[Eadha Deora]

This dream is over in an instant,
the sharp upright pain in the heart,
lunging forward into wide-eyed reality,
as if the racing nerve endings might
never return to a deep relaxation in sleep.

That is how Love can be.

Not the nightmare, but the
return to normal awareness,
realizing that all your life before this
was just a wooden fantasy,
alone, without substance, waiting
to be breathed into

until that first person reminded you,
touched you, woke you from slumber
to the wild-paced rhythm of
belonging to life,

they woke you to yourself,
at first a stranger (perhaps the nightmare),
but then groggily coming to see
that the aloneness never really was,
that the darkness was just a dream

and Love is the home of the world.

[Vorcla]

A universal experience for anyone who's ever been there. The sweetest pain, the most agonizing ecstatsy. The wonderful contradiction. You encapsulated the experience so well, Jenn, as usual with your beautiful, flowing images and carefully chosen words. Nicely done.

[Lubesh]

Just to say......this helped me lots. Maybe with ur love thing...u can be our beloved and spread it....whatever that is.lol Let me know when you find out what it means. In between more writng never stop.

[Nupur]

Beautiful. I love the prosaic nature of the beginning. It's firm and introduces the poem very well. You've used some lovely expressions here, phrases that made me go wow.

as if the racing nerve endings might
never return to a deep relaxation in sleep.

This was amazing. It's something everyone can connect with... the racing nerve endings, the excitement... very well put.

Lovely succeeding stanzas. I love the part about life being compared to a "wooden fantasy". That was something different and very good.

The last stanza is truly good. Really like the "woke you to yourself" part.

Another thing I like about this one is how you built it all around sleep. Your careful word selection made the images fluid and the way you centred everything around the theme is commendable. Your usage of 'sleep', 'dream', 'nightmare', 'slumber', 'darkness' and even 'groggily' was wonderful. Lovely images and great poetry. Always love your work and this is no exception. It's something different from you and it's great.

[Jimbalaya]

Wow. That was impressive. And so seemingly effortless. For me, it seemed to go directly to the point, yet dance elegantly around it for a time. Wonderful work, and inspiring!

[Rain]

That was really good.. and Rick hit it on the head... the sweetest pain. I don't have anything to say other than good job.