"What Went Wrong In Dreamland"

"That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts.
There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking"

Above quote is from
"Twilight of the Idols"
by Fredrick Nietzsche

Over the past thirty-some years of my life, I have been involved in a number of intimate relationships, some romantically, and others not so. Some of these lasted for a few months, others, as long as five years. For whatever the reason, I have broken with all of them (or, in a few situations, they with me). One individual in this apparently unending cycle is also the person I (then) believed was to have been the end of the line - and was to be "the love of my remaining life."

In addition to the aforementioned above, there have been perhaps a hundred, if not more, one-on-one encounters with whom I have spent quality time - more than once. These are mortals for whom there was a brief flicker of flame in either the heart or groin but that the winds of my whimsical mind and prodigious appetite for life rather quickly blew away. These are also people with whom there were dinners in Michelin Guide restaurants, walks on secluded beaches in Malaysia, and hands held at sunset on the terrace at the Ritz Laguna-Niguel. Almost all of these are entities whose names I have forgotten, with faces only sketchily remembered, and who have fallen into the blur of my "too numerous to remember" encounters.

Having once again moved away from the pain of the last of these 'losses, 'the one who I truly thought was going to conclude all of this, so my track record indicates I will undoubtedly move onto the next ( which you will find in "Resurrection"). The love and the agony found in What Went Wrong in Dreamland, is probably no different than that I felt (to a similar but for certain, from this moment's perspective, had to be to a lessor degree) in my other significant breakups.

To the best of my ability, I have attempted to make a record of this latest loss. This was done first and foremost to aid in the 'healing process,' and then, perhaps one day, to pass along to this hopefully 'last' of my relationship agonies. Why I want to would share this, at this given moment, I do not know, except perhaps, to say, "You hurt me! Big time!" And "Read this! I loved you! Jerk!"

Most of these poems were written for this 'other half' - hence for all mortals who have been 'unlucky in love.' These meandering acknowledgments, no matter how well burnt the remains of one's love can be, and how often they are raked and spread, raked and stroked, again and again (as the truth of the past comes forward), do give reason(s) that most mortals can rise up out of the ashes. From the flames of devastation, with strength and perseverance, and with the good fortune of time passing, each of us become that which was intended for all men - to continue on.

More than half of the (more important) 'mortal remembrances' in my life are now deceased. As they are a part of my yesterday and that which is time past, so most assuredly is my life with the last of these (who is still living). I moan their loss ... individually ... and together. "What was" and could have been or should have been, with each, fills me with deep sorrow. Each of the dead, I know from my heart ... and from my soul (with that which is told from 'the beyond'), if they had one choice for me, given their new-found wisdom from above and beyond, they would want me to move on. Those who cherish life need move away from that which does not have love in this life ... toward that which does. Well each of them would 'now' know life is too short not to, and it is for each of them, these love poems are written ... and dedicated.

So has evolved "What Went Wrong in Dreamland"

Above Are Author's Notes, 1999.

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Copyright 2004

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