My Jump from Heaven

I had a dream I was out to dinner with Emily, John, and Willie. They were interested in our modern life and asked if men and women still broke each other's hearts? "Yeah," I told them, "You guys could still make a good living on earth." Then I stopped and said, "You are, maybe better than in the day. Emily, you too." They looked at me as if they understood their importance and Willie said, "Well, we were the greatest poets on earth and for some strange reason we are here in your dream What the hell have you written?"

I replied, "I've written some poems over the years and maybe you'd like to read them." Ignoring me, Emily said, "So we still don't know where we came from." Keats replied, "Yeah, you would think if we could go to the moon we would know more about ourselves. You guys are still on the shore of the world, thinking until nothingness sinks." Then Willie looked at me and said, "So this is the dream in death that comes and in that dream you want us to read your poetry." John laughed, and said, "Wake this guy up so we can get out of here " I told them not to get upset. I didn't intend them to be in my dream. Exasperated Emily said, "This is a wild night in a dream. We don't have a compass or map to chart our way out."
I grabbed John's arm and told him I flunked out of San Diego State University because of him. I got an "F" in ballroom dancing. It was 1962, I was a college freshman playing football without a scholarship and washing dishes in the cafeteria. Time I should have been studying for classes I spent reading poems in the library and trying to write an essay about the urn.

You see, the final examination in my ballroom dancing class was graded on how well you danced with a girl. Dancing with girls was the reason I took the class; but, you would be graded dancing with your partner, and I didn't want a girl to get a bad grade; so I didn't show for the final. I asked Emily and Willie to consider I got the "F" because of one of their favorite virtues, chivalry. They looked at me as if to ask, "Dancing is a college course?" "But I did it for love," I told them. "I was proud of my "F" in ballroom dancing; and the reason I flunked out was I spent all my time studying your poetry. Do you know how many Cs you have to make to bring up 1/2munit of F to a C?
During my divorces my ex-wives didn't object to getting the houses and me getting my poems. At the time I thought it was a steal. The three poets looked at me like I was a fool. "But, I did it for my poetry," I told them. They laughed.

I explained I'd written poems all my life, kept them under beds, in suitcases, lugged them to wherever I lived and worked. Kept them in school and police department lockers; in law office filing cabinets, even pulled them to safety out of the trunks of wrecked and impounded cars. My poems have been the most steady thing in my life, sometimes the only thing.

Willie said, "Screw your poems We want back to life and out of your goddamned dream." John pushed me and yelled, "Wake up " Then Emily screamed, "No, don't wake him If you wake him, what will happen to us? If he wakes, we might cease to exist anymore; we might go back from where we came."