i checked out the brooklyn-based sleeping giants show the other night at littlefield; bits of it were entertaining but not earth-shattering. i could have had less of ted hearne screaming mixed up pop lyrics with live electronics and more of violinist tema watstein providing echoes of italian cathedrals.
but really, folks, these days i sleep deeply, idly dreaming of scenes i can't have in the city. here are a few more by elizabeth bishop.
Elizabeth Bishop, "Summer's Dream"
To the sagging wharf
few ships could come.
The population numbered
two giants, an idiot, a dwarf,
a gentle storekeeper
asleep behind his counter,
and our kind landlady—
the dwarf was her dressmaker.
The idiot could be beguiled
by picking blackberries,
but then threw them away.
The shrunken seamstress smiled.
By the sea, lying
blue as a mackerel,
our boarding house was streaked
as though it had been crying.
Extraordinary geraniums
crowded the front windows,
the floors glittered with
assorted linoleums.
Every night we listened
for a horned owl.
In the horned lamp flame,
the wallpaper glistened.
The giant with the stammer
was the landlady’s son,
grumbling on the stairs
over an old grammar.
He was morose,
but she was cheerful.
The bedroom was cold,
the feather bed close.
We were awakened in the dark by
the somnambulist brook
nearing the sea,
still dreaming audibly.
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