Audre Lorde - Never to Dream of Spiders

Time collapses between the lips of strangers   
my days collapse into a hollow tube
soon implodes against now
like an iron wall
my eyes are blocked with rubble
a smear of perspectives
blurring each horizon
in the breathless precision of silence
one word is made.

Once the renegade flesh was gone   
fall air lay against my face
sharp and blue as a needle
but the rain fell through October   
and death lay    a condemnation   
within my blood.

The smell of your neck in August   
a fine gold wire bejeweling war   
all the rest lies
illusive as a farmhouse
on the other side of a valley
vanishing in the afternoon.

Day three    day four    day ten   
the seventh step
a veiled door leading to my golden anniversary   
flameproofed free-paper shredded   
in the teeth of a pillaging dog   
never to dream of spiders   
and when they turned the hoses upon me
a burst of light.

Audre Lorde was the poet laureate of New York State from 1991 until her death in late 1992. Her poetry is celebrated for its frankness in addressing social inequities and abuses. You should absolutely give her catalog a read.

I really love this piece. It so beautifully captures the chaos of addiction. I’ve never seen it tied to the theme, but I can’t help but read this and see it as a look through the eyes of someone who knows what it is like to have a problem with alcohol.

Though free verse, Lorde divided up the piece in a way that provides a sense of symmetry. The two central stanzas, two sestets, are so wordy in the best way. “Sharp and blue as a needle / but the rain fell through October” No manner of pronounciation will take the heaviness out of that p and b being back to back. Or the way the short a, long u and long e each compete for your attention in the line. Then, the following line barrels towards the beast of syllables that is October. That month wants to be three stressed syllables, and it is almost as if Lorde pulls of the impossible and satisfies its wishes.

A similiar beautiful play of syllables in the third stanza makes you realize Lorde is playing with language. She’s rolling it around in her mouth and as a result so are we. “A fine gold wire bejeweling war” becomes such a slush of sound that you have to repeat it a couple of times to separate the words and find its meaning.

Finally, in first line of the last stanza, she lists but separates the days, showing how they flow into each other while also standing alone. This is a reflection of life. We can sort of tell the days apart in retrospect, but they also seem to blend.

Now for the meaning. “Time collapses between the lips of strangers” is pretty straight forward, but when taken in conjunction with the overall idea of substance use it turns a negative connotation to the collapse. This is a tryst between strangers, and one that steals some life from us. The speaker’s days are lost in a straw, until their perspective is blurred and they are left breathless from their latest alcohol induced fling. It’s only after that random lover (the “renegade flesh”) leaves that the cold air and rain of October, like a splash of cold water, leads the speaker to feel the "condemnantion” for their act.

We jump back to August in the next stanza. The “you” is not the stranger. It is someone the speaker knows. And feels passion for, as the smell of their next is a “fine fold wire bejeweling war.” The passion is the only redeeming quality. Maybe on their searching to replace in the arms of strangers.

The seventh step in the AA program is humbling ourselves. This is usually asking a higher power for help to remove our defects, but it can simple be confronting everything that we do wrong but we normally don’t acknowledge. Really looking in the mirror with the goal of working on our flaws. The speaker says that this is the door through which they will reach their golden anniversary — a time of long abstinence from their addiction. In this last stanza, the speaker has cleaned up and can have a free mind to reflect on themselves and their feelings. Their eyes are no longer blocked by rubble.

Now they see the pillaging dog, society, shredding the pages that were flameproof for their protection. Never to dream of spiders - the title and the seemingly random line - brings to mind the idea of interpreting dreams. Dreaming of spiders is associated with dreaming of women and femininity. Lorde, a lifelong LGBTQ activist, gives us this line before hitting us with an image that would have called to mind the 1963 civil rights march in Birmingham where firefighters sprayed protestors - including young children- with high powered hoses. The speaker of the poem is similarly hit with a hose to stop their realization but the result is the opposite. It is a burst of light. A clarity that they lacked during their earlier time of self medication. What an outstanding way to end a poem, too.