Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming poet and writer Lou Ventura of New York with “DMV Reunion,” a whimsical poem with serious undertones, recounting a nightmare about waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles. There is a vague menace in the air, as if there is more at stake here than the right to drive a car. There are hints of a police state in operation, something nefarious. The dreamer is unnerved to see his deceased mother waiting to get her license and “confront her accusers” and wonders what he will say when she recognizes him. He speaks with pride of her strength and acknowledges the collective issue of a threat from the authorities in the shape of a technical malfunction. “I’m in the next line, trying to register my/ truck bed full of indifference,// but the search light used to administer/ eye exams has malfunctioned,// leaving blinded patrons groping along the walls,/ searching for a way out.” As is the case in many dreams, the situation doesn’t completely make sense, but it’s quite colorful and deeply earnest thanks to Lou’s intriguing imagery and subtle humor.
Parents in dreams are often associated with authority gleaned from our upbringing and heritage, while police and government are often associated authority maintaining our place in society. Dreams like this are stressful–that stress may come from daily life or it may come from a lack of alignment between the world we inherited from our parents and the world we participate in as members of society. Lou doesn’t drown us in interpretation but lets us draw our conclusions. His subconscious finds release by exiting this nightmarish, madcap dream for a vision that reverts back to nature and then to a place where there is no death and no conflict. Perhaps the subconscious is reminding us of a level of existence below our conscious strivings, or perhaps it is simply tired of thinking about it. Whatever the case, the poem is both jarring and entertaining.
Read “DMV Reunion” in Synkroniciti’s “Dreams” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Lou Ventura is a retired English teacher living in Olean, NY with his wife and her cat. When not writing, reading, or running, he is enthusiastically avoiding all practical tasks that demand his attention. His poetry and prose have appeared in several publications including The Ekphrastic Review, The Worcester Review, English Journal, and The Calendula Review: A Journal of Narrative Medicine. His poetry collection, Bones So Close to Telling, is published by Foothills Publishing.