At the County Fair Anxiety Dream
A carnival barker is trying to convince
me that, for a modest sum, I could
enter the mind of another person
and retain all of his or her thoughts,
dreams, emotions, and memories.
While it was a tempting idea,
I thought it would be horrible if
that worked both ways. What if that
person retained the essence of me while I
was poaching the essence of them?
I looked around the fair and wondered
when it had become something like Ringling
Brothers, Barnum, and Bailey in a
Kafka story like the prelude to Amerika
or The Starving Artis? I heard lions
roaring inside circus tents and saw elephants
hanging out by a peanut gallery where
a puppeteer was doing Punch and Judy shows
with masked figures who strongly
resembled Celebrity Death Match Claymation
characters modeled after current politicians.
I asked the barker who was now dressed up
in a clown costume, whether I could
choose whose mind I could borrow for
the evening and he said, ”Sure, but that costs extra.”
I was afraid to ask how much but he must have
peered into his crystal ball and assured me
that there were several convenient payment
options, layaway plans, credit card loans
and even an extended pay option that sounded
like a 30-year mortgage with low financing
that was a limited time offer. All I had to do was
sign here and we’ll go to town. I have a pin
for the blood-letting you’ll need to sign
the oath. “Don’t worry, “ he assured me,
“it only hurts for a little while, then you just
get used to it.”
Lunch with Charlie: an Anxiety Dream Poem
All the buildings look like
turn-of-the-last-century Utica
brownstones but I think we are
actually, in Albany. I’m trying to
get downtown on foot but somehow
find myself on a bus that takes the
wrong fork off the main road into
a different city that looks like Utica
but could be Schenectady.
I pull the overhead stop wire that signals
the driver to stop but he doesn’t
and the wire snaps. The driver arbitrarily,
abruptly stops, stands up, and says,
“Last stop everyone out.”
And he forces all of us out into
the middle of nowhere. Luckily my old
boss is driving by in his vintage Caddy,
picks me up and suggested we stop
for lunch at Hymie’s Pork Shop in Troy
which is always the next stop after
Nowhere on the bus line. Then I’m
sitting at a table with a movie star
and some local political movers and
shakers all of whom are friends of
my boss who seems to have disappeared.
The star turns out to be Charlie Sheen
and he has a bandage on his right cheek
that covers a wound from one of his old
movies. Charlie is affable and funny
and I feel very comfortable with him
all throughout an extremely long lunch
and after. Later, in the Caddy, I tell my boss
about the great time I had at lunch
with Charlie and he says, “You were
lucky. He can turn on you like that.”
And he snaps his fingers. I ask him
where we are going now and he says,
“Downtown.” But I’m afraid to ask him
in what city.
Dream Lottery Anxiety Poem
This is what it must feel like
to win the dream lottery, I thought.
All I had to do was give the patron’s
pet turtle his daily walk, on a leash,
and I could collect an all expenses paid
overnight trip to London for a first
run new play at The Savoy.
Once I had hooked the turtle up
On his leash and we began our walk
I could see this was going to be
much more difficult than I originally thought.
Then I’m in London, outside the theater,
after the overnight, unable to sleep on
the flight trip, plus the half hour
commuter train ride from Gatwick into
town and several tube stops, I’m so tired
I wonder if I can stay awake through
the first of nine acts, play.
Then I’m on a different sidewalk outside
Proctor’s theater in Schenectady with
Neil the tavern scammer, and he has
a cardboard box of rare baseball cards
he borrowed from a six-year-old kid
playing nearby and he’s telling me
we could sell the cards at Finnigan’s
and split the money 50/50 which meant
I would sell the cards because no one
in their right mind would buy a collectible
from Neil. All I had to do was keep
the kid occupied long enough for the cards
to be appraised but the kid runs out
into the street and is hit by a car and Neil
is gone. All I had to do now was get
the box of cards up six floors of a brick
building which meant finger climbing
a vertical wall in a trash infested alley
to the window where Neil was yelling
down at me, “Make sure you don’t drop
the cards.” And somehow, I make it most
of the way up, one-handed, and Neil says,
“Let me take those for safe keeping.”
And then I’m in the street holding
the bloody kid to my chest and
the cards are ruined, strewn all around,
covered in blood and a child’s scrawl
in magic marker and I’m hoping that
the ambulance comes in time for
the first act.
Under Construction Anxiety Dream
I’m at the Busy Corner that no longer exists,
window shopping at the Boston Store that
got torn down years ago and I’m looking
for custom, handmade t-shirts for heavy
metal bands that would never come to
the Utica War Memorial venue for love
nor money and then I’m walking down
Genessee Street looking for an address
on streets that were removed during
urban renewal in the 60’s to build
the-around-the-city arterial and I decide
to see if the red brick colossus of Genessee
Street apartment building we lived in
when we were first married is still there.
And it is, in all its unique weird glory and I
remember watching random parades for
stuff that was neither a holiday nor explicable
as worthy of mention in any other place
in the world except for Utica, from a Juliet
balcony you could step out on but not
with your full weight on unless you
were feeling suicidal. And I remember
how living there was like being on set
of Rosemary’s Baby with your pregnant
wife wondering how they rippled those ceilings,
why there were windows facing an air shaft
whose only purpose was to see how much
garbage could accumulate down there before
the rats took over and why walking down
the loose marble tile floor felt like a trip to
the gallows following a slow, creaking elevator
ride to get there. Then I am outside again
walking but none of the streets, houses, buildings
look familiar and all the Dutch Elm trees
are back and a hundred feet tall and weaving
about in the gusting wind like something out
of The Shining, the novel, and I feel like
I escaped from something into something
worse though the people I’m with on
the parade float seem nice and I ask,
“What is the parade for?” But no one seems
to know but The Shriner who seems to be leading
the procession points to a construction site
where the pavement saws are dismantling
the sidewalks, the streets, the open-air shopping
center, where they are going to put the Under
Construction signs that seem to be everywhere
but nothing actually seems to be doing
anything but Coming Soon. This seven foot
guy in a fez says to me, “We thought you’d never
get here. Hold this.” And hands me a sparking,
taped-together bunch of what looks like
dynamite sticks and turns to run. “Oh,” he says
before he leaves, “you might need this.”
and he hands me a yellow reflective vest and
a hard hat. Says something about ducking
and covering but I am way beyond ducking
and covering now.
