Our dreams are some of the most intriguing concepts in life. Oprah says it is "a unique calling" for each and every one of us, as in an ambition. John Updike says that dreams are there to "incite us to have them". Another figure was quoted, "dreams are windows to the soul" - just as our eyes. Dreams are a gift and humans are privileged to have this kind of capacity - the power to create images in our sleep. Our dreams are actually a blurry and mysterious reflection of our inner and deeper aspirations in life - our dream home, what type of life we aspire for, even the partner we've been longing for.
For Red, his contemplations about this ideal person or partner is dream-like. He wrote an eighth installment of in somnis veritas to express his strong feelings about the person who would complement not what is lacking or missing in the persona, but what is already there - the negative (or perceived to be not-so-tolerable qualities like "the flail", "the catatonic", "the rigid", "clandestine", or "lecherous") and the positive (or accepted traits like being empathic, lucid, and gracious).There's welcoming and hope.
In the last part of the poem, the author intensifies the drama and contrast by using paradoxes. The conjoined contradictions create more expression to the point of exaggeration. Then the tone eases and relaxes, with a soft finishing touch.
Braid a barren bestiality with your behemoth brand,
The use of the oxymoron "barren bestiality" heightens the contrast that was established in the poem. This line becomes surreal, and even more exaggerated with the use of "behemoth brand". If anything, it's a euphemism for something I personally like, if not referring to the admiree's famous name. Why would the persona unite his barren bestiality with the admiree's behemoth brand? Oh, as it is being written, it just occured to me it's a euphemism for sex - which I think is clever. *Grin*
Dancing deranged until dawn’s despotism.
The despotism of dawn is another strong paradox. We usually see dawn as a gentle beginning, not as a tyrant or a violent end. But if the sex is really that good, and you've not done it for some time, you wouldn't want that session to end, would you? And by morning, you don't have a choice but to end it, unsure if it's gonna happen again, much less if the repeat is as naughty or pleasing - if not more lecherous and intense - than the last.
Meander your mischief manhood morose,
If anything, I'd like to consider it as euphimism for something that gets relaxed when it has been tense for a long time.
Pleat this prolonged perturbance with pristine peace.
The persona likes tranquility to finish off the tension. It's also a signal for a grooving-down, after an intense grinding till dawn.
Sealing my serenity in solemn sensuality.
The last line caps it off. The peace and tranquility that he desires is coupled with sensuality. It's much like an afterplay. The soft /s/ and /l/ sounds of the words suggest a gentle caress after the consummation.
The whole poem is like a dream sequence: the persona finds the ideal lover, wants to be with that person despite negativities, they make immense love with each other, and ends in solemn sensuality.
Quoting Vince D'Angelo, Bobby Cannavale's character in the sitcom "Will & Grace", "I'm like an onion, I have layers." The same applies to in somnis veritas VIII. The poem doesn't make use of dramatic words to give the reader the message that his ideal guy is all a dream - and that the love-making and the ideal relationship remains like that - ideal. The poem uses techniques to create drama, tension, and contrast successfully, bringing its readers to a level they've never gone before. The reader has to peel out its skin, and then has to dissect those layers of fleshy thoughts to get to the core of the poem. And in doing so, the reader appreciates the work of the author.
