I’ve always been a weeper in the wind – It only takes the slightest breeze To turn-on my capillaries, As drip by drip, I am chagrined, And have to whip my hankie out To stem each overactive spout.
I don’t know why The weather makes me cry, Especially the cold. An eye-jerk sense, Or anti-drought defence That will not be controlled.
I’ve always been too salty in the frost – All the Winter, all those leaks, To run and freeze upon my cheeks. So tear by tear, my poise is lost, Into a sobbing, briny wreck Who cannot keep his ducts in check.
I don’t know why My gaze is never dry, Until my eyeballs rust. They even seep While closed and fast asleep, Then desiccate to dust.
There’s some things I’ve forgotten That I know that I’ve forgotten – That I notice where the hole is, Where the synapses are rotten. Yet there’s other things, I swear, I never knew, were never there – But they clearly weren’t important As they fall into the air.
Sleep now, I’ll wake you If something should happen. Best grab it As it grabs you, And blow your light out. Breathe now Like beach waves, Let deltas come lapping, Enjoy it While you’ve got it, There’s some go without.
Sleep now, I’ll wake you, But not till the morning. Best welcome The dreaming, And dream one for me. Breathe now, Like purring, Until the new dawning. Enjoy it, You’ve earned it, And it all comes for free.
The lurgy has broken my sleeping – Sweated, disrupted, and long. With headaches and backaches from keeping A posture my joints say is wrong. Repeating the same-old distresses Again and again, like a glitch in the stream – A nightmare that never progresses, A scratch in the grooves of a dream. But the night will pass, And with it this slough – It cannot last, I just have to live it for now. What once was a refuge is fevered and seeping, Brought on by this succubus lodged in my chest – The lurgy has broken my sleeping, And left me in need of a rest.
Hush, little robot, close your sensors, Slow your subroutines, Hibernate your processors and trickle-charge your energy, Disconnect your pairings with the other young machines, And let the diagnostics defragment your memory. Dim your lights and underclock, And softly let your ports undock To count the decimals of pi, And I shall sing a cyber-lullaby.
Hush, little robot, and listen to the universe tonight, It is alive with radio. Can you hear the sighing of the hibernating satellite ?, Or the whisper of the galaxy as round and round we go ? So dream in noughts and dream in ones, Beneath a thousand other suns, And turn your logic into trust – While I shall keep you safe and free from rust.
detail from Sleeping Girl by an unknown 1600s artist working in Rome
Undreamt
I’ve heard there’s folk who sleep but never dream – That seems like a waste of a night, When I think how my mind is a-gleam with delight. But point of fact, they do alright, Just shutting down for hours on end Affording them the time to mend, While not distracted by the random streams That dreamers love to wend.
I know a girl who never dreams a wink, She simply goes to sleep. Her nights, she says, are always dark and quiet, Hosting not a peep. She’s heard, of course, about our world of maybe And of brooding guilt, But has never spent a single night within The fantasies we’ve built.
I’ve heard there’s folk who sleep but never dream, They wake like a minute has passed A third of their life never seen, so sad, But they can’t well miss what they never had. Some say they do dream, but never recall But how would they know they’re forgetting it all ? Perhaps an echo remains inbetween, A shadow of last night’s evenfall ?
I know a girl who feels no loss, She’s done just fine with what she has, With her endless deep and silent nights Without the freeform jazz. What matters, she says, is not what happens In our nightly world of fake, But rather what we do and who we are While we’re awake.
Lis’ning to psychelic music, Joss stick sending up a stream, Lava shadows on the ceiling, Red wine drifting off to dream. Don’t need drugs to taste the acid, Just an over-yellow mind- It’s gonna be one of those fitful nights When the gears of my conscious grind.
Too much psychedelia, It’s not from the drugs, this trance, though – I swear, just wine, and a lack of coffee, So why do the colours dance so ?
I guess that I must be dreaming ? I really hope that I’m dreaming… Cos if this is really psychotrope Then I’m trapped inside a kaleidoscope.
I guess there are folks who deal with this ev’ry day – Does it make me a bad person to say That I never wanted to end up that way ? Like this way. Like slipping down the slope.
Lis’ning to psychelic noodling, Playing somewhere, distant, bleak – It’s gonna be one of those endless nights When the door of perception creak.
Too much recycled dioramaa, But if not drugs, then what have I taken ? If only I’d swallowed some bloody caffeine Cos I need to reawaken.
So why am I still here dreaming ? Or what am I not here dreaming ? It’s not any pills from off the shelf, But maybe my brain has brewed some itself ?
Maybe it’s cloning its own serotonin all day, Or morphing endorphins to help it to play. Or doped-up on dopamine, drooling away ? Who’s to say ? Is it madness by stealth ?
Lis’ning to psychedelic mumbling, Needle jumping, stuck on repeat – It’s gonna be one of those Mobius nights When Alice can’t find her feet.
Too much psyched-out sepia – I don’t even own a secret stash, But these uninvited thoughts wanna dance, Now this party’s about to crash.
Can I still hope I’m nothing but dreaming ? I gonna need help if I find I’m not dreaming Cos I just don’t know how I’m gonna survive If I’m right here awake and I’m streaming this live.
I don’t want to crash, but I don’t want to stay, So help me to crash to an overcast day – Cos there’s so many colours, I can’t find my way – Help me, pray, when the DTs arrive.
Lis’ning to spaced-out psychic music, Sometimes my mind is not my friend, Cos psychedelic may sound angelic, But it’s based on the blues in the end.
Until tonight, I always found that beds, any beds would set me free, Ev’ry nudge and ev’ry sound could not breach my security – But here I lie awake, so wide awake, so pointlessly unresting Perhaps I ought to take a break, Fill up the kettle – No coffee, though, please ! A morsel maybe to help me settle, Though lay off the cheese. I always thought the night was full of creaks and banging pipes and stuff – This house is eerily quiet when it speaks, not noisy enough ! The night and I both lie stock still, Like the hush on the hill and the lull in the valley – And yet, like me it also breathes… But only one of us is keeping tally of the sleep the other thieves – Adding up each stolen minute in my deficit of rest, Ratchetting my stress as I know I’ll never get them back – How long before I crack ? Oh, to be falling into dreams, To softly sink into its streams To fall upon that netherworld where moonlight always beams. But meanwhile… The ticking of the alarm is not a friend, Nor one I dare to silence – Or how will I know when this Hell shall end ? But the ticks just won’t shut up, even under the pillow And then there’s the birds of dawn in the willow That I always thought so pretty until this very morn. And oh, here comes the headache – So it’s back to the willow, it seems – Though, hang on, does asp’rin keep you awake ? Not that I’m exactly full of dreams right now, Taking them on an empty stomach, too, But anything to stop the throbbing in my brow. Swallow them with the dregs of the wine – Oh, it’ll be fine. I’ll wash the glass since I’m here, as you do, And spend a penny, I guess – But if I’m getting up I might as well dress. My thoughts spin round in my unsought leisure, Till I’m sick of my company And to think that sleep was once my pleasure – How can it now be stumping me ? I should be swimming through the deep of my mind, Down and down, leave it all behind, I used to find it all so easy, One-two-three and off we go – But tonight, there’s nobody home below.
How do we know How we know what we know ?, When we haven’t a clue How we do what we do ? And how do we think When we think in a blink ? In a faster-than-short, We have caught us a thought. They hustle and tout And they wheedle and shout, Like rumours and tracts That have somehow crept out – Till we realise there’s mountains of facts That we swear we weren’t taught.
I do not know How I know what I know, But I know that they flow As they come and they go. Cos there’s stuff I’ve forgot – Don’t know what, but a lot – And there’s thoughts that will sow, Lying low till they grow, And they scatter and spread Through my depths of my head As factoids and fluff That take root and embed. Till I realise there’s jungles of stuff That I happen to know.
I set the world to right, alone at night – The future’s glistening. I sit and spout all day – but that’s okay, Cos no-one’s listening. I plot within my head, but have no dread – They’ll surely stay there. A thousand plans unborn, my greatness shorn For ev’ry grey hair. Yet all the while they’re checked, no lives are wrecked Upon my schemings – My legacy’s secure, when you ignore My fervent dreamings.
Rhyming Couplets 