The Sunday Poem: “Scene Poems in Ingrid Laubrock’s Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt,” by Sean Howard

July 26th, 2025

The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work.

Sean Howard reads his poem at its beginning

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Listen to Sean Howard introduce his poem before his reading of it

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Scene Poems

in Ingrid Laubrock’s Dreamt Twice, Twice Dreamt;
Music for Chamber Orchestra and Small Ensemble, Intakt Records, 2020

“…in that more-than-logic only accessible in the deep reason of dreams…”
Richard Powers, Playground

the pencil clouds
the page (to follow the
shadow’s glissando graffiti):
thronged streets – before the
lockdown? – so many un-
befriended dreams… all
these years, scared to
open silence’s note-
book
?
i

now think
improv is being
paired with the dead,
with these smoke rings
i thee… the pitchblack
map (scales glitter) –
the wind through
the wood, a
solo?
i

dreamt figures freed
me from vehicles, but
quite unacceptable, their
gift of the self-tearing veil!
fields in the piano’s spare
time: o my, whose
practiced hands
young a-
gain
?
i

lost my
selves on the 12-
tone mountain (the
conductor is conduct-
ing the baton section
with a flute!), shall
we renew chaos’
challenge to
data
?
i

am tired of history’s
choice remains: covid’s
critical puncture, slow hands
unmasking us, but how face
the remote mirrors? Lock-
down – between dreams
this accordion from
brooklyn to
cologne,
we were
already
keyed
for
this
?
i

small the
world quick-
ly, jazz is simply
not collaborating
with authority! si-
lence’s grave tenor,
hush as towers
collapse the
horiz-
on,
i

sift
through
the rubble in
store, pandem-
onium of strong-
men, suits barking
at damocles to end
the suspense: with
damage untelling us,
no time to get ‘real’
again, so unmaster
listening, hear
the sirens
sing
!

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.
Sean Howard is the author of seven collections of poetry in Canada, most recently Overlays: Scored Poems (Gaspereau Press, 2025). His poetry has been widely published in Canada, the US, UK, and elsewhere, and featured in The Best of the Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope Books, 2017).

Listen to the 2020 recording of Ingrid Laubrock performing her composition “Down the Mountain, Down the Mountain,” with the EOS Orchestra [Intakt Records]