Dreams & Nightmares #78

Dreams & Nightmares #78 contains ten poems, many of them illustrated. The shortest in the issue is “Still Falling” by Anne K. Schwader, a nine-line piece, vaguely oriental in style. The first stanza grabbed me right from the start:

It’s not only black holes,
you know: all events
have horizons….

Those lines open the poem up to so many possibilities, from the obvious science fiction view, to less literal situations, all of which culminate in the bitterness of the last, offset line. I’ll admit that the first two lines of the second stanza seem a bit out of place to me, but the multiple levels on which this poem works, and the way in which it holds worlds within its tiny frame, more than make up for that.

“The Vagabond Moon” by Mikal Trimm is also science fiction, but it portrays its titular moon as a person, as a woman in fact, and one with problems and needs to which readers can easily relate. Trimm’s moon is not content to exist merely as a satellite to her planet.

And so she simply left —
no longer willing to flatter His darkness
with her pale presence.

The language used is deft and graceful, the images thought provoking, and the overall poem gently humorous and delicately wistful. As a reader, I’m left hoping that the moon finds what she’s looking for.

There are a few quite long poems in this issue, but the longest, and one of my favorites, is the 81-line “Deja dragon, damsel vu” by Charles M. Saplak. With poems as long as this one it can be all too easy for the reader to lose focus, but Saplak’s organizes its series of linked tales in such a manner as to hold the reader’s attention. Each stanza tells of a meeting between a woman and a dragon, often retelling well-known myths and fairy tales, but showing how they connect in a new and wonderful way to form a sort of eternal pairing. Despite its length, I find myself hesitant to quote any lines from this piece, simply because almost every one forms a key part of the whole. I can only recommend that readers search out and experience the entire poem.

At first glance, Jaime Lee Moyer’s “Swans” appears to be a simple fantasy love poem about a swanmay who spends her winters in human form, in the arms of a mortal man.

He waits at the lake’s edge,
Boots crunching
Amber hued leaves underfoot

Lines such as these paint the setting for the readers, and the magic flows seamlessly from there. And yet, later lines express the mourning of the swanmay’s sisters as they lose her to her lover, and still others hint at her own feelings on the matter, suggesting that the wings she wears in summer may not be the prison they at first seem. The beauty of the language and imagery, and the subtle characterization and emotion, make this piece a joy to read.