Poem: Dream of a White Coat

I wrote a poem a few years ago. I was struggling a lot then. I think it is about trying to find a common thread through all of my different interests and periods of life.

Freud wrote in The Interpretation of Dreams that dreams are usually overdetermined, "in that they are caused by multiple factors in the life of the dreamer, from the 'residue of the day' (superficial memories of recent life) to deeply repressed traumas and unconscious wishes, these being 'potent thoughts'".

In that same way, I believe that poems are overdetermined. In fact, I think adults with ADHD are particularly sensitive to the fact that even everyday conversations are often overdetermined, which I think can account for some of the distraction we all feel during talks with friends, family & colleagues. We read subtle interpersonal cues that reveal much more about the speaker than words would suppose.

But I digress.

Dream of a White Coat

this dream never really died
it just transmuted into the unrecognized
carried in me like a body on a stretcher
and laid out for visitation
on a foggy Irish night
in a cottage
with whiskey and bread

it wore a white coat when I was young
a paramedic

it wore a white coat when i was in high school
late night studies of chromosomes and lysosomes

it wore a white coat when I became a butcher
and it wore a white coat finding dreams in the library stacks

it wore a cheap suit in an office where it cried
and none would argue it tried to appear
but I don't know where it went
maybe up north on a site by a tent

Thanks for reading,

Mungo

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