Paw Dream Mazes

Book excerpt: One of the poems in PAW DREAM MAZES, “A Trasher Trashed,” has a kitten that was trashed and is dreaming a nightmare. This part of her dream is directly connected to her reality: The person who often did trash his cats had placed his face next to three thrashing rats, opened his mouth to scrunch his metal-like teeth, and scared the rats that were above and beneath. All the poems in PAW DREAM MAZES have dream/reality connections, animal content, rhymes, rhythms, alliteration, and metaphors. The dreamers include animals, people, and aliens from outer space. A few poems in this book reference COVID-19 experiences. PAW DREAM MAZES has sonnets, two prayer poems, narrative poems with a lot of action, ten pictures, and twenty-four mazes with content from five maze poems: “Mazes in Dreams,” “Dreams of Rescue,” “Cat Grammar,” “A Hungry Mouse in a Dream Maze,” and “Polydactyl Reality and Dreams.” Connections to our history are referenced in several poems: “Two Mayflower Dogs,” “A Banished Dog,” and “President Abraham Lincoln’s Pets.” Three poems have sci-fi content. “Tigurrrs of Space” has multiple alien tigurrrs that all love their own space and kidnap one of Earth’s tigers from a zoo. “Alien Bears in Pairs” has alien bears that interact with campers, police officers, a bear, and a dog. “Pawsing Time and Space” has aliens who visit the minds of dreaming animals and a senator on Earth.