Poems and Dreams: Close to the Other Side
By Don Iannone

Poems about dreams
are excruciatingly hard to express,
and probably just as hard to understand,
even once written on the page.
Dreams about poems are no easier,
when on occasion you have one, and
they are far less expressible, as they
venture into a creative realm beyond--
where the poetry-creating mind usually goes, and
beyond where the poetic hand can write
with any measure of sensibility.
Having said all this, I believe
poetry and dreams come roughly
from the same place inside--
a place very close to the mystery
as we can visit, and return safely,
without falling through to the other side--
a place we write poems about
and have late night dreams about, but
a place we are reluctant to go, until
it is absolutely our time to go there.