by L.G. Corey

DREAMS
The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the soul, opening into cosmic night.” ~ C.G. Jung

Little doorways into nowhere
filled with nothingCGJung
out of somewhere, like a speck
before beginnings, endings,
and everything between
began.

Everything
squeezed into nothing
no larger than a subatomic particle
or a grain of sugar
swimming in a vacancy of sand.

Step across the threshold, if you dare,
into Caligari’s Cabinet where
all is lost and nothing found
except discarded wrappers

of Dubble Bubble
bubble gum

littering the ground.

Note: “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (German: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) is a 1920 German silent horror film, directed by Robert Wiene and written by Hans Janowitz and Carl Mayer. Considered the quintessential work of German Expressionist cinema, it tells the story of an insane hypnotist (Werner Krauss) who uses a somnambulist (Conrad Veidt) to commit murders.

“Dubble Bubble” bubble gum, made by the Fleer’s company, was possibly the most popular brand of bubble gum among children of the 1940’s, including myself. It was temporarily discontinued during World War II because it contained materials thought to be essential for the war effort.

 
CHILDREN’S GAMES

Come out to play.
Come out.

Come out to hide and seek
for pennies in each others’ pockets,
and things that peek from empty sockets

and an index finger
pointing to graffiti on the wall.

Come out come out

wherever you are,
whoever you are,

come out of the rock
and out of the kier

and into the moonlight
where I’ll teach you fear.

Note: Kier—of Old Norse origin meaning “tub;” also related to Old High German kar.

 
MORITURI

Inside
the cloud of unknowing,

the known and the unknown,

and an acid rain
of preparing and forgetting
the names of the seasons

and the names of the uninvited guests
knocking at the doors, calling at the windows,
dangling from the rafters, shaving in the mirror.

Our vines, our tender vines have raisins
where there once were grapes
and the promise of wine
instead of vinegar and water,

and a drop of blood for every plague,
every first-born, every locust
in a feast of locusts

for we who are about to die.


L.G. Corey has written three collections of poetry: Sausalito Poems (Platypus Press, London, November 2015); Rats’ Alley Poems, (Platypus Press, London, January 2016); and The Kalidas Verses (Donmeh West Publishing, February 2015).

Recently, several of his poems have been selected to appear in three anthologies of experimental poetry: Fug.ues: An Anthology of Minimalist Poetry, Haiku and Asemic Writing (ed. by poet Jack Galmitz, June 2015); Rogue Poets Anthology, (Punk Writers Press, December 2015); and Snapping Twig Yearly Anthology, selected by the editors of Snapping Twig Literary Magazine, December 2015.

Corey’s individual poems appear (or are scheduled to appear) in Danse Macabre, California Journal of Poetics; Chaffey Review; Red Savina Review, Empty Sink Publishing, Poetry Pacific, FUG.UES (3), Kalyna International Review, Hot Tub Astronaut (Scotland), Miller’s Pond Poetry Review, Pif: A Magazine of Art & Technology. Over the years it also has appeared in such noted literary journals as Evergreen Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Midstream, Choice, The Critic, and Zeek.

Larry lives and writes in a small mountain community, seven thousand feet above sea level in the San Bernardino Mountains of SoCal, with his two pit bulls, one black lab, and three formerly-feral, indoor cats.

He turned 81 last November.