'Mystery and Melancholy of a Street' painted by Giorgio de Chirico, 1914. Click to enlarge.

NOTES
Painting: Mystery and Melancholy of a Street by surrealist Giorgio de Chirico, 1914.
Passionville: I suspect this town of vanished men refers to Passchendaele (which the English pronounced 'Passiondale'), one of the WWI battlegrounds that wiped out a whole generation of young men.


LISTS AND LINKS: dream poems - hunting, hunted! - life-paths - surreal dreams - the power of names - dream humor, grief, joy, rage, love, fear, envy, lust, shame - same dreamer, same night: Bird Marathon - compare Passionville to one of Chirico's Dreams - Gary Panter's Chirico-ish dreams in his Nightmare Studio

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