HOÀNG-ÂN: AS DREAMS EBBED THE THOUGHTS WEAVED SMOKE
Tonight, thoughts like smoke weaving; dreams like tidal wave stretching. I am out to sea on an island in a hurricane. Sitting inside the cocoon of my room, in front of the screen--with YouTube audio playing the sounds. It is a cleansing. The sounds like a comb running through my head like knives splitting my thought-densed brain, slicing it like thin slices of bread. Turning the sound off, giving back the silence with the hum of a small electric heater. It is home again in the constant soft hum of the turning fan. The physical pressure re-reigned and the tenseness in the head returned in force. It is biologically explainable; it's severe sinus. I reach for the medicine, a self-rolled cigarette. Like I've said, tonight, my thoughts are weaving and my dreams are stretching. What forms can dreams be in the shapes and sounds of a raging Tidal Wave?
But thoughts they are weaving. Thoughts that are not only in words. We then read them into words. Sometimes they drift like an unlistened story. How sad! It's cold tonight. Hot instant coffee with powder creamer is wonderful. Especially with a menthol cigarette. Turned many righteous and upstanding mothers' ears off. Ladies ought to stick with just the coffee. Too daring to drink coffee at night, too. Ha ha.
"Ease it out, now..!" Let's make a friendly gesture. Let's be at peace. Let's talk about the White Camille. In the back of the Main House of the property simply called the Big House and on the right side of it is a Camille tree. I knew Spring sneaked in on the white Camille that are blooming high above over the neighbor's fence. I love Camille, and especially white Camille. The red ones that are planted in China bowls painted blue like ceramics from East Asia reminded me of Lunar New Year in my childhood home; regal and subtle. But white Camille is attached to a story of many lanes-of-memories in one of my hometowns way up in the Highlands of Shreveport. Shreveport too is Louisiana but Opelousas is Cajun Louisiana. Shreveport is a metropolitan where world gamblers come to gamble while making business deals. The Highland area has many roads winding between flowers of many colors and hues. It was 2008 when my mind had space and peace enough to be conscious of a Camille shrub carrying three white Camille; and they bore the clear crystal ice over their leaves. The bright white morning light of crisp early Spring gloriously shew off their strong and cleansing beauty in the virgin white petals. I dared be passionate enough to plug them. I hid them in my handbag and eased on by through the park. He came in the evening. I gave them to him like a love letter. And he was touched. I then said, "Tonight, my dreams stretched like a Tidal Waves. These Camille are what my thoughts weaved into a love poem for you amidst the sea of shocked waves."
Suddenly a hit! Tonight when I smoke without him, I have the mental space enough to make a note to plug some Camille blooms to put into a vase for a profile photo for him. Tidal Wave how art ye shaped my dreams tonight?
