Tag Archives: nightmares

Defeating Nightmares

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graphite drawingNo matter how impressive and terrifying the monster, there’s always something that can defeat it. Most monsters have their own monsters, when it comes right down to it. Their tormentors may be superior powers, but in truth, it may well be the simplest and smallest, most innocuous detail that thwarts the fiercest monster.

It might even be me.

digital illustration

Is it his own greed and hubris, or is it a clever prank I pulled that takes down the mighty monster? Not that it matters, as long as I win the day!

Kept at Bay

Greedy little nightmare,

You stole from me an hour

Of sleep that should have been repose

With twisted, dark and sour

Delirium and horror-shows

Of ghosts and ghouls and glee-

Filled monster tales and dragon-scales—

O! Set this captive free!

For if you deign to torture me

Incessant, sleepless grind,

I’ll out you in a rotten verse

And you will lose your mind.

Early or Late, Good Sleep is Great

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digital artworkRestoration Drama

Give me dreams, but let me sleep,

In peaceful rest to lie—

Haul off the tossing, counting sheep,

The nightmares passing by—

Yes, make the most of forty winks,

A hundred, if I may;

Remove insomnia and keep

Harsh wakefulness at bay—

No more foul nights as hostage to

Psychosis’ nasty knife—

Now, make a truce and make it true,

Right through eternal life!

Noirish

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Here Lies a Haunted Man

First thing in the morning a perfect blue sky,

with a few sheepish clouds and a breeze,

gives no indication of what, when or why

we believe we must hide in the trees,

to disguise from what enemy, storm, or what foe,

or to vanish from sight for which reason;

we know none of that, but we certainly know

we have entered a paranoid season.digital artwork

Dreamscape

Out of the leaves of a banana tree

A mysterious Eye is staring at me;

I have some magnetic pull, it seems,

For the kind of stuff that makes up dreams.

Ten past midnight, and all is well

Except that I’m under the nightly spell

That thrusts me onto those strange savannahs

Where pursuers send me stark bananas.

It’s Not Just Dragon-Breath that Scares Me

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graphite drawing

Night Terrors and Morning Madness

How odd, arising in the morning, to look in the mirror’s glass,

To see someone so unfamiliar, so unkind, uncouth and crass,

So ill-mannered and repellant, full of grossness, grease and grunge,

And to wonder how on earth I can begin to clean, expunge,

Remove, ameliorate; to salvage any goodness I could hope

To find in such an unfit carcass; rescue with what bar of soap,

What fell razor or belt sander, what hair shirt, what whips and chains

Aimed at purifying putrid monster madness, would what else remains

E’en resemble who I used to think I was, have any grace?

What relief, when after coffee, I come back and see my face!

Under all of it, thank heavens, lies the self I onetime knew,

With its kindly dragon scales and bony crest familiar: Whew!

The Insomniac

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P&I drawingR.E.M.

Under a slab

Of cement I sleep,

Wilderness heavy,

Sorrow deep;

Sorrow deep,

Archaeology old,

Running through

Corridors untold—

Racing the hallways

Of my dreams,

Ankles shackled,

With muffled screams;

With throttled throat,

I strive to wake,

Covered in cobwebs

I cannot shake;

Cobweb-bound,

Imprisoned in doom,

Under concrete,

In the dreamer’s tomb.