Dreams - Richard von Sturmer

Dreams - Richard von Sturmer


As the sun slips below the horizon, a swan closes its eyes
At a Chinese restaurant, a Chinese waiter eats his evening meal with a knife and fork
A woman drops her child on the carpet, and instead of crying it laughs
In the car-wrecker’s yard, fragments of window glass sparkle in the sunlight
A strip of red balloon hangs from the beak of a seagull

*

After a fight at school, acorns are found on the toilet floor
At the edge of a storm, someone is heard sweeping leaves
In the back garden, rain drips from the eaves of a doll’s house
The sunset glows pink inside the ears of a black dog
In a takeaway bar, a machine for killing flies is switched on

*

A man holds a bicycle wheel and walks into a cathedral
In the middle of summer, a band-aid has melted on the asphalt
A wooden swan sits in a bakery, its back hollowed out and filled with loaves of bread
A wasp picks up a single grain of rice, disappears, then returns to pick up another grain
The dark clouds are darker through the skylight of a limousine

*

When its master blows down a cardboard tube, the dog cocks its head to one side
A wire coat-hanger is found lying in the snow, and later on, a slice of white bread
A man sells oranges in front of an empty field that stretches towards the horizon
On the beach at night, as the fire dies down, the sound of the ocean increases

*

A jogger runs past with "Stop Acid Rain" printed on his tee-shirt
In the crowded men’s room, all three toilet doors change from "occupied" to "vacant" at the same time
At a serious accident, an ambulance arrives before the tow trucks
The letters on a tomato sign are the same red as the tomatoes
When the corn field is harvested, the hedgerows rustle with mice

*

At the airport, baggage tickets hang from the circular light above the check-in desk
A steel girder casts its shadow across the side of a concrete building
A gust of wind sends the cellophane from a cigarette packet high up into the evening sky
On a late-night bus, an old man smelling of beer manages to complete a crossword puzzle
A cat slips between two candles without singeing its tail

*

Cleaning under his bed, a writer finds his lost pen covered in dust
In the archeological museum, a series of crystalline pings are heard when the lights are switched on
Two painters in white overalls each stand on a white ladder and paint the same building white
In the Japanese garden, a carp with a human face glides by
On a corrugated iron roof, a seagull opens and closes its beak

*

A pile of cigarette butts lies at the end of a long pier
In a house by the sea, a man in his night-shirt is changing a light-bulb
In the hair salon, a small girl places two red plastic straws in her hair
An empty cassette box shines like a pool of water on a dark bedspread
The shadow of a cat sits on the shadow of a fence

*

Outside a tropical hotel, a hotel worker is struck by a large leaf
A young mother drives around the block until her babies are fast asleep
A chandelier of icicles hangs from the underside of a rusted fire-escape
Light shines through a blowfly as it settles on a television screen
Lotuses are opening beneath high-tension wires

*

An ice-cream van breaks down right beside a waterfall
A dog barks, and snow falls from a tree



http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/features/taonga/sturmer.asp