Already with a wistful head do I harken back to the bygone,
Then why in a slumber too, I'm swung inside that gray keep
Where I lived with the highest bar of resentment and exhaustion?
Is it hypocritical to misspell the bad days as good now after I've seen worse?
Is it hypocritical to lose the confidence I once boasted of so much that it dashed my relations?
I split so I could leave, but never without a bludgeoning force
Building up for years that left its trauma within me.
So, why now? The questions were asked after I had grown out of the vines in my dreams-
The greener fabric of a tragedy where I lose my loved ones.
The torture of feeling otherwise
That I shouldn't have left nor married,
That only did I think God was with me but He mightn't be,
That the truth wouldn't make sure that the dreams and the house are flush,
Forbids me to sleep ever again.
Yet, I keep dreaming like the next tree
Inside of a mill full of working bees
I sleep like a queen and sing into the hymn continued
In my temple on the top
Where the crooked musings worship
Every hour of the odious days.
So, they run through the unsung evenings into the fallen nights
Where I fall too.
Then I'm taken, taken away to the gray keep some lights back
And I ask away, why I'm living amongst the sky veils over every soul I know
And yet alone on my back.
~ Ithmam Hami, 23rd October, 2023, 10.49 am
Explication:
Towards the end of 2023, I tried my hand in "vers libre" - that is free verses in French. I decided to go unconventional for myself which is considered conventional in modern poetry otherwise - writing without rhymes. I felt at somewhat ease in expressing myself without the burden of rhyming endings.
The reason I consider this particular poem as hypnagogic is because it came to me in a dream and I wrote it dizzily in my office. Hence the lines,
Yet, I keep dreaming like the next tree
Inside of a mill full of working bees
The dream was about the college I had graduated from a while back and my old friends. That episode of my life comprised of a lot of ups and downs. The emotional roller coaster I had to undergo throughout the journey was too much to take and sometimes vilified. I couldn't wait to get out of that place with or without a certificate in hand.
But now in retrospect, everything seems so unimportant. Maybe I shouldn't have made an issue out of every little thing that affected my emotions. Maybe I should have stood firm in the face of new challenges and overcome them rather than complaining about it.
Why is that the memories keep coming back in form of dreams if I got over them soon as I left the campus? Why do my old friends pop into my subconscious game if my only goal was to leave them forever? There is a good chance that I was not as resistant as I pretended to be.
These are the questions and wonders I keep reiterating in this poem. Ultimate nostalgia, vulnerability and wonders! My reality then used to be as alone as before yet somehow in my dreams, I am no longer lonely. I sense how my faith is deteriorating and how my daydreams are just that, daydreams.
This attachment pains me like hell! Gray Keep is all about going back or not being able to leave a place in your life, ever!
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Disconnect | A Poetry Chapbook
Poetry***FULLY PUBLISHED*** Disconnect is an amateur project I've undertaken to explore an experimental genre of art- "Hyonagogic Poetry"- a certain poetry-writing style focused on reflecting upon the subconscious aspect of reality. Although, I'm attempti...
