Tuesday, March 15, 2011

American Dreaming

The Almighty Yojo would like to thank Shakespeare, Biggie Smalls, Rage Against the Machine, Martin Luther King, Steve Carrell, Bob Dylan,Tracy Morgan, and-- most importantly-- all the people who volunteered to be interviewed for this half-baked project.

You have all contributed to capturing the collective consciousness of the dream state. While some cynical skeptics are not open to the significance and meanings of dreams, all the Almighty Yojo can say to those people is this: your loss.



American Dreaming

I have a dream today,
rooted deep in the American Way:
live beyond your means,
magnify your TV screens.

I dreamt of a woman with the head of an otter,
hair slicked back with dripping water.
an old man tried to touch her daughter.
He sang the theme from Welcome Back Kotter.

Egyptians dream of the god Osiris,
head of a gator, body of an ibis--
or maybe that’s Anubis, maybe I’m wrong?
Who cares, like Baal, Haddad, they’re gone.
Monotheistic dreams replaced them
Solaris dreams of Stanislaw Lem.
When you read H.P Lovecraft
you dream about unknown Kaddath.
Tracy Morgan dreams of Tracy Jordan
Tracy Jordan dreams of Tracy Morgan
a drunken baby gives a jailhouse tattoo
a rib cage is a basketball hoop.

I dreamed I was at work,
fixing a big machine.
Took off my pants and shirt.
Heard everybody scream.
My teeth turned loose and brown,
They fell unto the ground.
Everyone stared at me.
They laughed and stared at me.
This is what I dreamed.
You tell me what it means.

I dream I’m falling through my bed,
my wife replaced by a horse’s head,
spiders crawl from the sheets--
I hit the water with my feet.
Then we’re crouched, rolling dice,
Ice Cube, Ice T, and Vanilla Ice.
I roll the snake eyes once, then twice
in an alley full of rats and mice.
the spiders, they boil at my feet
the snakes, they coil in my sheets

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan,
with opium go on and on,
‘til the man from Porlock says he can’t.
Deckard dreams he’s a Replicant.
Dr. Minor believes metallic biscuits
were forced down his throat by pygmy gypsies.
Neo in The Matrix with Bob Newhart,
Floyd and Toto rip the curtain apart.
Unvalued stones at the bottom of the sea,
dead men’s skulls in the slimy deep--
holes where once inhabited eyes.
Clarence and Edward soon to die.
You worry about those princely boys,
try to remember dreams are toys,
but the woman in the pure white robes
melts before you . . . the bear moves close.

I have a dream today . . .
I have a dream today . . .
I’m Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day,
Your Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day.
Do androids dream of electric sheep?
Let the chemist put you down deep.
Eternal inception of the spotless mind:
Dicaprio and Carrey fight dream time,
only to find the world unchanged--
except for the passages in your brain.
And if we shadows have offended,
think but this and all is mended . . .