Dante's First Dream

By Jon Turner

A man awakes in the middle of a vast forest---
He is broken and his flesh is doomed but he is
Only half way through the years of his life,
However twisted the streams however bitter
The dreams he must cling to what little light---
He must write, write, write so here are his
Thoughts this is his record not romance
But the kind of sensations only a person
Who has lived the limits of life on this earth
Can know: just follow along and flip the
Pages as I give you an account
Blow by blow

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503573697

Jon Turner

My name is Jon Thomas Turner and I usually go by Jon or Jon Thomas. So if you meet me you’ll know! I’ve played a fair amount of roles in my life. Honors student, school paper writer/editor, writer for The Greenville News, U.S. Navy enlisted man, student at Atlanta Institute of Music, but at 21 years of age I had a terrible car accident after running off a steep curb going 90-100 mph. I hit a tree sideways and sustained a broken back /severed spinal cord at T11/T12 and a traumatic brain injury. I am paralyzed for life (unless a great medical cure comes along) and my TBI took years to fully heal. I’ve also had severe mental illness since I was 18. I’ve had more help than. You can imagine and though I’ve got d-o-w-n at times I’ve always gotten back up to show not my family, not the world, but myself that I wasn’t done and that I could still live out my dream. What dream is that? You’re looking at it. I’ve wanted to be a published author for the last ten years and now I am fortunate enough to have written “I’m Still Here”, my debut, and now “Dante’s First Dream”, by far my most ambitious collection of poems to date (I have other work published online). In my mid-twenties I wrote two novel length works and many short stories but after turning to poetry at age 27 I haven’t looked back. I thank you very much for your interest in the work that is my passion and I hope you are more than satisfied with it after all is read and done. Love, Jon.

Book preview

1. Exile Of An Innocent

A s if the dungeon were not dark enough look at these clouds an atmosphere beyond mere squalor filthy filigree by the abandoned well to think some continue to draw with their copper pots: believe more or settle for less woe is me? But no. I’ll not surrender to decay and distress–

And she: A heartless so called ‘good man’? The Duke of Greensel a scoundrel, no better than a murderer!?

I tell you surely as you are standing there I had no part of it–I say I was peaceably writing prosaic poems and whether she was sober as judge Ben Dorsey or drunk as a fool How Could I Have Known???

But you left her……

I say I had fished the river all morning and had no idea that she must have waddled like a duck down to the banks and……..I was falsely accused and branded a demon for the Prince’s greed and the King’s……

You’ll say anything to parry the blame John: Anything……..

I declare I am not to blame and if I am lying then your God strike me dead for I have none.

One of the Godless indeed: Alexandra and I discussed how nothing is wrong and everything is suitable to those without God, without guidance from above–you reconcile yourself to whatever deed you have done and expect all peoples to marvel at your greatness: instead I wonder at your meaningless life…..

Then forgive me Catherine! I know Muriel was your sister and that you are still grieving, but all I can tell you is the truth. I am nothing but honest and if you must force violence upon me even to the greatest extent then I know I die in my innocence. So it is, I cannot be any more frank.

The violence will proceed in good time, but first I want to see you suffer for your sins, I pray that you know at least a good measure of the pain you have brought upon me and my family.

Suffer for sins, know pain, and all for something that never occurred? And you muse on why I am not a Christian? Why should I worship a God wicked enough to let the liars rule and the world be governed by a choir of fools? Far be it from me to even entertain such a supernatural deity!

Catherine continued to ream me saying I was the fool who’d sink in hell for all time but what she intended to be the pricks of stitches manifested as only the dullest of aches in my bones and the dread of so many days to come created a marked feeling of sickness in the pit of myself: For the first time I craved to be someone or something else.

2 Exile Of An Innocent

A cool drizzle patting the deciduous leaves trickling down branch by branch as I finish off my meat–my dear friend Charles surly chef of the capital does know how to treat his friend, does believe my pronouncement of innocence without question–personally feeds me from his kitchen a half mile away and if I only had coins to line his pockets: but then he would never ask for them. Tells me his wife and only child play in the sparkling heat of June only to cool off in the lake……..I think of the joyful summers of my childhood but remain silent. What a manner what a man the only soul with a helping hand it’s true old Charles always could faithful as sparks on dry wood. He most thoroughly enjoyed my jangle, true as it was, but had to return to insure that his business was not going up in smoke: very hot ovens and new help he said. So I take the last bite of veal alone then venture out to let one of my few sets of clothes get slowly soaked in the light rain.

Thank God you’re not out here in the winter young man!

Yes Mary: Thank God.

Never one to speak aloud the torment inside, talking to my own ears and writing in this Journal seem to be my greatest, perhaps my only catharsis as