23/10/2023
Polina Cosgrave’s first prize winning poem is ever so poignant for today. Available in issue 10, with the 9 other shortlisted poems from Hold Fast to Dreams Poetry Competition.
Rockets are Dreaming of You
Writers are dreaming of poems,
Rockets are dreaming of space.
Chessboards are dreaming of pawns,
I haven’t dreamt for days.
Lovers are dreaming of kisses.
Clowns are dreaming of tears.
Wake me from this, sweet Jesus,
I haven’t dreamt for years.
Soldiers are dreaming of grenades.
Children are dreaming of flight.
I haven’t dreamt for decades.
Wake me and lend me your light,
So I can be like writers,
Rockets, lovers and soldiers.
So I can watch my nightmares
blossoming over my shoulder –
These children were dreaming of grenades.
Those soldiers were dreaming of flight.
The country is cursed for decades,
and no one can sleep at night.
Polina Cosgrave says of her poem:
I’ve written this poem as an attempt to look at collective guilt and how it can corrode the sense of personal responsibility. The state of dreaming has this potential to reveal the trauma we often hide from ourselves. With the help of creating poetry, which can be trance-like in itself, I tried to dive deeper into my own psyche and describe the influence of growing militarisation, and the fear of becoming insensitive to civilian deaths and displacements, perhaps, as a defence mechanism. The title of the poem is somewhat a reference to the infamous Philip K. Dick’s post-apocalyptic tale “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, which also speaks of the loss of humanity.
