Sarah Palin ... In My Dreams

Like most people I know, Kim and I (Martin writing) have felt some tumolt over the presidential campaign. Certainly no candidate has received as much attention recently as Sarah Palin. And although at times I'd like to NOT know the latest news, polls, and rumors about the major players--I'm supposed to be writing poetry with abandon this semester--I can't seem to ignore what's in front of my nose all the time.

None of this, however, explains why I keep dreaming about Ms. Palin. Once, previous to this week (at least two years ago, in fact), I had a dream about Missoula that I felt, upon waking, I should immediately set down as a poem. I did so, and the poem created itself as easily as the dream had.

But now, twice this week, I've had vivid dreams about Sarah Palin which I felt I should set down as poems. I have done so, as faithfully as I can, with the realization that dreams play like movies, and poetry is words and lines.

Sarah Palin = unlikely muse?

If you know what's going on here, please do tell.


Walking with Sarah Palin

I walked last night with Sarah Palin.
I wanted to ask her
whether I a liberal and she
could be friends
We were walking through neighborhoods
a city park
I remember a man snapped a picture
with a large bellows camera
and a big smoking flash
only I seemed to notice she walked
with her head down
We crossed the parking lot of a strip center
she said she liked
Portobello mushroom sandwiches
and she made one right there

We turned into another residential street
stopped at her house
a stone bungalow
Where do you live I asked
she said This is San Francisco
She threw her keys on a small table
as I waited on her porch
I was surprised by Sarah Palin she was
quietly lovely
We started again
how leafy the West can be
but I wanted to ask my question
can we
can a person like me and a person like you
comfort one another
She anticipated me
No politics she said No questions on politics
if we’re going to walk


(dreamt on 9/15/08)

---------------------------------------

Working with Sarah Palin

My new officemate is
Sarah Palin
She moves in
with two men as tall and broad
as billboards
There is no advance notice
I look up
from my work
to see my lamp replaced
with a different lamp
dangling with beads
The men
fan across the room
without once seeing me

Leave the desk alone
she tells them
sitting
She swivels in her
black bucket chair
as if testing it all out
yes perhaps she thinks
this will do this will do
nicely
She swivels to face me
We are knee to knee
and I am wearing
nothing
but a blue T shirt
which I tug as low as it can go
not low enough
Sarah Palin shows no alarm she
just smiles
Cold Pacific waves break
against our office windows

~

We’re at a restaurant
a booth for six
but she and I are the only
people I recognize
the rest laugh and pass food
like they’re in a Chili’s ad
It’s as if
Sarah Palin has never been
to Chili’s
she grabs at unpeeled garlic
stuffs raw onion
in her mouth
Somehow I’m her agent her image-maker
laughing with the others
as I frantically bat away her hands

~

Sarah Palin and I are in a large assembly
we don’t know each other we’ve
never met
and a seated crowd separates us
It’s like the crowning scene in
Scent of a Woman
all of us talking under our breath
expectant and
Sarah Palin this event is
in her honor

A man stands speaks sits another man
stands and
Sarah Palin is introduced
called to the stage
As she begins to get up
the spotlight falls
on a mocking caricature
already on stage a
grotesque political cartoon
The crowd erupts
the real Sarah Palin
unrecognized cycles through
seven shades of shame
and runs she runs out of there
I follow

~

We play a primitive baseball game
with the boys

~

Operatives from her own party
try to push her from a plane

~

O Sarah Palin what did you do
to deserve this


(dreamt 9/17/08)