THESE AWFUL DREAMS

She was shivering.
"Oh! you are so cold"
I said to her
'Don't get sick, its your first play."
'This basement is freezing."

"I know, I have been freezing to death here manny times,
many chest colds and coughing episode encountered me on the way to the,"ARTS"
Its always January and you rehearse here in this coldest possible basement.
 I was telling her….

'Who was she?"
It seems like I knew her
But didn't know her at all
But she seemed familiar
Maybe she was an actress or a playwright or both

She reminded me of a waitress who works in a neighborhood cafe who says she is a playwright
And why these dreams are always about some kind of performance art?
Am I a performance artist?
I don't know
I don't know the definition of performance art
Or maybe I wanted to be a performance artist
They say all dreams are about the unfulfilled desires
But I never had a desire to kill some one
But maybe I did
Or maybe I do now
But still the dreams seem about two things

Art
And terror
Yes, thats it
Terror of the soul through art
Or art as a source of terror
But actually the dreams should be about, "Art critics" and not just merely art
They are the ones who are the most frightening things
They have chosen their favorite people for certain reasons
And rotate them from theater to theater, from a venue to another venue
And give them awards and grants and residencies
And the rest of them, ones who call themselves, Artist" goes through, "Nightmares."

So I guess I must be one of the those who are not artists but call themselves, Artists."
But I am not an artist and I still dream of art and its un-told terrors
I need Freud  to figure this out for me.
In my awful dreams I encounter more knives and guns than art critics
But when I AM AWAKE I ENCOUNTER MORE ART CRITICS
AND I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH BOTH OF THEM IN MY REAL LIFE

I hate knives
I hate guns
I hate art critics
And I hate violence
And my dreams are full of all these things

Then the young shivering woman gets on the phone
Not the cell phone but the old, regular wonderfully powerful phone
Where you put a quarter and dial the number and some one talks to you
Like a regular person even from Con-Ed talks to you
Now the human voice is so sacredly silent
Only people's fingers are moving
Fingers are being over used
They are going to question the owner of their hands on the judgement day for abuse

Then all of a sudden we are in a sports stadium kind of place
Hundreds of people waiting
We are in the front row
This young woman and me
There is this great anticipation of the up coming event
There is great anticipation of some kind of danger attached to the event
As if its going to be a bullfight and lots of killing is going to happen
There will be lots of blood when that happens

I always see blood
Red, bright blood
Or at least the color of blood
Everywhere

'Some miserable person made a statement about me once
He said, "Ilike red color because red is the color of rage and I have so much rage in me."
He didn't say it to me
But he said it about me out loud while I was there in the room with many other people.

You see lots of people don't like me
I have tried to figure out
But I haven't been able to
Perhaps I am too knowing of another part of the world, the world
They always talk about that part of the world in a hateful manner
without having the slightest possible Idea of the culture, language, religion, customs
Or perhaps there is another reason for them not liking me
Maybe I read too much
Or talk too much
ut I don't talk any more
There is no one around to talk to any more
They are all so full of hate

Maybe my awful dreams are about all of them who hate me in my real life and come back to frighten me at night in my dreams
But they don't have to do that
They frighten me during the day, every day
They really do
I am afraid of people and their bitterly sarcastic remarks
I am most of the time alone by myself every day
Every day, day by day………

I only have crowds in my dreams
But hey seem strangers
But still ominous
Like the stadium people
It seems like they are going to erupt like a volcano suddenly
Or a blast of fire which will engulf the whole human race
And we will be no more

Most of us are no more any way when we are still living
But the fear of the elite class who pay a thousand dollar to come to the stadium to watch an important
event is palpable
How did I get that ticket?
The ticket which costs a thousand dollar?
I have no Idea
Maybe I wasn't a customer
I was just an observer like I always am in my dreams
I am mostly on the side lines observing
Watching, watching, watching quietly
No one seems to know me in any place
I remember some people
But no one seems to know me
I am an invisible observer in my dreams
I like that
I always wanted to be an unseen, invisible observer even in my life
So no no one will see me but I will see every one

I don't want anyone to see me
They give me looks
And when they say something o me its mostly offensive
They say offensive things with a smile as if every one is stupid
But one thing I am not
I am not stupid or I was not stupid.
Any one who crosses the ocean to come here is not stupid
Once you are here you become stupid, really stupid
You don't understand people even if you speak English
Actually thats when you don't understand people when you speak English
Its not your language
Its their language
How can one understand any one else's language?

In my dreams I encounter many people with many languages
I don't understand much because those are not my languages
But the dreams are loaded with foreign words and foreign people
and foreign symbols and metaphors
But I don't understand why I have to encounter metaphors in my dreams
While my whole life has become a huge metaphor?
There should be a difference between dreams and reality
otherwise how would we define things?
Define different things
Such as day and night
Here and there
You and me
Them
US
We
They
Rich
Poor
Fortunate
Un-fortunate
Living
Dead
Dream
Just a dream
A night mare
Reasoning while you are awake
Fright when you are asleep……………..

There should be a distinction between things
Happiness
And unhappiness
seems the same
Vague, unclear, obscure, fading, dimly lit, far away in the distance
Its like when you are dreaming you remember every detail and when you
wake up its all gone, all gone, evaporates in thin air…………
and soon you are awake but still no more……………………..