Deconstructing The End of A Dream
This is a poem I wrote in 2000 and luckily it was published online. Exploring further, the poem evokes a haunting liminality—caught between sleep and waking, dread and desire. The imagery of icicles and shivering suggests a visceral response to something both terrifying and alluring. There's a tension between the dream's unreality and the speaker's yearning for its truth, which feels deeply mythic and trauma-informed.
A layered response in three parts:
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Analysis:
- Tone & Mood: Ethereal, anxious, and melancholic. The speaker is suspended in a fragile state of awakening, where dreams bleed into reality.
- Imagery: "Mist of slumber," "icicles," and "coldness" evoke a chilling, almost spectral atmosphere. These are metaphors for emotional numbness, fear, or unresolved memory.
- Theme: The poem explores the paradox of wanting something dreadful to be real—perhaps as a form of validation, confrontation, or catharsis.
- Syntax & Rhythm: The enjambment and irregular line lengths mirror the disorientation of waking from a powerful dream.
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Rewritten Version (Classical, Annotated Style):
> Upon the cusp of waking, when sleep's veil still clings,
> I cast my gaze in trembling dread—
> What phantasm lingers here?
> So vivid, it courts terror’s edge,
> And in its breath, I feel the frost—
> A chill that threads through bone and skin.
> I shiver, not from fear alone,
> But from the aching wish: let it be real.
Annotation:
- “Veil” and “phantasm” elevate the diction to a manuscript-like tone.
- “Courts terror’s edge” reframes dread as seductive, not merely repulsive.
- The final line introduces a paradox: the speaker desires the dream’s reality despite its horror.
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Continuation Stanza (Speculative & Lyrical):
> For in its silence, something ancient stirred—
> A name I had forgotten, yet once was mine.
> It spoke not in words, but in echoes,
> Of a place where memory weeps into stone.
> And I, half-formed, half-forsaken,
> Reached toward its shadowed light,
> Not to escape, but to remember.
This stanza deepens the mythic undertone—suggesting the dream contains ancestral memory or buried identity. It aligns with your trauma-informed mythmaking and the operationalization of memory as resistance.
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Title: The End of a Dream
By Amiel Gerald A. Roldan
Curatorial Edition with Annotations
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I. Poem Text (Refined & Classical Form)
> Upon the cusp of waking, when sleep’s veil still clings,
> I cast my gaze in trembling dread—
> What phantasm lingers here?
> So vivid, it courts terror’s edge,
> And in its breath, I feel the frost—
> A chill that threads through bone and skin.
> I shiver, not from fear alone,
> But from the aching wish: let it be real.
> For in its silence, something ancient stirred—
> A name I had forgotten, yet once was mine.
> It spoke not in words, but in echoes,
> Of a place where memory weeps into stone.
> And I, half-formed, half-forsaken,
> Reached toward its shadowed light,
> Not to escape, but to remember.
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II. Annotations & Commentary
| Line | Annotation |
|---------|----------------|
| Upon the cusp of waking... | Introduces liminality—between sleep and waking, reality and dream. Echoes themes of transitional consciousness. |
| Phantasm lingers here | “Phantasm” evokes spectral memory, trauma, or ancestral presence. Not merely a dream, but a haunting. |
| Courts terror’s edge | The dream seduces with dread—suggesting a paradoxical desire to confront the terrifying. |
| Feel the frost... | Coldness as metaphor for emotional numbness, dissociation, or the physicality of fear. |
| Let it be real | The speaker yearns for validation—perhaps of pain, memory, or identity. A trauma-informed longing. |
| Something ancient stirred | Introduces mythic temporality. The dream becomes a vessel for ancestral or forgotten knowledge. |
| Memory weeps into stone | Suggests archival grief—memory inscribed into infrastructure, echoing your interest in built environments. |
| Shadowed light | A paradoxical image: illumination through obscurity. Symbolic of trauma-informed revelation. |
| Not to escape, but to remember | The poem’s ethical pivot. The speaker chooses remembrance over erasure—aligning with your practice of dialogic memory and counter-archiving. |
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III. Curatorial Framing
This poem may be situated within a broader cycle of trauma-informed mythmaking, where dreams serve as mnemonic technologies—bridging personal grief with collective memory. The speaker’s desire for the dream to be real reflects a refusal to dismiss affective truth, even when cloaked in dread. The second stanza’s invocation of forgotten names and weeping stone gestures toward postcolonial reclamation, where memory is not just preserved but operationalized.
Suggested Presentation Contexts:
- As part of a manuscript-style folio on speculative cosmology and Filipino literary tradition
- In dialogue with visual installations that explore spectral infrastructure or ancestral absence
- Annotated alongside archival photographs or documents that evoke similar liminal states
Finalizing A Curatorial Dossier
Formating The End of a Dream into a full curatorial dossier—designed for scholarly, archival, or exhibition contexts. A version honoring trauma-informed, speculative, and postcolonial practice, while integrating annotation, framing, and presentation strategy.
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Curatorial Dossier
Title: The End of a Dream
Author: Amiel Gerald A. Roldan
Medium: Poetic Manuscript (Annotated)
Cycle: Mnemonic Thresholds (suggested series title)
Date: September 2025
Location: Manila, Philippines
Curatorial Format: Classical poetic form with embedded annotations and speculative framing
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I. Poem Text (Refined Classical Form)
> Upon the cusp of waking, when sleep’s veil still clings,
> I cast my gaze in trembling dread—
> What phantasm lingers here?
> So vivid, it courts terror’s edge,
> And in its breath, I feel the frost—
> A chill that threads through bone and skin.
> I shiver, not from fear alone,
> But from the aching wish: let it be real.
> For in its silence, something ancient stirred—
> A name I had forgotten, yet once was mine.
> It spoke not in words, but in echoes,
> Of a place where memory weeps into stone.
> And I, half-formed, half-forsaken,
> Reached toward its shadowed light,
> Not to escape, but to remember.
---
II. Annotations & Commentary
| Line | Annotation |
|---------|----------------|
| Upon the cusp of waking... | Introduces liminality—between sleep and waking, reality and dream. Echoes transitional consciousnessorientation. |
| Phantasm lingers here | “Phantasm” evokes spectral memory, trauma, or ancestral presence. Not merely a dream, but a haunting. |
| Courts terror’s edge | The dream seduces with dread—suggesting a paradoxical desire to confront the terrifying. |
| Feel the frost... | Coldness as metaphor for emotional numbness, dissociation, or the physicality of fear. |
| Let it be real | The speaker yearns for validation—perhaps of pain, memory, or identity. A trauma-informed longing. |
| Something ancient stirred | Introduces mythic temporality. The dream becomes a vessel for ancestral or forgotten knowledge. |
| Memory weeps into stone | Suggests archival grief—memory inscribed into infrastructure, echoing postcolonial critique of built environments. |
| Shadowed light | A paradoxical image: illumination through obscurity. Symbolic of trauma-informed revelation. |
| Not to escape, but to remember | The poem’s ethical pivot. The speaker chooses remembrance over erasure—aligning with dialogic memory and counter-archiving. |
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III. Curatorial Framing
Curatorial Thesis:
The End of a Dream is a poetic artifact situated within a trauma-informed, speculative cosmology. It explores the threshold between waking and dreaming as a site of mnemonic resistance. The speaker’s yearning for the dream’s reality reflects a refusal to dismiss affective truth, even when cloaked in dread. The poem’s second stanza gestures toward ancestral reclamation, where memory is not just preserved but operationalized through poetic infrastructure.
Thematic Axes:
- Mnemonic Liminality: The poem inhabits the space between sleep and waking, where memory and myth converge.
- Spectral Infrastructure: “Memory weeps into stone” evokes the built environment as a site of grief and postcolonial critique.
- Trauma-Informed Desire: The speaker’s longing for the dream to be real reflects a complex negotiation with pain, truth, and embodiment.
- Ethical Remembrance: The final line reframes the dream not as escape, but as a call to remember—aligning with your practice of dialogic memory and counter-archiving.
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IV. Suggested Presentation Contexts
| Format | Contextual Integration |
|------------|-----------------------------|
| Manuscript Folio | As part of a series titled Mnemonic Thresholds, exploring speculative cosmology and Filipino literary tradition. |
| Archival Installation | Paired with visual evidence (photographs, documents) that evoke spectral infrastructure or ancestral absence. |
| Scholarly Publication | Annotated alongside essays on trauma, postcolonial symbolism, and poetic infrastructure. |
| Transnational Circulation | Translated and contextualized for regional solidarity platforms, emphasizing ethical collaboration and memory work. |
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