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COREY MESLER

I Dream of Acceptance

    
    “The city is a cathedral of possessions; its scent is dreams. Even those who have been 
     rejected by it cannot leave."
                                
--James Salter


Dream tells the story of itself, amen.
Where the water runs clear angelus
and the trees shade the part
of us that needs shade. Where the
woman in the white dress dances
along the lines drawn by
godly architects. Where the music
is Apollo's lute strung with hair.
I dream and dream and wake to find
the dreams still moving around
the room, lighting candles,
writing poems on the walls in seraph
script. I want to leave the room,
eventually, but I know this
I cannot do. I am lost to the dream now,
the one where I am accepted, the
one where finally I am the man I wrote
about to you, back in the blood college.



17   The Paris-American

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Corey Mesler has published in numerous journals and anthologies. He has published five novels, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue (2002), We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2006),
The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores (2010), Following Richard Brautigan (2010), and Gardner Remembers (2011), 2 full length poetry collections, Some Identity Problems (2008) and Before the Great Troubling (2011), and 3 books of short stories, Listen: 29 Short Conversations (2009), Notes toward the Story and Other Stories(2011) and I’ll Give You Something to Cry About (2011). He has also published a dozen chapbooks of both poetry and prose. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times, and two of his poems have been chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. With his wife, he runs Burke’s Book Store in Memphis TN, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.

   
   Next week's poet:

 C. Dale Young
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