Between Sleep and Awake
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
THESE POEMS MUST BE FORMATTED ONLINE LIKE THEY ARE IN THE BOOK
Dare to Dream
I miss seeing you
throw your pots up in the air
I miss him so much
I cry so easily
I care so much
I want the chance to be closer
the chance
I want the chance to love you with my arms
around you
my heart inside yours
your body inside mine
I want the chance.
Love Ghost
long sleeves, cool silk shirt over
skimpy bathing suit over
summer flowers over
naked, yearning body
footprints on the ceiling
white dust on black stucco
mysterious man walks upside down
no hand prints in sand
Between Sleep and Awake
Those messy moments
between sleep and awake
messages of seeming madness
where do they come from?
whose voice calls my name?
impenetrable sheet of splintered glass
like a broken windshield
sleep and awake disconnected phantoms
alone, embedded in glass
messages of madness
unintelligible
unlike day time sense
inside safety net of fantasies
unlike night time intense fear
inside jaws of a coyote
two worlds detached
yet connected by fragile glass, melt, turn
into entwined filaments
threads tied tight
no spaces to breathe
where is truth hiding?
underneath lead lies, in dreams hidden
inside sleep, beyond awake
true stories break woven glass façade
into liquid
Inner Landscape in a Plate
Layers moving
transparent glazes
see through
deep water
underneath
hazy surreal purple lines
blood red drops
hint of passion peeks through
meek Blue Ridge Mountains
Loss
in the middle of the night
a frightened part of me
decides not to die
though it feels like I die
like a red and yellow top
that stops spinning
a shiny metal Jack, stuck
in a box, broken spring
dream in water, going down to drown
reach bottom
wake up
feel nowhere
no line to hold
no space to hold me
like death imagined
out of bed
full, hazy moon
inside circle of stars
somewhere
I fall asleep
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Book Details
About the Book
PART 1
Asleep in Fantasy
He was not who I dreamed he was and I was unconscious in my fantasy. Past lives
ignited the fi re of our connection. Without our past history and my family, my inner child would not have created this fantasy. But these past lives and my childhood were real. I needed to be asleep in fantasy, in order to fall in-between sleep and awake—and awaken to reality.
“Wendy Kochenthal’s poems shower us with insight, passion, and the wisdom of the heart. Her imagery is superb and her honesty is courageous as she leads the reader forward, deeper and deeper into self-realization. Wendy’s talent for crafting and painting with words is mirrored in her creative pottery. This collection represents the best of a truly artistic life!”
— Laura Lee Perkins, MS, musician, writer, spiritual intuitive
“Wendy Kochenthal’s intimate and powerful poems take the reader on a lyric journey into the darkness of childhood as experienced through the present lens of a poet and potter. Each image is a unique container of color of the poet’s vivid imagination.
This collection demonstrates the surprise of one art being told through another—one stage of life literally re-visioned through later wisdom. Passion, death and birth—interwoven, create a tapestry to treasure.”
— Katherine Soniat, author of Th e Swing Girl and A Raft, A Boat, A Bridge
“In her latest collection of poems, Between Sleep and Awake, Wendy Kochenthal leads us on a journey through one of life’s most sublime points of transition. She paints a remarkably rich landscape of the inner world of thought, hope, dreams, longing and inspiration; all brilliantly woven into a tapestry of prose, allegory, and playful wordsmithing. This collection is inspiring, provocative and a true joy to read—it is a ‘do not miss’ for all of us who love to dance in the spaces between.”
— Dr. Brad Rachman, author, lecturer, healer
About the Author
Wendy Kochenthal lived in New York City as a child and young adult, fled to the Maine woods and ocean and now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Spirit, intuition and life experience – knowing the depths of grief and the soaring of joy– are the backbone of her poems. She has explored the tools of craft and studied writing with various teaching poets in the U.N.C.Asheville Great Smokies Writing Program. Playing with words, ideas and feelings while creating poems and crafting clay pots are her passions – which clarify her understanding of life.
“I am a potter and a poet – painting my feelings around spinning pots, carving my inner spaces into wet clay, writing my deep truth in poetry and most important, learning how to play”. Wendy self published her first book of poetry, In Love with Words and Clay and a chapbook, Journey Down Under (New Zealand), following her mother’s death.