World Dream Bank: Retarded Stars

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Retarded Stars

Dreamed 2009/2/28 by Wayan; Dreamverse #42

I was on Market Street, riding in a car,
when out of the subway stairwell boiled
a horde of dwarves deformed. They spilled
into the crosswalk. Suits all paused, appalled.
Bodies flopped astray, faces fish-gaped, vague,
retarded. Nurses darted, shaping a column,
shepherding their charges, sheepdog-solemn.
Now one obese dwarf, tantrum red,
a neckless monster Tweedledum,
LEAPS offcurb. As he slams down,
the mirrorcrags quake! I cringe, for I'm
Frisco born. The pavement here is just
a flimsy crust, over lairs of Muni, BART
and San Andreas (of all subways the subbest)
or Tweedledum weighs tons! Gristle, bones
dense beyond lead, past osmium--he must be
half-collapsed atoms, like the core
of a brown dwarf, an almost-star,
or a white dwarf, a nova's cinderheart.
These cross walkers are stars! Red
retarded stars, their minds and fires
ember-dull, eon-slow. But stars.
And then I'm jabbed awake by a man
sitting on my bed. I reach for pen--
he pokes me 'playfully' again. I snarl
"I'm writing star-dreams. Go away!"
But he pinches and distracts--
until, enraged, I jab him back,
claw his nose. Too late now. Lost.
I know there was a sexy bit
with a girl I wanted to date--
But only that hefty dwarf is left.
Hey burglar, thanks a lot!
I wake again. Now SIX invaders all
on my bed naïvely sprawl
critiquing a letter my teaser wrote.
He wants a job but he starts his note
"To Whom It May Concern", or
"Dear Sir or Madam." We all demur:
"No, everyone wants a sender who
salutes and addresses truly you--
who knows who you really are."
And I wake again, with just a critique
and a retarded star.

Digital sketch of a dream by Chris Wayan. A fat red-brown dwarf angrily stomping on Market Street in San Francisco. Towers visibly shake.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

Market Street, quake: San Francisco's 1906 quake centered on Market Street in the business district. Is the dream on deep stress disrupting business-as-usual?
Stars: guardian angels for worlds like ours. The dream wonders: if we range from Buddhas to fools, why can't the stellar ranks also include dull, crippled or crazy souls who neglect or abuse their charges?
Retarded stars: in this image, the dream fuses traits of three kinds of stars--
1. brown dwarfs, gasballs big enough to burn deuterium but not hydrogen--basically abortive or failed stars;
2. white and black dwarfs, the cinders of normal stars, radiating only from stored heat and made of dense, collapsed matter;
3. the dimmest red dwarfs, small but true stars burning fuel so slowly they're overlookable--but nearly immortal.
Osmium: the densest element, denser than gold or lead (though atoms with crunched electron shells, as in a white dwarf, are denser still).
Dense dwarf causes quake on Market St: What Market heavyweight is throwin' weight around? My friend Ron lives on Market but I haven't seen him lately; my ex-girlfriend Cheryl worked nearby, but looks/acts nothing like this guy. Still, she tried to visit last week. Is the grumpy dwarf a side of her? Or how I get, around her?
Nurses shepherd stars around: if I'm the dwarf horde, I've got handlers! But handlers stretched thin--a quake breaks out.
A tantrum blocks me, then a pest blocks dreamwork: next day, Cheryl emails to complain that all my dream-poems are really about her. I felt amazed/amused by her ego (we parted a full year ago). But the dream warns her tantrums can shake/distract me. Quit reading her!
Group invades my room: my friends have invaded my room more lately to talk. When I'm writing I need to firmly shoo them out.
Generic salutation: a friend asked "I'm writing a recommendation-letter for a friend. What salutation's right if I don't know who'll read it?" Perhaps the dream's hinting that Cheryl the letter-writer doesn't really know me... so discount her complaints!
This is Dreamverse #42. The Dreamverse Project is to write one dreampoem each week for a year. Faaaat chance!

LISTS AND LINKS: Only in San Francisco - natural disasters - weird dream beings - size matters - bones - physics & natural law - some orbs find me dim in Lunch with the Stars - dreamwork - dreams about dreams - false waking & nested dreams - predictive dreams - psychic dreams in general - poetry - Cheryl - the Dreamverse project - the next Dreamverse: Her Lovely Awkward Synth

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