{"id":3752,"date":"2013-03-26T02:30:10","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T02:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sporkpress.com\/?p=3752"},"modified":"2013-03-26T02:30:10","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T02:30:10","slug":"last-dream-of-the-phantom-limb-by-david-hawkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/2013\/03\/26\/last-dream-of-the-phantom-limb-by-david-hawkins\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Dream OF The Phantom Limb || David Hawkins"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAST DREAM OF THE PHANTOM LIMB <\/strong>
\n 
\n 
\nSomeone\u2019s hitched up a little gray goat
\nIn the hard brown scratch of a yard\u2014& that\u2019s
\nThe feeling you get. Nothing remarkable
\nHas occurred to you in weeks. Remember
\nThe urgent sense dreams gave you once? They\u2019ve since
\nMoved off, pitching their tents in the remote
\nOzarks of thought; & cities in the distance
\nFlickering like the beads of a glitzy charm
\nSomeone\u2019s chucked on the way out, or the more
\nDistant locations where we go after,
\nInto a vast & starless night, now take up
\nIn the space of all this leaving. At least, there
\n 
\nCan be no secrets between us. The acoustics
\nAre such that from one end of the executive chamber
\nYou can hear clear across the other side a mouse
\nConsulting flirtatiously with a radish. We\u2019ve been
\nHere before\u2014but it\u2019s different this time, the back-
\nGround distortion reduced to a persistent hum,
\nA few distractions, arousals, but elsewise\u2026ordinary
\nOr filled with such oddsorts & trifles suddenly nothing
\nSeems so trivial anymore. And you\u2019re getting older,
\nMore diffuse, too, but surely it\u2019s for the best,
\nPumping in all sorts of lightness, calibrated
\nTo countervail the overfed & stultifying ego.
\n 
\nSomething else belongs here, too\u2014you feel it\u2014
\nBut its peculiarities are kept from you, signaled in
\nRandom bursts shot through a screen of blandness.
\nEven the light here has something taken off it,
\nFalling into us & over the pale creepers of sweet
\nPotato & the deeper green plumbago, which is why
\nYou can\u2019t say what it is except that it is what
\nWas promised you long ago. Casually, but
\nWith the fullness of coming pleasure, & after that, well\u2026
\nLittle\u2019s changed: Fire escapes are wreathed in smoke,
\n& cresting low, dew-licked hills one can hear the rubbery
\n 
\nOrchestrations of the age, venting through a stem.
\nUnless I\u2019ve completely missed my mark that makes this
\nSome soapy version of the afterlife. The tortured ones,
\nAbout whom everyone is talking, are anchored down
\nTo keep them from drifting; all propositions of a
\nSexual nature must now be issued from the chasmic rift
\nBetween sleep & the dark heart of the sea, & truly <\/em>big ideas
\nAre wired for sound. But please, don\u2019t get too comfortable.
\nWhatever it\u2019s about plainly doesn\u2019t concern you.
\nYour deliverance was a stroke of luck, though it\u2019s unclear who\u2019s
\nThe better for it; & the wheels on which the world turns are
\nLubed in the golden emollient of dreams, which is just one
\nLess elegant morceaux <\/em>we don\u2019t have time for now.
\n 
\nYou\u2019d like to scotch the whole shebang, but that\u2019s a lot
\nHarder than you might think. At one time restricted
\nTo the outlaw flowering of your favorite tidewater bunker,
\nBURT\u2019S CRAB SHACK & BAR on its shingle,
\nThe feeling\u2019s now grown out to overrun whole new tracts, &
\nEverything feels handled unto disuse. It\u2019s the transplanted
\nStyle that\u2019s to blame, you think, snuggeries raised on stilts
\nIn provocation of a Sno Globe climate, & at last
\nCall the verandahs are pulled shut against
\nThe lullaby beachfront culture: A new & less
\nSatisfying veneer thrown over the natural surface
\nLike cheap, sticky plastic to preserve a plush original.
\n 
\nAfter all, it\u2019s not as if we\u2019ve<\/em> never pondered our own
\nExtirpation, but not one of us can say when exactly
\nThe dioramic effects finally supplanted the damp plumage
\nOf his own adequate life. Now a green, mid-week paste
\nTrims the cul-de-sac\u2019s grassy apron, & the lake\u2019s
\nLate glimmery spackle slowly emerges in the alum-light\u2014
\n& there are other elements we know of, too, adherent
\nThough invisible to us behind their corrugated veil:
\nSkies filled with cream-colored cloud, a few barren
\nTrees\u2014the estranged symbols like those in a painting
\nBy Bruegel, circa 1562 or 63\u2014& the diapasons
\nOf car engines, raving & revving & spurting loudly
\n 
\nTheir enzymatic emissions. In short, it\u2019s the very place
\nWhere we might walk to clear our heads in the cool,
\nPlasmic air\u2014& if a few exhort us to approach each day
\nAs if our last, really,\u2026who the fuck could go on like that?
\nFittingly, the days are mild. So too the conversation.
\nIn fact, whole neighborhoods seem touched by a regular
\nDispassion in a come-day-go-day manner so you seem
\nNot so much a part of them as some disparate element gliding
\nWraith-like over the glistering slabs. Families pour out
\nOnto their lawns to watch you pass never touching
\nThe ground, whilst they remain firmly rooted, a
\nPart of it, &c.; & the simple house-front gardens evoke
\n 
\nSuch industry, the planting & tending, the watering
\nCan left out beneath the porch, that even the bulbs\u2019
\nVegetal warmth (which is another type of work)
\n& the fertilization that grows out of the miniscule
\nForebrains of bees seem caught up in it. Ah, to kiss
\nThe nimble, light-exuding fingertips of the clever soubrette
\nWho componed these eyes,<\/em> the goat murmurs drowsily,
\nWhich is exactly<\/em> what you were thinking\u2026. Just remember,
\nYou\u2019re no different\u2014only you have these few extra parts:
\nA third tongue to lick the walls of the venerable heart
\n& this surplus elbow\u2014or rather, the interior
\nOf an elbow, which flexes on the inside of the dream.
\n 
\n__________________________
\nDAVID HAWKINS<\/strong> is the author of the non-fiction chapbook, Lorraine Nelson: A Biography in Post-it\u00ae Notes<\/em>, winner of the Cupboard\u2019s Literary Pamphlet competition, selected by Michael Martone (2011). His poetry has appeared in a number of journals and periodicals, including At Length Magazine, Barrow Street, Bat City Review, DIAGRAM, The Pedestal,<\/em> and The Seattle Review\u2014<\/em>and his poetry collection, Dark Adaptations<\/em> has been awarded a Utah Arts Council prize and was a finalist in the 2012 Poetry Foundation’s Emily Dickinson Prize. He is an Assistant Professor\/Lecturer at the University of Utah where he was the Editor-in-Chief of Quarterly West<\/em> from \u201801-\u201905, and he lives in Salt Lake City with his wife and two boys.
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LAST DREAM OF THE PHANTOM LIMB     Someone\u2019s hitched up a little gray goat In the hard brown scratch of a yard\u2014& that\u2019s The feeling you get. Nothing remarkable Has occurred to you in weeks. Remember The urgent sense dreams gave you once? They\u2019ve since Moved off, pitching their tents in the remote Ozarks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[32,85],"class_list":["post-3752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-things","tag-david-hawkins","tag-poems"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thisissporkpress.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}