Pass/Fail #4

You will never graduate

from this dream

of blue books.

No matter how

you succeed awake,

asleep there is a test

waiting to be failed.

The dream beckons

with two dull pencils,

but you haven't even

taken the course;

when you reach for a book - 

it closes its door 

in your face; when

you conjugate a verb - 

it is in the wrong 

language.

Now the pillow becomes

a blank page. Turn it 

to the cool side;

you will still smother

in all of the feathers

that have to be learned

by heart.

This poem was interesting when I first read it because I thought of the future and how a person generally has dreams they strive to achieve and sometimes those dreams are hard to succeed in. I think the meaning of "never graduating from this dream of blue books" tries to symbolize that we will never stop dreaming or wanting something. That once a dream ends another one begins. It makes it sound like when you're aware of what you're doing, you do it well but when you're dreaming its only a test thats most likely going to fail. Not all dreams come true and this poem seems to want to point that out. I liked the way the author referred to the pillow and the way it's like a blank page, when I thought about that I thought of it as when we go to sleep we always dream something different and that shows that once again you start with a blank page, and the reference to where the pillow is flipped to the cooler side, I assume the author wants us to think about a new beginning or a new dream that someone has. The last part of the poem talks about how although you have all these different dreams you want, it doesn't mean you will be able to get them all. You'll be influenced by all of it but not all of it will effect your heart. This was a poem a read about ten times and every time I had a different thought or interpretation about it. In a way it made me think that's what the author was trying to demonstrate, a person who keeps figuring out new things or ways they see things or want them.