I began dreaming in
Karamazov in the
spring of ‘08. Those were
cloudy and wine-dark days.
Shades of brotherhood
defining, divining
and staining my
sheets with the
darkness and brightness of
my three minds.
The nights came
on like horses, black
with rage and fearing
nothing, neither devil nor
angel. I fed them of
Tolstoy, of
Gogol, of
Chekhov, of
Saint Augustine, of
Heidegger and Sartre, of
philosophies golden, beloved,
haggard, rusted, of
wherever the
horses dragged my
three minds. Thoughts that
crept from the
sea and
smeared the walls with
their slime. Thoughts that
pummeled me with
stones and fists. Thoughts that
rocked me in their arms,
to sleep, to
dream again.
And so I
slept on, riding
each one. Mind by
mind. Horse by
horse. Untamed by
religion or by
men, I
rode them all.
The dreams were
sleeping giants,
hideous and
kind and
brothers all. I have
remained silent until
now, fearful to
wake them.
I walked
alone at the
same time each
afternoon, turning and
learning the dreams,
awed by the
ragged sublime. Each
one destroyed and
built me again. I
was ruined and
elated, Camus’
Sisyphus.
After that
Siberian spring the
earth was never
green again, but
only Dostoevsky,
blinding and
harsh and
true as ice and
veiling my
three minds with
its blood-red
rains.
Awake at
last, still I
made sleep my
religion, desiring
only the truth, whether
purest white or
the color
Karamazov.