Robert Gibbons
bio

Marble Stele of Kosmetes Sosistratos

I carried it around, no heavy load, as if the wind itself were moving sculpture. Lifted it against post-mortem reports of the civilized world in the daily papers. The marble stele of kosmetes Sosistratos, which stood so long in the Diogeneion, the Gymnasium in Athens. I ran there once in a dream, calling it the Palace of Health. I can’t read the inscription written across the chest of the abstract torso, nor that etched below the life-like genitals. The brilliant sculptor knew the dead no longer needed limbs once put to such good use on that good ground in that good life, but generously left the head, the sex, the words, intact.

The Science of Language in Dreams

There was a moment this morning, just before, or just after the equinox, for I was dreaming during the early morning change of seasons, when I wanted nothing other than what was, that I’d take what comes, & suddenly bulbs of color floated up inside closed eyes. In the dream boatloads of people sailed off on the horizon in three or four sturdy schooners, all waving toward shore. Saw people I knew, some with luggage, but I had no time to waste, & hurried on for a rendezvous. Kathleen was with me in spirit already. I skied barefoot on the sea in rapid fashion toward the destination. At the mansion a woman greeted me. The orange tiger cat vied for my attention, while the guest of honor, the kid who’d set some barefoot water skiing record, ignored me completely. I just walked out. Parked in front, a school bus with just two students. The boy asked, “Is there something you could tell us?” In response to his brilliant inquisitiveness, I went on & on about my love for words, my need for words, their sound, their texture on the page, their taste at root, while turning the pages in the book he held, identifying passages as examples of what I meant. We glossed over color reproductions of wings & flowers, anatomies of things, the lesson being the science of language in dreams is sexual.