Prompt 4

[Leaf]

Please write a poem (any length, any style) describing a recent or not-so-recent dream.

This could be interesting, lol.


Kneadin' u

Dream-me
is massaging
the shoulders
of an ex-neighbour
as he leans over the bath
in my parents' bathroom.

It's Bill (we'll call him),
but his flesh is pastry;
I am kneading him.

Pastry-Bill turns and smiles,
then starts taking off his boxers
with the confidence of a man
who knows he's horse-hung.

What emerges
is not what I once knew,
but the green-and-yellow viper
from Snakes & Ladders
and a secondary slow-worm
from behind the shed.

Pastry-Bill and his serpents
are moving towards me,
jaws agape.
I shriek.

[CRNDLSM]

4 dreams

My wife woke up from a dream,
where I cheated with Sarah.
I confessed it to be true
but then she woke from that dream
and I stuttered, 'who's sarah?'
Now she's convinced that it's true
Because she had the same dream
again, that night, waking up from another dream, asking me about sarah.  'whos Sarah??'

[TranquillityBase]

The Reading of the Texts


Summoned by death I read your texts
to find who gave you the fatal dose,
who you messaged in your final hours,
and found myself in the swamp of Hell’s Fifth Circle,
travelling with Phlegyas to read scripture
of a son I did not recognize.

I wanted to save those infernal words.
Though I hated them, they were still the words
of a son now absolutely silent, but I never could
pull the trigger on that bullet to my heart.

When I was a child I dreamed of a pit
filled with filth and victims were tossed in, 
great stones strapped to their heads
so they must struggle up and down 
not to drown in the slime.

Now I have my own private Swamp of Despond
where I am periodically tossed and a rough sandstone
hangs around my neck, your texts engraved in Blakean cursive.

A child’s prophecy should not be dismissed.

[Tiger the Lion]

it's Rumi's Garden
Finally! and finally--
our handsome ushers

[Leaf]

Another weird one from me.


Boing

Dream-me
wakes up in bed

and finds her legs
have been replaced
with large yellow rubbery constructions,
ending in orange duck-feet.

I'm puzzled,
but really rather pleased;
the rubber-legs are heavy
yet very flexible
and I think
I might be able
to boing.

I get out of bed
and boing head first
into a wheelie bin.

Typical,
I sigh.

[Tiger the Lion]

From a couple years ago...


In Your Second Favorite Dream

you pinch yourself
to confirm it's real
and accept the sting
as an objective yea

never noticing the nay
of a dream-hand
that pinches with six fingers

[TranquillityBase]

Dreamtime News*

I.

Nausea of dreamtime:
a shaggy black horse
that I must ride like Dante.
This circle of Hell is a rodeo
and I'm a quaking greenhorn.
But it's too wild to saddle
so I think I'm saved.

My joy is short-lived.
While my wife sleeps
I must babysit another beast,
a black hairy pig, shaggy like the horse,
it slips out of every fence I build
out of canned foods and chairs.

A drifter stops to help me pen it
(just across the road, a dirt road
that borders this dream
lies Mexico.
There the pig must not go.)
The drifters alerts me that the pig has horns.

Sleep sweats out
these words made flesh
to frighten Hell and breakfast 
out of every night.

II.

My wife, our cat and I
prisoners subjected to fiendish breeding experiments
that lack all terror
though we know we inhabit a Hitler camp
but they resemble the push-ups
described in a sex manual
that a preacher gave my brother
just before his marriage.

The cat receives injections.
My wife is worried.

During a quiet walk around a running track
Uncle Adolf assures me
the cat will recieve no more injections.

I say to my wife,
"So, we can escape on Saturday."



*this is a dream poem written circa 1982

[Leaf]

Smashing stuff, guys 


Slippaz

Dream-me
is on the landing
in the family home.

I glance out of the window
and spot
John Lennon
making his way
across the field.

He's wearing a white suit
with no shoes
and his hair
hangs over his face.

He enters the garden
through a hedge
and continues walking
towards the greenhouse.

I really want to meet
John Lennon,
so I rush down the stairs
and try to find my slippers
so I can go outside.

Where are they?
There they are,
under the table
in the lounge.

I'm pleased.
I shout.
SLIPPAZ!
SLIPPAZ!
SLIP-

[Tiger the Lion]

Recurring 

It's my dad.
It's always my dad,

back from the dead
demented as ever
and frothing at the mouth

begging me to baby him
a little while longer.

[Leaf]

Strong stuff, TtL. I ran out of time for poetry today, but I'll try to be back in soon