You don't have to go home in a straight line

[sovay]

My poem "Atque in Perpetuum" has been accepted by Not One of Us. It's not based on the dream I had a year ago about Catullus' brother, but it is addressed to him. It's another ghost poem. At a very bad point on Thursday, I almost posted, "I need to learn how to stop being a dybbuk." I'm wondering if this is how I'm doing it.

It is clear fall outside, cloudless. I fell asleep sometime after sunrise, having watched half a dozen episodes of Gravity Falls (2012) with derspatchel and talked until the light came in with leaf-shadows through the windows. I woke up with a cat on my feet. The last few days have been very good.

L'shanah tovah, all.

Comments

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

What is a dybbuk?

(Well, I googled it, but I think your definition will be more interesting.)

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

This popped unbidden into my head when I read your comment, and it is totally unqualified and unasked for, but -

A dybbuk sits between memory and the dead and puts its fingers on the living.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

As one who dreams/writes about the dead and ghosts very often herself, this makes a lot of sense.

[sovay]

A dybbuk sits between memory and the dead and puts its fingers on the living.

All right, next poem's yours.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Deal.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

A dybbuk sits between memory and the dead and puts its fingers on the living.

Very well said.

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

A dybbuk is a restless soul tormented in the afterlife and unable to escape unless it finds a living soul and clings to it (=dybbuk from Heb. lidvok, to cling or stick) in hopes of being redeemed in this world so it can ascend to heaven.

Stories, of course, vary. Queer people often become dybbukim.

[sovay]

(Well, I googled it, but I think your definition will be more interesting.)

I'd have answered if my comments notification hadn't been completely borked!

Read this story.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

Link noted; sorry for the lag-time. I'll read it first thing in the morning!