And He Sang His God Damns in Despair

Maybe you knew what your old
Giant dreamed, James. Maybe you
Knew but pretended not to,

You, stopped more than four decades
Ago now, yourself. We can
Dream some of his dreams for you,

And no, they weren’t of slender
Girls and sycamores. The bruised
Plum image was just for you.

In his dreams he was walking
Normally as any man.
He was upset by something,

Conversing with a woman
He took to be his late wife,
Although this dream figure looked

Nothing like her and the age—
Both hers and his in the dream
And its historical age,

Victorian—was all wrong.
His dream was awful, awful.
That’s why he talked in his sleep.

That’s why your poem described him
Talking softly in his sleep,
Why your poem still talks for you

And for your Martins Ferry,
And why we’re talking for dreams,
Softly, since dreaming’s awful.