Performance Anxiety: Nightmare
Bassoons are idly chuckling in the orchestra,
and in the aisle, popcorn crackles underfoot
as the last audience member hurries to find her seat.
I stand center stage
wondering what play this is
and how I came to be standing here.
The curtain opens.
I am naked.
And I have not even seen my lines!
For SOCs the prompt is “Crackle.”
Restless
I try to cast the dreams away
but push them off to no avail.
An empty world does not assist
for no one comes to hear my wail.
The walls remain in place around,
muffling the horrid sound
of pleas that come from so far in
that they reveal my secret sin.
I must admit that I cannot remember whose prompt this is and so cannot link it. I started it 11 hours ago, got distracted and then came back to it an hour or so ago and finished the poem. Ever since then, I’ve been trying to find the prompt! I believe it was the photo as I know I didn’t take the picture.
If anyone knows the link to the prompt, please help!!!
Nightmare.
Come here, my dear.
Those dangers near,
though they appear
to mock and leer,
will not come here.
So dry each tear.
Danger’s jeer,
it’s truly clear,
is just sheer
groundless fear.
The prompt for SOCS is to grab the book closest to you, open at random and use the first three words of the first full sentence on that page to start your post. Here goes….The book was The Blue Butterfly by Leslie Johansen Nack. The three words, Come here, my. . . .
Image by Paz Z on Unsplash.
Denouement
Flight and fear and chaos may make our dreams too gory,
but things may turn out better by the ending of the story.
I revel in surprises at the edges of my dreams—
as though their happy endings are captured at the seams.
So though we may be terrorized by dreaming’s dips and bendings,
prior to awakening, thank God for happy endings.
Smooth Talker
Whatever tales you chose to tell, after dark,
perhaps filled out your empty shell, after dark.
Those blusterings that in the day came to naught,
may all have served you very well, after dark.
But all those love lessons that your voice once taught
no longer ring out like a bell after dark
As in the web of years you’re firmly caught,
you may as well your passions quell after dark.
Since my affection’s not so easily bought,
your words instead become a knell after dark.
I apologize to this young man for always using his photo when I need an illustration of a very handsome man. In no way is he the real subject of the poem. The ghazal is a very complicated form that involves repetition of words as well as internal rhyme. I’ve added the end rhyme just for my own satisfaction. For an explanation of the form, see: dVerse Poets
Nightmare
You hide yourself in shadows deep
to watch me as I fall to sleep.
Half-lidded, with your sleepy stare,
you cup my cheek and stroke my hair.
I do not know as I fall deeper
that you stalk this drifting sleeper.
Then just as I do not resist,
you give my hair a painful twist.
I try to jerk awake but fail.
I tense my muscles, fight and flail,
but I cannot escape your grasp.
I call for help, I moan and gasp.
Sir Nightmare, from where do you come
with death knoll beat on ragged drum?
I hear its pulse now through the day.
At every hour, it sounds the way
back to the horror of the night––
a pathway to that final fight
when I will mount at last that steed
that nightly stands to do its deed
to carry to oblivion
this sleeper off to meet her kin.
That father lost, those lovers three
who wait for my delivery.
Is this nightmare just a dream––
a mere digression from the stream
of conscious thought––a nightly swim
through a fantasy most grim,
or a window showing me
an inevitability?
This is a repeat of a poem I wrote two years ago. It is just too perfect for the prompt not to use it. hope it warranted rereading. The Ragtag word of the day is nightmare.
Kids’ Tribunal
When wind howls like a banshee to fill the dark night air
and monsters lurk in closets or in creakings up the stair,
when your brother knows they’re out there––these creatures he can’t see,
when nightmares wake you up at night and you have to pee
but daren’t leave your bed in fear those creatures will come “getcha”
(all those night-born monsters that come out at night to fetch ya,)
or when sister wets the bed again and seeks a drier nest,
for lying on her soggy sheets, she knows she’ll never rest––
it’s times like these when all the kids form a small tribunal
and determine that their parents’ bed should be declared communal.
The prompt word today is communal.
Nightmare
You hide yourself in shadows deep
to watch me as I fall to sleep.
Half-lidded, with your sleepy stare,
you cup my cheek and stroke my hair.
I do not know as I fall deeper
that you stalk this drifting sleeper.
Then just as I do not resist,
you give my hair a painful twist.
I try to jerk awake but fail.
I tense my muscles, fight and flail,
but I cannot escape your grasp.
I call for help, I moan and gasp.
Sir Nightmare, from where do you come
with death knoll beat on ragged drum?
I hear its pulse now through the day.
At every hour, it sounds the way
back to the horror of the night––
a pathway to that final fight
when I will mount at last that steed
that nightly stands to do its deed
to carry to oblivion
this sleeper off to meet her kin.
That father lost, those lovers three
who wait for my delivery.
Is this nightmare just a dream––
a mere digression from the stream
of conscious thought––a nightly swim
through a fantasy most grim,
or a window showing me
an inevitability?
(The photo is intended only as an illustration and has nothing to do with the person pictured!!!)
Rope Ladder
You call out from the island of your sleep,
each word at first garbled,
as though caught in quicksand.
Beside you in this room,
I waken to your shouted words:
“Is there any window in this room?”
and I am given ingress to your dreams,
even as each new early morning declaration
becomes a strong sure stroke towards your escape from them.
Nightmare
Bassoons are idly chuckling in the orchestra,
and in the aisle, popcorn crackles underfoot
as the last audience member hurries to find her seat.
I stand center stage
wondering what play this is
and how I came to be standing here.
The curtain opens.
I am naked.
And I have not even seen my lines!
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The Prompt: Naked with Black Socks––Are you comfortable in front of people, or does the idea of public speaking make you want to hide in the bathroom? Why? *
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 