The Grove

Come sit under the tree my friend,
You are safe now,
The green shall provide,
This haven of the arboreal,
This grove is for the lost,
The hurt souls of the modern world,

The canopy shall shield you from the rain,
The worlds slings and stones,
The fae among these toadstools shall regale you,
Tales from the many fantastical realms,
You shan’t go hungry,
The fruit of these briars shall provide aliment,

Be welcome my friend,
These boughs are your shelter,
Their shade shall be your shield,
You can heal from life here,
Until you finally decide to return,
And leave this grove in the past.

Dreamscape

Last night,
I went for a walk within my dreams,
Traipsing through that dreamscape,
With nary a hand to hold,
Under a kaleidoscopic sky of grinning clouds,
Through violet and teal oceans of grass,
Crossing bridges suspended over fuchsia streams,
With the breeze singing sweet tunes in my ear,
It was a lonely trek,
But a euphoric one,

Alas,
The dream ended,
As the sun returned me to grey,
But does that world still remain?
Can I go back?

Dream Of Yarn

When I was young,
I once had a nightmare,
A dream of the most surreal kind,
Was it some ghost?
A bogeyman?
Nothing so mundane I’m afraid,
It was an orb floating in my room,
A ball of yarn unravelling,
With the consistency of intestines,
Of offal,
Crimson weeping from it,

An alien gurgling emanated from it,
Mocking my own heartbeat,
I was struck dumb by it,
Unable to move,
Bloodshot eyes fixated,
Until the yarn was almost unwound,
But then I awoke,
So what did it mean?
I’ve never sussed it out,
I’m not closer to understanding,
I fear I never will.

Oneiromancy

Dreams are films we watch each night,
With synopses nor subtitles,
They produce not a lick of sense,
Nor storylines of logic,
But they’re not meaningless,
You see,
They’re the language of the mind,
The most foreign of tongues,
Equal parts artwork and insanity,
With themes and actors obscured by fog,

They require a translator,
A diviner,
An oneiromancer,
One who can read their obtuse scrawls,
What the dreams mean,
To guide us through their thorny mazes,
To see where they’ll lead,
To fix their curved mirrors,
What they’re telling us,
What they’re warning us.

Zephyr

When I write,
I fashion wings to soar away,
With words in place of feathers,
Verbs and emotions as down,
The ink acting as glue,
Wielding these curious machinations,
I long to swim on the zephyrs,
To travel betwixt sun and moon,
To spit in the eyes of vain gods,
Madness perhaps,
I’m not like Icarus though,
Wings not built of wax,
But of honest dreams,
And dreams are fireproof.

Midnight Trail

Midnight has come,
And still I walk,
I’m free on these twilit highways,
Coyote eyes in the moonlight,
No destination among these mesas and dust,
No endgame,
I’m simply chasing distant storms,

The breeze is a constant static in my ears,
My only companions the vultures overhead,
Silhouetted against the face of the moon,
Blood specks upon the asphalt,
But still I follow this trail,
Goaded by distant thunder and close air,
One foot after another,

Forever into the night.

Birds of Paradise

From this lethargic window,
I often look up at the sky,
Tracing dreams in the clouds,
And I see those birds,
Vibrant flocks eloping to freedom,
They leave little pinions of colour,
Like love letters with no recipient,
A rain of sentiment in myriad pigment,

Each feather tells a story,
Of grief and bliss and love,
Recited as I run my finger across,
Silent but clear as day,
The birds fly on lighter,
I’m left behind in the grey,
With this plumage of fables cast off,
A mottle they needed to disperse to reach paradise.

Good Sleep

Sometimes sleep can be like visiting a menagerie,
A mad array of mental toys,
Dancing and cajoling and fighting,
I close my eyes,
Logic takes the exit door,
And the toybox opens,
An entire universe of prisms and colours emerge,
Faces and pyramids and music,
Skeletons dancing against my backlit skull,
All things blended into storylines that make no sense,
It feels good,
Unconsciousness is my minds best therapy,
The crazier the dreams,
The better the rest.

Phantasmagoria

As I rise from my crypt,
I feel as if some presence rises with me,
An ethereal force,
Like my dreams have pierced forth from my mind,
Transmogrifying before my sleepy eyes,

Butterflies in every shade,
Once greyscale,
Then shifting to each and every colour in turn,
Phantasms in flight,
Fluttering around the room in lyrical patterns,

The projections grow more maddening,
Hypnotising my cortices,
Spelling out words that seem gibberish,
Images of make-believe realms,
Visual patterns put my brain through a blender,

Was any of this real?
Horror and euphoria and mystique brewed together,
Who knows?
But only the sunrise did quell the mania,
And weld my brain back together again.

The Nebula

Yet another door of sleep I have passed,
Into a nebula of dreams,
A fruit salad of ether,
Pinks and yellows and indigos,
A jungle of numberless stars,
A ballroom of comets,
Stupefaction blended twixt disquiet,

I’m an unidentified flying object,
Exploring this ominous sea of clouds,
Surging through the pink smog,
Imitating the likes of the perseids,
Freaky ghosts of planets pass,
Wearing their plated asteroid belts,
The nebulae all around like silken veils,

Ahead I glimpse a conflux of obsidian and rose,
A wicked black hole,
Gawping as if at a banquet,
Assimilating every vapour of fuchsia mist,
Intrigued I peer into the abyss,
Within it is earthly chaos,
The morning sun.