Salvador, I dreamed. 

I dreamed your body 
lies in state in Figueres, 
there in your own museum. 

I dreamed they propped you 
behind the wheel of your Cadillac, 
and children with coins 
laughed as rain 
ran down your face. 

I dreamed you were torn 
between art and wife, 
so they moved the Cadillac 
in front of a nude you painted, 
the one where your wife 
dissolves at a distance, 
lost in Lincoln’s face. 

I dreamed your eyes 
opened, and you and Lincoln 
stared through the rain, 
intent on the journey. 

Poet’s Note:

The night I heard that Salvador Dali had died, I woke up during the late news, in the middle of their obituary piece. As I listened, half-asleep, they talked about his most famous pieces. They said he was going to be buried in his museum in Figueres, Spain. The next morning, I thought that Dali and some of his favorite pieces were to be buried inside one of his constructions. When I later learned the truth, I decided that that’s the way he should have been buried, the way he would have wanted to be buried, had he thought of it: to reach beyond the grave to make of his death one last construction.

—An earlier version of the poem above was first published in Arrowsmith, and later was included within Rosin’s essay/sermon “Eye of the Dark,” along with the text quoted under Poet’s Note above. The essay was published in Fire and Shadows: Poetry & Prose by Gary S. Rosin in The Legal Studies Forum (Volume XXXII, No 2, 2008). Both poem and quoted text above appear here with the poet’s permission.

Gary S. Rosin’s

poetry and haiga have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various literary and poetry magazines such as Concho River Review, Eastern Structures, Failed Haiku, Harbinger Asylum, KYSO Flash, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Poetry24, The Legal Studies Forum, The Lift, The Wild Word, and Visions International; as well as in several anthologies, including contemporary haibun (Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022), Faery Footprints (Fae Corp Publishing), Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga (Dos Gatos Press), Texas Poetry Calendar (Kallisto Gaia Press), Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston (Mutabilis Press), and elsewhere.

His poem “Viewing the Dead” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Two of his poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008) (offprint).

Selections of Gary’s poetry and photography can be found at his website, 4P Creations: http://4pcreations.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Out of the Haze, collaborative haiga with photograph by George Digalakis and poem by Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 8, June 2021); nominated for, and selected for publication in, Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022)

⚡ Featured Poet: Gary S. Rosin in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 7, March 2021)

⚡ Crossing Kansas in The Wild Word (7 February 2020); includes audio of Rosin reading his poem

⚡ Two Readings: “Apparition” and “Black Dogs” by Gary S. Rosin for Texas Poetry Calendar 2015 at the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas (20 September 2014); see also Black Dogs here in MacQ (Issue 12, March 2022).