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 whisper of the hydrogen by kilobyte ?, Or the rushing 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
Sleep
I’ve heard there’s folk who sleep but never dream – That must seem 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 time to mend, While not distracted by the random streams That dreamers love to wend.
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.
Sleeping is our right, It is our patriotic duty – And ev’ry dream is freedom, And our freedom is to dream… Sleep, my fellow patriots, For sleeping is our beauty – And dreaming is our industry In which our twilights gleam.
I don’t know why I’m gifted so, To sleep as tightly as a tree – To close my eyes and just let go, And slip into eternity – Where aeroplane nor car alarm Nor deep pneumatic drill Can rouse me from my safe-from-harm Before I’ve slept my fill.
I’ve heard it said a guilty soul Will lie as skittish as a foal, And never find repose. Now I, I never was a saint, And yet I dream without constraint When sweetly comatose.
I don’t know why I’m fortunate To sleep as soundly as a stone, Until my eyelids raise the gate To marvel how the night has flown. Oblivion is long my friend Who waits in Timbuktoo. I swear, the World and all could end, And I would sleep on through.
I’ve heard it said that peaceful minds Have little need for warmth and blinds, When tiredness prevails. Now I, I am not pure and deep, And yet I still could harvest sleep Upon a bed of nails.
My mind I leave to science, to probe and to dissect, To extract and to magnify each secret and regret. To show up my ideas that I never got to note, Or poems I was writing but I somehow never wrote, Or stories for the telling that I never passed along, Or maybe sweetest music for my never sung-out song. Work swift with my ditherings, these children may yet make An epitaph of dreams to be awoken at my wake.
