In Progress Poetry Manuscripts - dolls, dreams, nightmares, seizures, bodies, death, robots...

I am in the process of being overwhelmed by my own poems. Well not exactly the poems themselves, but organizing them/assembling them into collections (specifically chapbook manuscripts). I guess I've been writing more than I thought I was in the last few years and I guess I've somewhat drifted out of a sort of routine I had of tending to assemble new poems into chapbook manuscripts fairly quickly on an ongoing basis.

I haven't had a new chapbook published in over a year AND I haven't submitted a chapbook manuscript anywhere yet this year. For a while now, I've been working on and off on a small series of interconnected poems that I was thinking I might assemble into a chapbook manuscript and I finally made some significant progress on that this week. I also have a micro-chapbook manuscript that I assembled and submitted to one press over a year ago (from which it was rejected) and that I had been meaning to re-read/revise/add more poems to and so on. So I guess I have two different chapbook manuscripts in progress to an extent, but I've been focusing more on writing individual poems than organizing/assembling manuscripts.

So this past week, in addition to trying to focus on somewhat organizing those two possible chapbook manuscripts in progress, I've also been trying to re-read and somewhat organize all these other new-ish poems of mine, in order to decide which ones to possibly incorporate into which manuscript in progress and now I'm starting to think I'm going to have to create AT LEAST 3 (quite possibly more) different chapbook manuscripts. Regarding the two chapbook manuscripts in progress, half the stuff I'm reading doesn't really seem to fit into either one. One of those manuscripts is focused on women's bodies and I want it to stay short, interconnected, and pretty specifically thematic. The other one is focused on feeling invisible, unnamable, unimportant and out of place, and that one doesn't have to be quite AS thematically linked, it has SOME flexibility, but overall, I do like my chapbook manuscripts to be short, interconnected, and thematically linked to a significant extent. Not just a bunch of different poems semi-randomly placed in a chapbook length manuscript.

So some of my poems I'm reading might be able to fit into one of the current manuscripts-in-progress, but then I also have all these doll poems - dream/nightmare poems - seizure poems - death poems - and anti-AI poems. Some of these themes somewhat interconnect in certain ways and to certain extents, but not to the extent of fusing them all into two chapbooks. Again, I like my chapbook manuscripts to be short-ish, interconnected, and thematically linked in one way or another, so I'm thinking I need to assemble at least 3 (maybe more).

Anyway, I am just taking a break from reading/writing notes on my own poems to ramble a bit about my current overwhelmed feelings about assembling the poems into various interconnected entities. Mind you, I've been working on this quite a bit this past week, and some progress has been made, but it feels like it's taking forever. I feel like I should have made more progress by now. But at least I made a little bit of progress and I'll keep working on it.

To reiterate, the shorter version of this is dolls, bodies, brains, dreams, nightmares, seizures, death, invisibility, and being overwhelmed, which is way better than being replaced by robots.

Dreaming of my dead dog (my fault)...

Hard to believe that my favorite dog ever, Sockeye, died approximately 10 years ago, because it certainly doesn't feel like that long ago, and maybe I'm wrong or my mind is somewhat screwed up, and my mind is terrible with timing, but...

I tried to look up (on facebook) when Sockeye had died, but my fb Life Events seem to have been erased (see my blog post below this one for more thoughts on that...), which made me feel tempted to leave the fb platform (because if they're trying to erase individual's life events, then what else will they try to erase?...) etc...

But I did see an old photo of mine, which gave me the impression that Sockeye had died about 10 years ago, which is hard to believe, but...

The reason I was trying to remember the timing of his death was because Sockeye unexpectedly appeared in one of my dreams Sunday.

In the dream, Sockeye was in a small cage, in a bedroom, in the dark, and I felt guilty that he was in the cage, but unsure if I was the one who had (somehow inadvertently) caged him. (I did not choose to regularly place him in small cages in my real life. The only time he was caged was when he was a puppy and we temporarily kept him in a decent sized cage in the bedroom when we went to bed and when I/he was in someone else's house who wanted/needed him caged).

So in this dream, I wasn't sure if I was in my own bedroom or someone else's bedroom. I felt confused. Because if it was my own bedroom, then why would my own adult dog be in a cage? Because dogs in cages seem kind of like hell to me. Because if you don't want a dog (or cat or other pet) around you, then just don't get a dog. Because adults caging other adults seems like a horrific control freak horror fest.

Dreams don't always make logical sense (although neither do many parts of so-called reality these days), so I figured the disconcerting cage was in my bedroom (for whatever illogical reasons), since Sockeye was there. Maybe my bedroom had somehow changed. But my uncertain feelings about the situation caused me to feel overly anxious, bordering on panicky.

I removed Sockeye from the cage and realized he needed to go outside. I thought I had taken him outside. But then suddenly I was inside another somewhat unfamiliar small room in front of my computer and his leash was hanging out of the door, but he wasn't attached to his leash and it was my fault. I thought I had put his leash on him, a leash with a long cord, and affixed the cord to the door so he couldn't go terribly far, but either I had forgotten to attach the cord to the leash or something unexpected had happened, and I was either lazy or overly confused or ridiculously discombobulated or SOMETHING, for not going outside with my dog.

And now he was disconnected from his leash or cord or me. And as soon as I noticed the disconnection, I hurried outside to try to find him before it was too late.

And there was snow on the ground and the atmosphere/air/sky seemed to be quickly changing from light to dark.

There was a growling sound in the distance and I wasn't sure if it was Sockeye growling at another creature or another creature growling at Sockeye or if my mind was making it up. But as far as I can recall, in real life, Sockeye didn't growl. But maybe I don't recall correctly. But what is correct? 

The dream's outdoor location resembled my parent's long back yard, and it's not too uncommon for them to see deer there, so maybe Sockeye had unexpectedly encountered a deer, but I don't think deer growl (but maybe I'm wrong), but nor did my Boston Terrier (but maybe I'm wrong), and I didn't know what I should do, other than walk toward the growling sound and call his name, because then if he heard me, maybe he'd leave a potential attack scene. I didn't want anyone to be attacked, injured, or killed just because they ended up in the wrong space at the wrong time (and especially if I was the one who had accidentally gotten them into that space).

When I first stepped outside in this dream, to see if I could see him, I started walking though snow, calling his name, but the horizon seemed to shift very quickly. My initial reaction was that maybe when I had stepped outside to try to find him was right when the horizon was shifting from light to dark. But then I thought, the horizon doesn't shift from light to dark THAT fast. So I'm either suddenly losing my vision or I'm about to have a seizure in the snow or both.

I'll wake up in the snow and my dog will be lost forever.

And it will be my fault.

And I won't be able to see.

And I will be freezing.

I woke up from the dream but then a few past memories were in my head and one of them was my fault.