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Jaime Fradera
Senior Member

since 2000-11-25

Posts 843
Where no tyranny is tolerable

0 posted 2005-01-20 07:54 PM

The following message is self-explanatory.

Dear Jaime,

Thank you for your poetry submission to the Rocky Mountain Dream Journal.  Your poetry is divine and I would like to feature it on the website, if that’s
okay with you.  Unfortunately, your poetry is too long for the printed copies, as one poem is 6 pages long and one is 3.  I am limited to 8 ½ by 11 sheets
in the printed copies so I won’t be able to publish your poetry there.

What do you think of having your poems published on the website http://www.RMDJournal.com?
Do you have any shorter dream inspired poetry?

Let me know what you think.

Best Regards,

Kat Peters-Midland

Editor/Publisher

Rocky Mountain Dream Journal
www.RMDJournal.com

From: Jaime Fradera [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 10:20 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: For Rocky Mountain Dream Journal

Here is mine ... The editor may post this in the poetry section ...

or wherever ...

Jaime

(oops ... I can't get it to attach the file so I'll just upend it to this message. Have fun.

Submitted to Rocky Mountain Dream Journal

Bio and Background.

I grew up in Texas.  Blinded at birth and deafened later as a teen-ager, I attended the school for the blind, graduating in 1974.  I came to Colorado in
1992 in search of a better life, which I have since found.

I am a 49-year-old single male.

The editor has permission to freely publicize my full name should this piece be selected.

Dream

For The Rites TO Be Performed

by Jaime Fradera

I am back at the asylum,

But this time it worked out much better.

I'm having breakfast for the last day here.

S, a woman with me,

Who seems to be a girlfriend

Or a staff member at the place,

Urges me to hurry

Because they are waiting to perform

The graduation rite of passage,

And she is coming with me.

The ceremony is performed and I go home.

Back in Austin it is morning.

I am suddenly listening to music

With strangers at someone else's house.

K and her boyfriend m,

Both unknown to me, are there.

K is unusually attentive for a stranger.

She keeps asking do I need anything,

What music would I listen to,

And is the sound too loud, too soft, just right?

I am tired by the long trip from New York,

So I tell her I don't care

And that whatever she wants to do is fine.

But K seems not to notice

Doesn't seem to be deterred

By my weary indifference.

She keeps repeating the same questions ..

Am I sure that everything's okay? ...

I want to be left alone.

I just want to go home.

But someone else would have to drive me there,

And the strangers in this strange house won't.

It is night.

K takes me to a special church

Of which she is a member.

Inside the special church there is a secret sect

Of which she also is a part.

The secret sect

is to perform a sacred ceremony

at which K is to officiate.

The church is filled with solemn, silent people,

All dressed up in their finery.

The air is filled

With the smell of incense and of burning candles.

The atmosphere is one of reverence and of awe,

For the rites to be performed this night

Are holy.

Together, arm in arm,

K and I march slowly,

Reverentially, to a ceremonial altar.

When we have reached the front of the church

She leaves me, and the ceremony begins.

During the strange, mysterious ritual,

I start to realize

That the dream is coming to an end.

I interrupt the ritual by yelling to K

For her full name or her phone number,

Because I'm about to wake up,

So I can call her back

Once I have reached the other side.

But no one in the church

Can hear me except her,

And K is busy with some incantation,

And at first she just ignores me.

As the holy vision slips away

I call out ever more insistently, alarmingly,

For K's full name, for her telephone,

Because I'm waking up ...

I'm waking up ...

Finally K shouts back to me:

3 9 2 ... 3 9 2 ..

The prefix number

At a school I once attended.

This the entire congregation hears,

And the spell of ceremony is sharply broken,

And the church dissolves in incredulous confusion,

Because the sacred rites

Have been disrupted and profaned.

And then my line to K is gone.

But the wakening is false.

It is the next morning,

and although I am not there,

I can somehow hear the scene

In the office of K's supervisor.

As I float, weightless, formless,

Seeming to be nowhere in particular,

I hear K's boss

Call her in and tell her curtly

To turn over her keys and that,

Because of the sacrilege

She has committed in the church,

She is fired,

As well as kicked out of her office,

Kicked out of the special church

That meant so much to her,

The church

Of which she had been a member

For so long,

And before she can even complain about it,

She is dismissed.

I feel a wave of remorse.

She doesn't know

I was a witness to her firing,

But I'm sure she knows who's fault it was,

And I just hope to God

I will never, ever have

To encounter her again.

And then I'm at an unfamiliar university.

I wander aimlessly,

Unable to find where registration is.

Suddenly K is there with me.

She couldn't possibly have known that I would be here.

Without words being exchanged,

She indicates the way to me

And then is gone.

As I come out of registration,

K suddenly appears again,

With no words being exchanged,

She directs me

To the next point in the process and is gone.

Here there are three doors

Through which I have to pass.

I enter the first door,

And a barber is there

To shave me and to cut my hair.

I open the second door

Which reveals a tiny compartment

Where I'm supposed to leave my clothes.

The space is tight and cramped and stuffy.

I struggle to remove my clothes

Peeling off endless layers

Of sweaty, clinging fabric.

I let the mass of fabric

Fall tumbling to the floor.

And I am already very tired.

There is hardly enough space

To open the inner door,

And then I'm in a teeny tiny shower stall.

I fumble for the faucet

And do my best to bathe and dry myself,

But can't do much of anything

In the humid, stuffy space.

There isn't room to breathe,

No room to even dress myself.

Suddenly K is standing

With me in the shower.

She couldn't possibly have known

I would be in here.

I wish I somehow could get rid of her.

How could she have even gotten in here?

I don't want a stranger

To see me in this way,

Pitiful, unable to breathed,

Naked, drained,

Unable even to dress myself,

in this water-logged, suffocating crush.

Without saying a word

She helps me with the clothes,

Back through the double outer doors where I can breathe,

And then suddenly is gone.

I can breathe,

But I am also very hungry,

Having not eaten

Distracted by the day's ordeals.

Now, it is night.

I set off in one direction,

Then off in another,

But can not seem to find the cafeteria.

I bump into a computer.

It is already on

And set up with JAWS for Windows.

It is connected to a "chat room,"

And I can somehow hear

The voices of people in the chat.

I know I won't be using it

And decide to turn it off,

But I have to close

A multitude of pages

Until it finally powers out.

And then, suddenly K is there ... again,

And I cringe.

She is wanting to say something,

wanting to know something.

Without words being exchanged,

I know what she is thinking ...

How she is out of work and out of money,

And has to find another place to live.

And I know what she's about to say----

That I lied when I told her I was waking,

That I was disrespectful of her,

Of the ceremonial mystery

Through which she wanted to initiate me,

That because, because of me

She was now stripped of all that meant so much to her,

And that now she stood at the edge of destitution

And homeless desperation,

And it was all because I didn't care,  ...

Then K takes my hand.

Quietly, silently,

As though by telepathic transfer,

She tells me that I could not

Have lied to her about awakening,

Because I had only told her

What I had thought to be the truth.

She tells me I could never have broken ceremony

In the church,

Because no one in the room except herself

Could hear or see me.

And she tells me

That even at times

When I must live

In the separate world of Wakefulness,

She will never be more

Than a heartbeat away,

And it will be at night that she will beckon

And in my Sleep,

That she will come to be with me.

Now I understand the pointlessness

Of trying to get rid of her.

She passes through walls

And security gates and through locked doors

As though she were some spirit being,

Even when no one else

Can see or hear her except me.

It is in silence that we say these things,

Without speaking

That we somehow know these things,

And we embrace ...

She doesn't know where the chow hall might be either.

But we'll look for it together.

And then I wake, in tears,

For real this time,

And remind myself again

That for as long as I am living

I will never be alone.

C-Copyright Jaime Fradera

Dream

1:

It is afternoon,

And for some reason I am festive.

I feel the distant heat

Of a Sun low in the sky.

I am wading in a shallow pool

Of blood-warm seawater.

I feel the shifting crumbling sand

Between my toes,

Beneath my feet,

The sandy bottom shaking,

Rumbling,

With the elemental thunder

Of the sea.

It vaguely dawns on me

Why I am there ..

Why I don't want to be there,

That eventually

I will encounter April,

That I know what she will want,

What I will have to do,

Dive into the water

While turning inside out,

And if I try something like that

I will surely drown.

As I splash and play delightedly,

I find thick and mushy bubble-blobbs

Suspended in the water.

They smell sweet, like fudge,

Feel like warm quivering Jell-O,

Or like candy that has not yet set.

But I don't think it's safe to eat them

Since I don't know what they are.

They might be dangerous or nasty,

Like jellyfish.

Still, I am fascinated by them!

They are strange and beautiful.

What are they? ...

Where are they coming from?

I decide to find out.

I look for more of them.

I walk around,

Running my hands,

Combing my fingers through the water.

Suddenly I stumble

Over a great enormous bubble,

So thick, so fleshy

That I can not run my fingers through it,

So wide

I can not even reach across it.

And it seems richer

Than all the other candy bubbles

In the water.

2:

Are you ready?

I am startled.

It is April.

And The bottom caves alarmingly.

And the waves

Seem a little higher,

And the water

Feels a little deeper.

Are you ready?

Is that annoyance,

Irritation in her voice?

I briefly think

What it would be like to hold her,

But she is imposing, demanding and severe;

She wouldn't understand it anyway.

I dismiss the thought at once.

Are you ready?

I have to get away from there.

If I could only find the shallows ...

The shallows? ...

Then I realize

That I don't know where I am.

I don't even know

Which way will take me out,

And the bottom shudders violently,

As if to make me fall into the water,

And I am very frightened.

I am going to drown.

Are you ready?

Is she sneering at me?

I'm know I'm going to drown ...

I'm going to ... ...

In raw, primeval terror,

Flailing my arms wildly,

About to lose my balance,

I try running frantically

Through the roiling chest deep water,

Stumbling off in one direction,

Then in another;

But I just blunder

Into even deeper water.

I'm going to drown ...

I'm going to ... ...

I ... I ... I'm ... I ...I ...

My heart races uncontrollably,

My breath coming in gasps.

NO! ... ... No!! ... ... NO!!! ... NNNNNNNNN ...

Are you ready?

Suddenly the bottom is gone

And I pitch forward.

I know I'm going to drown.

I have no choice

But to dive into the water

And start turning inside out.

Then I realize

That I forgot to breathe before the dive,

And I get stuck in the maneuver.

I can't complete the task,

And now I'm out of air,

And my terror turns to panic.

I'm going to drown ...

The most terrifying death I can imagine.

And Time and Space

Have lost all meaning ...

Reflexively I gulp in water,

Choking and gagging,

Kicking and thrashing.

3:

Then April reaches out.

She takes my hands.

She pulls me from the water.

She takes me in her outstretched arms.

And in the moment that she takes my life,

She gives to me her own.

It's okay ...

It's okay ...

It's okay ...

Be still ...

Be still ...

Be still ...

Jaime

© copyright Jaime Fradera

Midnitesun

Member Empyrean

since 2001-05-18

Posts 28647
Gaia

1 posted 2005-01-20 08:22 PM

Have they given you any idea when this one might be posted online? Proud hugs to you, you have earned a special place for your dream writes, where they will be appreciated. Keep dreaming, my amigo. Perhaps, those late night Chinese food or pizza take out orders are good for you after all. LOL, just be careful with that dragon hot sauce!

Sunshine

Administrator

Member Empyrean

since 1999-06-25

Posts 63354
Listening to every heart

2 posted 2005-01-20 11:16 PM

Congratulations again, Jaime!
You know that Passions is VERY proud of you!

passing shadows
Member Empyrean

since 1999-08-26

Posts 45577
displaced

3 posted 2005-01-21 09:04 AM

wow~ congratulations!

LeeJ
Member Patricius

since 2003-06-19

Posts 13296

4 posted 2005-01-21 02:53 PM

edge of your seater read....fabulous...congratulations and may this be read by millions, as it deserves to be. Good Jobber!

Gentle Spirit
Member Patricius

since 2000-10-09

Posts 13989

5 posted 2005-01-21 03:19 PM

Congratulations Jaimie. We are proud of you!

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