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Professor Roy and the Amazingly Bad Poetry Journal
There In My Dream
by Rochelle; St. Louis, MO
I could see you from a distance holding a bouqet
So I followed every rose petal that led your way
You continued to walk farther leaving roses in your trail
But I was there catching every rose stem that fell
I turned every curve that soon came to a room
In front laid a rose that was fully in bloom
I picked up the rose and opened the door
To see what you had for me in store
When I walked in the room, it led me outside
I was back where I started with no farther guide
I walked back through the door and to my surprise
There were a thousand roses that filled my eyes
I was still disappointed with no sign of you
So I grabbed a vase of flowers and found my way through
I picked off petals as I chanted, "He loves me not."
Then I got a strange feeling that forced me to stop
I turned and saw every petal held in your hand
It was hard to figure out, because I didn't understand
You said, "I'm always here even when you can't see."
Then you dropped every petal and said, "He loves me."
I hate people who feel like they have to tell me their dream. After listening to their half-hour of Freud 101, they ask me what I dreamed the previous night, and I invariably tell them that I had a dream where a psychotic escaped mental patient killed them. That usually shuts them up. "Every rose petal that led your way" - the roses are controlling him! He's a slave to their every perverted whim! His mind is no longer his own! I have a hard time believing in the manliness of a man who's walking around with a bouquet of roses, scattering them behind him, like a flower girl at a foofy wedding. It's like a Mel Brooks version of a gay man.
There's been a few poems on the ABPJ where the authors dreams are featured--in one, a girl dreamed of having sex on the beach with a total stranger--but none are as wrought with sexual metaphor as this one. You don't have to be Matlock to know that when Rochelle writes, "a rose fully in bloom" she's talking about something else entirely. I think it means that the man she is pursuing secretly wants to be a woman. Or perhaps not. [English major mode] Flowers, especially roses, often represent a woman's sexuality, and/or her emerging as a sexual creature. [\English major mode]. "The DaVinci Code" talks about this. And c'mon, Bruce Springsteen's song "Secret Garden" -- it ain't about a garden. And neither is "The Secret Garden" by Frances What's Her Face. Well, maybe that one is. Anyway, this poem, with all the roses, would be much more sexually charged if the genders were reversed: a man pursuing a woman who is leaving roses for him to pick up. Actually, either way that it's presented, it's akin to the prelude to the premiere sex scene in a romance novel.
"Yeah, but roses?" I hear you say. What kind of man goes around scattering roses? A real man would be leaving power tools in his wake... no, that doesn't seem right either... What might Rochelle's subconscious be trying to tell her through this dream? He's playing with her head? He's making her pick up after him? The roses he drops could represent his thousands of one-night-stands, brothel visits, and full-fledged relationships he's had before her. And they also represent the thousands of STDs he's carrying, some of which have evolved and mutated inside his body and have yet to be discovered by modern science. Or it's the dreamland version of a booty call. I like Rochelle grabbing the vase of flowers in line #14 because I got to hope, for a little while, that she planned to brain him with it.
In the poem, Rochelle starts at point A, goes through a curving labyrinth, to a room with a door on the opposite wall (point B). She opens the door and she's back when she started (point A). She walks BACK to point B where the roses have multiplied. Conveniently, some of these roses are in a vase. Since we will never have enough exciting scenes of her walking back and forth, she walks back to point A ... but unbeknownst to her, Sting is following her singing "Every Breath You Take." I'm beginning to think that all the poetry.com patrons are totally incapable of writing romance that isn't somehow creepy. I want to steal Rochelle's computer and all her writing implements until I can adequately explain why "I'm always here even when you can't see" isn't the least bit romantic! "I'm always here even when you can't see" - that's the same concept behind peek-a-boo, isn't it? The whole tone of the poem would improve if she had gotten the last line right. As it stands now, he seems to be saying that there is a man who loves him (but not her). Nyah nyah nyah. This is what I picture: Rochelle wandering around with the vase, plucking off the petals and instead of saying "He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, etc." she chants "He loves me not" over and over again. I don't even have to see it in real life to know that I'd be grinding my teeth at that. So Rochelle is chanting and this guy pops out of nowhere and says "He loves you." He means that he loves her. But it's awkward. It would have made more sense (although the rhyme would be sacrificed - what a shame that would be) to have him say, "He loves you." He meaning him.
Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: A-
Professor Roy's AIM name: ProfessrRoy. I had a dream a few months ago that I had a ticket for an Oscar party. The ticket was in the form of a very small Frodo figurine, which I accidentally gave to a homeless man standing on the street reading poetry. Later, after a fight with my parents about not being able to get into the party, I tried to swap the Frodo figurine for one of Sam or Pippin, and the homeless individual relented.
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