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THE HOUSE OF SLEEP

Elizabeth Bartlett

The House of Sleep was originally published in 1975 by Autograph Editions in Colima, Mexico, and is now out-of-print. The author's literary executor, Steven James Bartlett, has decided to make the book available as an open access publication, freely available to readers through Project Gutenberg under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivs license, which allows anyone to distribute this work without changes to its content, provided that both the author and the original URL from which this work was obtained are mentioned, that the contents of this work are not used for commercial purposes or profit, and that this work will not be used without the copyright holder's written permission in derivative works (i.e., you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work without such permission). The full legal statement of this license may be found at:

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To Paul

When you gave me a painting of hammocks,
I knew:

The dreamer tells the truth, the self awake
does not.

For years I raged against the images
you drew.

How they stared, gloomy shrouds, whenever I
forgot.

To rest, be still—I swore that was a way
of death.

Yet find more lives in sleep than I have years
ahead.

THE HOUSE OF SLEEP

Elizabeth Bartlett

AUTOGRAPH EDITIONS

Colima, Mexico

1975

First Edition

Acknowledgement: some of these poems have appeared in
The Virginia Quarterly

BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

Poems of Yes and No
Behold This Dreamer
Poetry Concerto
It Takes Practice Not to Die
Threads
Selected Poems
Twelve-Tone Poems

THE HOUSE OF SLEEP

It is a house with many doors,
no two alike.

I am at home in all its rooms
of time and place.

My changing person, gender, speech
hold no surprise.

I know who I am in my sleep,
behind my face.

If you ask which of them is false
and which is true

Enter the house with me and call,
I'll answer you.

Here inside the darkness,
the eye of light opens

As mind travels inward
to a fourth dimension.

There is no perspective
of other or outside.

Both obverse and reverse
are simultaneous

While past and present form
a folding wave that flows

Now backward, then forward
in one eternal dream.

I found it as a child,
a house that was all mine

Where I could think and be
whatever I believed.

Half of me stayed outside
on guard, aware of spies

The inner self went free
to wonder as it pleased.

Leaving the day behind,
I came upon the night

And there I dreamed of things
past all imagining.

Memory is no stranger
in the house of sleep.

It comes as a visitor
for a reunion.

If a private occasion,
with the family

Or else with those forgotten
who have long been gone.

The waiting house is ready
for us to gather.

Together or separately
our memories meet.

Waking in the night,
I have wondered where I am

Knowing I have been away
and not yet returned.

I lie still and wait
between absence and presence

Conscious of being witness
to my sleep and wake.

Here's body, inert,
prepared to revert to clay.

O wanderer with my lamp,
how dim grows the light.

Flying effortlessly
I escape gravity

And seaborne, breathe through gills
to swim past coral isles

Where I emerge on shores
that climb up ancient roads.

Always, my origins
enact some past within

Recalling elements
of former existence.

Save two, that I renounce:
bloodrust fire, fleshtorn ground.

Here I need no clock
to tell me what time it is.

The day, season, year
conform to no calendar.

No compass or map
points my route or direction.

Sensation is all:
the shape and sound of feeling.

I learn what I think
by choice of symbols, meanings.

I invent my world
as much as it invents me.

A baton like a pendulum
swings back and forth.

Across the universe it moves
in perfect time

Leading an orchestra of stars
through measured space.

A score arranged with such grandeur,
I merely hear

Its echoes through the walls of sleep—
how faint, how far

While my heart beats to the rhythm
of earth's passage.

The twelve hours of the night
are paths between the stars.

Whichever one you take
leads to this centered house

If you speak the password
to those who guard the gates.

You must not look at them
or touch them on the way

Lest you be left alone
and hear the triple bark.

For the rest, safe journey
and sweet dreams until dawn.

How the bedtime refrain still echoes
through the house:

"Good night, sweet dreams, see you tomorrow."
Was it wish

Or something more substantial for child
to sleep on

Like a pillow filled throughout the night
with promise?

Which was kept and shall be kept in years
yet to come

When all the yesterdays that made me,
wake at dawn.

In genesis the dream began
and came to life

By dividing the form from void,
the dark from light

And parting the sea from dry land,
mother from child

Gave image its own reflection
by day and night

But kept the sleeping and waking
for seem and like

That the timeless and undying
remain in-sight.

Our dreamscape is a Mil Cumbres
across the years.

Peak after peak they rise like crests
above a sea

In which we plunge, swim, dive and drown
beneath each wave.

Yet breath returns and eyes grow clear
from time to time

As all stands still, becalmed, at rest,
and we can see

There, where we were. Here, where we are.
How far. Which way.

It was a garden of people
at all seasons.

I saw hands at work everywhere,
none of them still.

Some were planting new souls
in the fresh earth.

Others went about the weeding,
pruning, hoeing

Their baskets filled with human plants
of every kind.

While leaves, endless leaves kept falling
all around me.

Among the Joshua trees,
I saw a stone cross

Both claiming world salvation
from brush, sand and thorn

While I stood on a mountain,
waiting for the ark

To save me from destruction,
drowned by floods of sun.

But the fiery waves rose up
forty days and nights

And there was not a sign of
clouds, and no dove came.

A bird stopped me
as I started to walk across.

"You can not enter the circle,
you have no wings."

So I went back
and I looked for them on the earth.

But none of all the winged insects
knew where mine were.

So I went on
and I looked for them in the sea.

And the fish told me of angels
who looked like birds.

With this ring I thee wed,
said the moon, said the earth.

I saw it overhead,
a crystal band of ice

Through which the eye of God
bore witness once again

To living light and love
within the cosmic void.

I heard the vows exchanged
between the cold and dark

Then with my own, warm breath
I wed the night and slept.

Through the mirror and through the fog,
all things reverse.

I see the right side on the left,
the left side, right.

I see the shapes of what has been
behind, transposed.

A camera floats above my head
as dreams submerge.

A shadow moves beyond my feet
in backward stride.

The mirror and the fog are one,
and I, enclosed.

What was the Eskimo
doing in the tropics?

What was the Hottentot
doing in the arctic?

Caught between the two,
I asked what choice was mine?

Having to freeze or burn,
I felt, was too extreme.

Yet heart elected south
and brain elected north

Since a temperate zone
in heaven was no more.

I wanted to lift
the poor and ignorant soul

To feed and clothe it,
to give it eyes and ears.

I led it away
from hunger, cold and terror

Helping it to climb,
to trust my choice of freedom.

But when I let go,
the peak opened with wide jaws

For the slip, the fall—
and I grabbed the soul, and ran.

What shall I be,
I asked of Tarot cards and stars

That I might live
as fits my tastes, beliefs and cares?

First, be a prince,
with pleasures, treasures, all desires.

Then, be a priest,
with holy thoughts of love divine.

Third, a peasant,
with simple needs and natural ways.

Last, as poet,
combine the three—or curse your fate.

It looked like a mountain
with garden terraces

A holiday setting
and dazzling in sunshine

Where one could be at ease
to stroll and meet old friends

Exploring all the paths
unhurried by the years

Feeling the light within
increase with heightened joy

While going up and on
from terrace to terrace.

I went down
into the vaults of time's library

Down through sunless, airless corridors
staffed by ghosts.

Down the winding halls and cobbled stairs
daubed with earth

Past the rows
of book graves in a cemetery

Of old words,
until I came to the last, first one

When I heard a rumble, saw a flash
and woke dumb.

I followed God
until he stopped at a crossroads.

On the one side
was a cliff high above the sea.

On the other,
a dense woods baited with summer.

Future unknown,
I asked which way was I to go?

He pointed left,
where the sun bowed low in the west.

And God, I asked?
To the right, he said and vanished.

It was a long road through a fog
that swirled like clouds

And many were going with me,
behind, ahead

Though no one spoke or stopped, moved past
or turned aside.

But when we reached the edge of time,
I grew afraid

Until one found me there and smiled
and took my hand

Then led me step by step again,
a little child.

First, the night came to me
in the shape of a moth.

With a soft flick like breath,
its wing-tips grazed my head.

Then, from a hollow tree,
a hoot owl mourned its cry

And as I turned to look,
I thought the moon turned, too.

Beyond the road, a skunk.
Within my room, a rose.

So I sat up, I think,
while the night spoke and spoke.

I hear the word incessantly
as a chorus

A word whose voices are composed
of all my years

Like a requiem long rehearsed
in every key

And begun the day of my birth,
inside of me

A word sung for my soul's repose
while I am here

An earthling, bent on a journey
still amorphous.

How to find the way back
by subway, streetcar, bus...

Can a hill disappear
or the stream in a park?

The morning's scent of rolls,
the sound of skates at dusk

Laundry roofs, coalbin chutes,
wagons, carts, iron stoops...

Like footprints in the snow,
the memories fall and drift.

I walk, I look, I ask,
a shadow in the past.

I ran to say goodbye
to the last railway train

Whose old, musty freight cars
were creaking at the joints.

In it, tons of paper,
unpublished manuscripts

Heading for the graveyard
like passengers turned ghosts.

At the rear, an organ,
installed in the caboose

Began the slow, slow march,
while the wind mourned and blew.

O most blessed and damned of women,
so greatly loved!

I know by my dreams that your own
have never died.

Before there was Egypt or Troy,
you were a slave.

Before Tristram or Abelard,
your face was pale.

While poets made heaven and hell
to prove your charms

Your passion, beauty, grief and joy
slept in my arms.

With all that space to explore,
how could I resist?

Finding my own place out there,
the wonder of it!

A stretched canvas came in view,
linen, framed in gold

With a palette never used,
meant for me alone.

I dipped my brush and painted
the place I loved best

Then forever set my claim:
north, south, east and west.

I had to go on and on,
the search was not done.

Winding corridors,
walls leading from door to door.

Mice, lions, sheep, chickens, frogs,
unassorted odds.

Nothing suited—quite—
despite the resemblances.

I heard voices, laughter, groans,
sounds foreign to mine.

Mirrors, symbols, signs...
twice, I almost found myself.

The room was full of eyes,
whichever way I looked.

Over walls, ceiling, floor,
they darted back and forth

Their eyelash hands and feet
mocking me and my book.

"You can not get away,
I've told you that before."

Daddy longlegs reaching,
still haunting, still speaking.

"A spider ghost, you say?
The harvest comes, daughter."

They tossed the pillow
from one hand to the other.

With roars of laughter,
it zipped, it flew, was caught and thrown.

My seams ripped open,
scattering my heart outside.

Slowly, painfully,
I gathered it together

And lay down to sleep,
clutching my life, my pillow.

Feathers of dead birds,
sterile echoes of lost flights.

A bill collector appeared,
flourishing old bills.

"Your father gone, and mother,
who will pay for these?"

I turned to the telephone,
one disconnected.

I looked inside the mailbox,
full of dead letters.

I searched through files and desk drawers,
all bankbooks cancelled.

Only one thing left to do—
to wake, and escape.

It was a lettuce morning,
crisp in pale sunlight.

By noon it was canary,
cat's eye and corn grain.

As shadows crept through the hills,
the sea turned bilious.

Dusk spilled a goodbye tunnel
down a shifting sky.

Then driftwood, fuming the air
with its smoke and cough.

After night crashed, we picked up
plans for tomorrow.

When will the words be opened
and the book unsealed?

Not till the time of the end
of empires and beasts.

Then will the dream be written
according to men?

Not till the signs and vision
have become as one.

How shall we learn to know them
as true evidence?

Not till all human senses
merge with light again.

They were gone for days,
the hunters and fishermen

Challenging the beasts
who claimed the land and the sea.

The young sang their praise
all through the gloried summer

While the women danced
and gave them welcoming feasts.

How their deeds warmed us
winter nights! how bright the blaze!

Now, we are fearful
and cold. We need more old men.

I turned back
the thick, heavy calendar of years

Laboring,
page by century by page of scroll

To restore
the undiscovered new world once more

Hoping to
reverse the winds and tides, west to east

To exchange
the ships, the crews, the conquests and all.

But gained what
by throwing Columbus overboard?

Shakespeare and Cervantes
died the same day and year.

So too Diogenes
and Great Alexander

Although each said farewell
in places far apart.

What extinguished both flames
at one instant of time?

A whirlwind in the night
or a merciful rain?

May a storm at my death
help me find my partner.

All of us who saw it from the ground
testified

It was the tortoise that fell and killed
Aeschylus.

So Christ, Socrates, Galileo
were killed, too.

We, the groundlings who witnessed their deaths,
swear to you

It was the tortoise each time. It fell
from the air.

Some say eagles, by letting them fall.
But who knows?

I watched his clay flesh
take its changing form from thought

And fling the fiction
of his birth-by-chance to scorn.

Science, he would say,
is another way of life...

Without a flutter
or doubt to betray his eyes.

Such utter belief,
I found it hard to resist

Suspending my own—
he holds his world with such ease.

Then she who had been my wise teacher
in the past

Came and stood at the foot of my bed,
calling, "Child...

I have come to say goodbye to you
at long last

For I join The Great Intelligence
this same night

There, where the substance of all shadows
is pure light..."

Which vanished, as I wept in the dark,
blind and wild.

Not too much light left,
I collect the candle's tears.

Prodigal before
of the sun and its seasons

Now I search the night
for glowworms or gleams of snow.

Asleep open-eyed,
I turn my wax world slowly

Around a lifetime
of continents and oceans

Till the last star shrinks,
then shudders, and then goes out.

I saw it emptied
room by room and piece by piece

Until the house stood vacant
of all but its bones.

No paintings, no books,
no flowers, fruits or music.

A silence anonymous
as space void of time.

"Wait," my body cried,
"do not board up the windows!

"The owner left a message:
she's coming home soon."