*
What are you doing, cowering
In the rewilded bits of my unconscious?
Or the bits that have never
Not been wild?
Come out of the scrub and brambles.
I know you’re hiding, though I don’t know why.
Why don’t you want to help me dream?
Why don’t you want me to remember my
Sad scant fragments of dreamlets?
Why are you such a coward? Why are you scared?
What’s so frightening about my dreams?
Nazgul? People leaving with suitcases?
Terrifying teddies with whirling whirlpool
Eyes that chase me with clashing gnashers
Right into a black hole? I’m still scared
Of that one, sixty years later.
I laugh in the face of dreams where I’m taking an exam
I know nothing about, stark naked.
I drive small white minis up and up
Narrow walled white lanes and leap the final hump
And fly into a blue and pink sky.
What’s wrong with you, Dreamer?
Do you still think it’s all real?
Dreamer: Sometimes it has been real.
Me: Oh yes, air crashes in China in my teens,
A bomb in Oxford street –
But I knew these were real and in the future,
I could feel my legs being climbed by
Lightening ivy, I knew perfectly well.
I need you to help me now
So why are you still skulking
In the rosebushes?
Get out of there right now!
Help me discern aright.
Help me dodge the future.
***