Alison J. Barton


Freud’s mystical union

Like psychoanalyst in chief
commanding in your dominion

Clothed with academy theory
puissant gowns

The game
of who is who

Who do I think you are?
Who do I think I am?

Are you aware,
you might ask

I imagined you were Freud
then weren’t

I see history in dreams too potent to tell
and wake to nothing

His mystical union inside us
and between

It’s to do with love
this feeling

You say it’s legitimate
I’m finding ways out

Or is it more to do with the loneliness
I haven’t told you about yet?

A personage of you in relation to me
there are reasons I thought it was real



I count time in dreams of houses

I count time in dreams of houses.
I gauge distance from an imaginary mountain of mud.
I number visits to elaborate hotels.
I hike through stories of the self.
I measure stares in errands and movement.
I carry heavy steps in my hands burdened by what’s behind eyes.
I feel anxiety rise in table cloths and solid wooden legs.
I leave landmarks across the year I left your couch.
I tally days between resentment and return.
I wind a clock against glass bulb eyes.




Alison J. Barton is a Melbourne-based poet, book reviewer and non-fiction writer. She attended writing school in the 2000s but her best expression came from introspection and learning its relation to the external world. Themes of feminism and psychoanalysis are central to her writing. Her work has appeared or is to appear in Underground Writers, Parity, Perspektif Magazine, Rhythms Magazine and Yarra Libraries Receipt Poetry. She also works as a Social Worker.
 
 
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