(OR,    'HOW VANITY F--KS WITH YOUR HEAD')

 ......................................................................................

You're the Queen of the slipstream
With eyes that shine
You have crossed many waters to be here

You have drank of the fountain of innocence
And experienced the long cold wintry years.

VAN MORRISON, "QUEEN OF THE SLIPSTREAM"

.................................................

I had a dream this morning that I was already wearing my new teeth.

(For anyone not following the ongoing saga of my mouth, I am getting 21 teeth extracted tomorrow & receiving ‘’immediate’’ dentures, which means they put them in over my raw gums immediately after surgery. By the way, I have chosen to remain conscious for the whole procedure.)

In the dream, I had perfect teeth and a fine kind face. In fact, I was a doctor of some sort. A nurse called me into a room full of young children, whose eyes I met with no fear that they would make fun of me for any reason. Unlike the kids I had encountered growing up, who often teased me about the burn scars on my chin, received in an unfortunate accident at age two when I somehow fell on a steam radiator.Ouch!

Also in the dream, I didn’t seem to be a convicted felon---for impairing the morals of children---by showing a couple of little boys a copy of the Blake scholar Northrop Frye’s Fearful Symmetry, in which the painting “Glad Day” by W.B. displayed a tiny penis to their tender eyes. What an absurd chapter in my ridiculous lifestory that was...

I was, like, a real person.  Trusted around children. Comfortable with them. Telling them something important, I cannot remember what. Their eyes, fluid and alive and in communion with mine, is all I can recall.  Was I teaching them something? They were listening raptly, laughing, waiting for me to provide them with something…

……………………………………………………………………

I looked at my new teeth this morning. For the first time since I brought  them home last Friday. They are in a small paper bag on top of my bookcase. The teeth themselves are floating in a sterile water solution in a plastic bag, upper and lower dentures.

I looked at these movie star teeth, so white and perfect, knowing that soon they would be in me, they would be me.  I was transfixed for a brief moment.  A feeling of great joy shyly crested in my heart.  I put the teeth back in the bag and had one of  those full body shudder kind of sighs, like you once had when your mom has just told you everything is going to be ok, not a thing in the world to worry about.

I went out to the local shelter to get some bread for sandwiches, walking with Dylan wailing in my ear & Van Morrison acting as corrective, in avuncular ---even brotherly---mellow mystical counterpoint.

Tell you everything I know

Baby everything is true

I felt oddly disconnected from my damn mouth, as if my head were floating above the ruin of my teeth. Up here, things were different.

I was unconcerned with my appearance. All that self-conscious worry, approaching narcissism, seemed like ridiculous vanity. I was seeing people, other people, clearly. They didn’t give a damn at all about the condition of my teeth, of that I was sure. They were floating by in self-contained private universes which inadvertently gave indications of individual situations, by dress & demeanor & delivery of their eyes to other souls to see a snippet of their souls.

Strangely enough, or maybe not, who knows, October 5th is my father's death date. He died 10/5/05. He would have been 89 if he was not defunct.  

He was a teacher.  

Suddenly the ridiculous spectacle of my persona, absurdly paranoically vain about my damn mouth, made me want to smile .  Not ..quite…yet.

 Will the blush still remain
On your cheeks my love
Is the light always seen
In your head?

Gold and sliver they placed
At your feet, my dear
But I know you chose me.
Instead

 You have crossed many waters to be here
And you drink at the Fountain of innocence
And ‘’Experience’’, you know very well.