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Dream Poems A-J (K-Z)

Poems telling dreams, poems heard in dreams, poems composed deliberately in dreams. And dreams (poetic or not) about poetry: open mics, mad poets, freestyling, and poetry slams. You'll find a few nondream pieces--poems on dreamwork, visions, and altered states, two on the World Dream Bank itself, and a few prose pieces on dream-poets like Blake, Yeats and Robinson Jeffers.

Is poetry the right medium to for your dream? I think it depends on two factors.

  1. You. Can you write clearly, concisely, vividly, with a good ear? Dreams are hard to shape into poems; writing of familiar subjects is easier. The dramatic compression good poetry demands can make a weird dream incomprehensible. (But then, that's true of dream-records in general! Calvin Hall found that much of dreams' famous surreality was due to the brevity and vagueness of the records, not the dream experience. Summarize a waking day in just a few lines, and it'll often sound as strange and choppy as many dream-records.) Casting a dream into any artistic form is hard; the stranger the dream, the harder the struggle. But if you win that struggle, the stronger the art, too.
  2. Your dream. Is it good poetic material? Best: short, emotional, sensual (strong visual or tactile imagery), with a simple plot or none--a lone image works. A short, emotional dream without strong visual images? A song might work best. Epics, multi-scene dreams and complex idea-dreams are easier to write up as prose. Short, striking visual dreams may work, but might do better as drawings, paintings, or collage; longer but strikingly visual dreams, as comics.
Dreamworkers tend to record dreams only in their favored medium, and ignore the rest. But it should be the nature of the dream, not of the dreamer, that decides its artistic form. A crudely drawn comic of a dream that cries out to be drawn is better than an awkward dream-poem--or a prose telling. Let the dream decide.

RELATED TOPICS: poems heard, read or composed in dreams - haiku and other short forms - Dreamverses, an experiment in daily dream-poems - Roswila's dreamku - picture-poems - shape-poems - downloadable dream songs - musical dreams in general - writers and writing - spells, incantations, and curses - See also the full INDEX OF SUBJECTS.

What this site is - Add your dreams! - How to read blurbs - Ratings - Copyright - Downloading - The World Dream Bank has 4000 dreams plus 1000 pages on dreamwork, shamanism, surrealism, fantasy, worldbuilding, creativity and genius. Site © Chris Wayan 2001-2022.


ADDING SHELLS TO NINA: by Wayan; 1974/10/4, an absurd dream poem.
I lay on a beach with Nina. I stuck a shell on her body and designed a fabulous line of prosthetics...
ADORABLE CYBORGS: by Wayan; dreamed 2016/10/5, a dream-poem on inner teamwork
A child dreamer and two different kinds of cyborg must cooperate
to free the hostages imprisoned under San Francisco Bay...
AFTER A LONG ILLNESS: by Nicholas Christopher; summer 1990?, a dream poem
After I flew from New York to Hawaii, a surreal dream of a floating man reeled in like a kite...
AFTER HE DIED: by Jane O. Wayne, 1990?, a dream-poem fragment
After he died, I dreamed that the phone rang and when I said "Hello"...
AFTER THE BANG: by Wayan; 2001/5/16, a poem on the World Dream Bank.
The Big Bang happens, you're inspired, you make something of it... then what? The Big Whimper?
AIRACUDA: by Wayan; 2008/9/9, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #25
The jeweled fish over San Francisco grew and grew
until it landed and the crew told me the secret code...
AIRPLANE WITH BORN: by Catshall; c. 2014/11/8, a dream-haiku on American politics?
I dream of an airplane with a born-again pilot. I challenge him:
"just because you're rich doesn't mean you can run things"...
ALICE'S POEM: by Lewis Carroll; 1872, a poem on dreams
Are dreams really so ephemeral? Lewis Carroll, who built the Alice books from dream-shards, wasn't so sure...
ALL THUMBS: by Wayan; 2022/9/27, a poem of an awkward dream
I've gotten used to the second penis I grew, though it limits who'll want me.
But this morning I woke with a third. And am I sure the sprouting's done?
CAUTION: HORNY
ALLORGY: by Wayan; 1983/4/1, an allergic love poem.
In spring the young allergic longs for the lusty world but cannot join the All-Orgy...
THE AMAZONS' OFFER: by Wayan; 2012/6/13, a mystical sexy dream poem.
A horde of wild women camp in my yard and practice leaping
through invisible spacetime portals. They invite me along...
CAUTION: FEATHERED, PAINTED NUDITY
ANCIENT MARE-KIN GRAVEYARD: by Wayan; 2008/9/1, a dreamsong (MP3+lyrics), Dreamverse #18
I'm a ghost watching future archeologists dig up a site of my people--and get it so wrong...
THE ANGEL: by William Blake; early 1790s; a gender-bending dream-poem
Blake dreams he's a young queen with an uneasy relationship to her guardian angel...
ANGELS AND SHARKS: by Wayan; 1975/10/11, a surreal warning dream
I was an angel slipping through matter, who, like a shark, needed to
keep moving to breathe--stop and I'd drown in the world, lose myself...
ANIMAL DREAMS: by Carolyn Tipton; a 2019 poem arguing that without animal viewpoints the world goes flat
"What about their dreams? What if they've all been partly dreaming us, and
lacking them, our world becomes as trivial and narrow as our dreams?"...
ANIMAL HEAVEN: by Wayan; 2008/8/16, an astral dream-poem; Dreamverse #6.
At a party in Animal Heaven, I fall for a rabbit-girl doomed to be human dinner.
But how can I rescue her? I'm Fate's part-time intern!
CAUTION: BREASTS, BEASTS, INCOMPETENT ANGEL OF DEATH
ANOCHE / LAST NIGHT: by Antonio Machado; c. 1900; a joyful dream poem
Last night, as I slept, I dreamt--illusion blessed!--that I had a beehive, here inside my heart...
ANOTHER DREAM OF BURIAL: dreamed 2009 or before, by W.S. Merwin; poem of recurring dream
The garden varies, but I have always turned away and walked into the whole world. So far...
THE ANSWER FLOOR: by Wayan; 1985/2/16, a dream-poem inverting a famous dream of Jung's
I dream of a three-floor tower--but the Answer is up on Level Four!
No elevator, no stair. I can't even see it. Yet it's there...
ANTS AT A PICNIC: by Wayan; 1984/11/16, dream-poem from predictive dreamlet
DREAM: Ants invite me to a picnic. But one of the dishes they serve is--other ants!
NEXT DAY: I'm invited to a picnic. And my friend, munching, says...
CAUTION: BUG-EAT-BUG WORLD
APOCALYPSE OF THE MOON: by Carl Linkhart, 1997 or before; dream poem/painting
The far future. The moon falls to Earth. But then... the moon unfalls!
Golden light nurtures a rebirth of our dying ecology & civilization...
AQUARINA PRODIGY: by Wayan; 2009/10/15, a dream poem with sketches; Dreamverse #60
A child prodigy stands out in a chorus line of waterdancers. Her body is a patchwork of young & old...
AROUND LAKE ERIE AND ACROSS THE HUDSON: by Rachel Hadas; 1997?, a dream-poem.
My dead friend Charlie and his sister and I are driving around
Lake Erie. We know it’s a dream and he’s dead, and yet we’re joyous...
ARTSHOW IN A DREAM: by Wayan; 1983/6/28 & 9/18, twin dreams on modern art's blindspots
Jaundiced dreams of an art show spell out just how deeply I reject the rules behind modern art...
AS A HILLSBOROUGH CHILD: by Barbara Gordon Paine; c.1960, a poem on a child's ear for idioms
As a Hillsborough child I never heard the crash of twentynine
walled streets that fell with a force that moved us away...
AT A CALIFORNIA CAMP: by Jack Kerouac, spring 1955, a nuclear testing nightmare
My family and I are prisoners in a camp that will be H-bombed so our remains
can be studied. I write a Buddhist poem preparing for death...
CAUTION: GOVERNMENT ATROCITY
AUTUMN OF THE ANCIENTS: by Carl Linkhart, 1995 or before; dream poem/painting
Central America. A pale sorceress has stolen the splendor of the Mayan pyramids. Is pagan
power strong enough to defy the church's promises of savation & its fears of a rumored devil?
AWKWARD ENLIGHTENMENT: by Wayan; 2010/1/13; a dream of spiritual and practical advice
Anxious about a big party, I dream of being crowded. But
a cat-centaur in the crowd attains sudden enlightenment...
BALEENA'S GAME: by Wayan; 1974/1/26, a surreal dream with a practical point
A whale-spirit marries a poker-player. But her sonar sees too much. Whale-spirits prefer blackjack...
BAREFOOT: by Catshall; c. 2014/12/14, a dream-haiku on the drought
I dreamt I walked barefoot on newly fallen snow...
A BEAGLE, THREE WOLVES, AND A SETTER: by Wayan; 2009/2/6, a dream-poem; Dreamverse #50
Fresh off the Beagle, Darwin meets three wolf-girls, but has distinctly Biblical inhibitions...
CAUTION: EXHIBITIONISM, SPECISM, PUNS
BEFORE BED: by Mary Ruefle, ca. 1995, a dream-poem on stewardship
In the cathedral, before the nation, I solemnly crown someone with my own detached head...
THE BEEP TREE: by Wayan; c. 1998/7/11, a dreamlike but true story.
I heard a noise out my window. I looked out, and saw something strange...
BEET: Five Dreams One Night: by Wayan; 2013/10/30, Halloween dreams as minipoems
Parasites, Rambo, huge fetus-beets, an exhibitionist and a living statue advise me on my love life...
CAUTION: NUDITY
BEETLE TIME: by Wayan; 2018/8/18; a dream-poem on time-slip
A beetle helps me on a fairytale quest, then founds a great house;
but only a year later, he's an ancient patriarch, and I'm still young...
BEHIND THE SCREENS: by Wayan; 1984/2/12, a vivid sex dream that hid a warning
I hide a catgirl behind Japanese screens. We have hot sex now & then--but usually I ignore her...
CAUTION: SEX; NEGLECT
BELIEF IS GRIEF: by Wayan; 1992/7/31. A two-page picture-poem
Anti-ideological rant calling experience water and belief... ice.
LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI: by John Keats, April 1819, a sexy nightmare poem
A knight falls in love with a fey woman, until her previous victims warn him in a nightmare that she is...
CAUTION: GOTH TO THE MAX
BIRDMAN TEACHES "NO!": by Miriel as told to Wayan; 1985/7/11, a poem on flight/assertion training
In the canyon behind our home, a steel-clawed birdman taught my brother and me to fly by shouting "NO!"...
BIRD-SENSE: by Wayan; 2013/7/20; Shakespeare improv provokes a dream of having seven senses
I dream I have sixth and seventh senses--and wake to realize I do! Just denied them, explained them away...
CAUTION: SHAKESPEAREAN HEFT
BIRDS OF DREAM: by Kathleen Raine, between 1981 & '87; a mystical dream poem
Colorful birds swirl round me. They may be natives of Paradise--may be, in fact, avian angels...
BIRDS ON FIRE: by Wayan; 2008/9/15, a political dream-poem, Dreamverse #26
George Bush leads a hill-tribe raid against the hill-tribe led by Osama bin Laden... and I'm stuck between...
CAUTION: ANTI-HEROES, POLITICAL PREDICTION
THE BLACK CURRENT: by Wayan; 1985/6/16, a slice-of-life dreamtale.
A dream-voyage round the world on the Black Current, only to wake up back in my animal village...
CAUTION: GORILLA MARRIAGE
BLACK SOLSTICE; 1978/12/23 by Wayan; a warning dream-poem
It had been a weirdly mild winter day, but in my dream black storms loomed as I tried to build shelter...
BLIND ANCESTORS: by Wayan; 2007/8/6, a nightmare poem about all of us
While we’re at work, Blind Ancestors come smash up our homes...
and we all see zombie vandal relatives as normal...
BLUE BRAINS: by Wayan, 2017/12/11, a false-waking, self-flagging predictive dream
Our brains are really squid stuffed in a skulljar. I wake, see the image on TV. "So it's predictive!" I think.
Then I wake to find that too was a dream. "Not predictive!" I think. Until my friend turns on the TV, and...
BLUEBEARD DRAG: by Wayan; 2008/9/5, a creepy dream-poem, Dreamverse #22
On the waterfront, I meet a seductive girl. Well, guy. Well, serial killer. Um, I think I'll leave now...
CAUTION: HOMOPHOBIA OR SURVIVAL INSTINCT?
BLUE DROP: by Vladimir Nabokov; 1966/1/7, a dream-prose-poemlet
The supreme mystery which we learn after death is that the cosmos with all its galaxies is a blue drop...
CAUTION: HIPPIE DIPPIE
BOAT PEOPLE IN THE TUB: by Carl Linkhart, 1998 or before; dream poem/painting
I'm trying to bathe, but there are Boat People in the tub!
And my inner Grandma's spying on me, behind her fan...
THE BOATMEN OF LAOLONG: by Viceroy Zhu, before 1679, as told by Pu Songling; an incubated dream
Traders were vanishing. Newly installed Viceroy Zhu fasted, focused, and dreamt
the gods sent him a riddling poem. Each line suggested one word--together, they...
CAUTION: BRUTAL ORGANIZED CRIME
BOB THE TREE: by Catshall; c. 2013/6/21, a dream-haiku on our marriage
I dreamt Bob was a tree-god enthroned in ivy. I said...
BOILING MY FRIENDS: by Wayan; 1983/6/7, a nondream poem of letting go.
Giving up a circle of friends is like the collapse of a sun--do you dry up like a raisin... or explode?
BOLLYWOOD LOVE: by Wayan; 2009/4/12, a movie dream (duh!); Dreamverse #51
I dream the universe runs on Bollywood rules. I can stand the constant singing
and breakdancing; what gets under my skin is that Bollywood Code...
BONOBOCARE, or, THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE: by Wayan, 2015/8/8, a dream's "Modest Proposal"
Tax-funded child prostitution ends war--sex calms men down from
mean chimps to nice bonobos. Rough on street kids, though...
CAUTION: SEXPLOITATION, SATIRE HARSH AS JONATHAN SWIFT. UNICORNS, TOO!
BOYS: by Wayan; 1993-99, a gender-equity poem.
When girls get their clits cut, even the UN takes notice. But mutilate boy genitals, and... big yawn!
CAUTION: TALK ABOUT SEX AND VIOLENCE--BUT HEY, IT'S ONLY BOYS
BREAK / FAST: by Roswila; c. 1987, a poem of a predictive dream
My friend stuffs a broken feeder with birdseed. I worry it'll attract too many wild birds. He laughs "Exactly!"...
BRIDGE, MOON, PROFESSOR, SHOES: by Dorothea Tanning; 2003? Poem of a flying dream
The moon invites me to go flying, but I get tired of magic and just want to go shopping...
THE BURBS: by Wayan; 1990/7/1, a true-story poem.
A perfectionist gardener builds perfect planterboxes while his seedlings starve. And so I left the burbs...
BURMA SHAVE: by Wayan; 1982, a poem on dreams.
If you dream, don't drive. If you drive, don't dream. A public safety message from the other world.
BUSINESSMEN HAVE SNOUTS: by Wayan; 2010/11/15, a dream-poem on climate-denial?
Businessmen grow snouts or short trunks and their necks stretch.
They drive VW Beetles with the sunroof open. Works in summer, but...
BUT OUR CAT...: by Wayan; 1974/2/7, a dream haiku
I'd just gone off to college. I dream I'm back in my quarrelsome family's house--
as they start World War Three in the back yard! But our cat...
BYRON’S DREAM: by Lord Byron; 1816, a dream of a love denied
An epic dream on the lifelong effects of unrequited love, compressed into seven stanzas...
CALIBAN IN ENGLAND: by Theodore Weiss; 1966 or 67; a dream-play never written
As I wrote a poem on Caliban, I dreamt I was him: taken to Shakespeare's England,
shown as a freak, I must escape to save Miranda and Prospero from assassins...
CAT REPELS DINOSAURS: by Wayan, 1984/8/12, a film-inspired surreal dream
DAY: I thorn-puncture my hands while gardening, and write stupid poetry about it...
EVE: I watch Little Darlings, a teen sex farce that turns weirdly serious...
DREAM: a Mysterious Pussy guards us librarians from stinky alien dinosaurs...
CAUTION: SEXUAL INNUENDO???
CAT WHO TURNED: by Catshall; c. 2014/9/29, a dream-haiku
Dreamed of a cat who turned into a man. when you rubbed...
THE CHAPARRAL OF TIME: by Wayan; 2008/10/21, a timetravel dream-poem: Dreamverse #36
I snorkel over time-reefs to an era of talking animals--but why crash on the head of rocker Suzi Quatro?
CHEETAH: by Wayan; 1978-86, a poem on turning dreams into art.
I'm a cheetah working as a baker in Coconino County, Arizona, haunted by Krazy Kat...
CHICKADEES: by Peggy Bowman; c.2000?, a poem on a flying dream.
I dream of chickadees, bold and talkative; I fly with them. Below, a hurdy-gurdy man
celebrates our play. Notes rise up, take wing like little birds, and fly with us...
CHICKEN DREAM POEM: by Hastings Wyman, Jr., pre-1983, a dream of liberation
A mass breakout of baby chicks. They say "Now we know how, so we'll
go where we choose." And maybe it's about more than chickens...
CHOKING A CAMEL: by Wayan, 1983 (early May?), a grotesque little dream-poem
Freud explains to me why writing's so hard. His explanation is as senseless as his other theories...
CHRISTA'S FUR: by Wayan; 2018/6/9, a smutty spiritual dream-poem riffing on Leonardo's 'Last Supper'?
In an alternate Judea, I long for a female Christ and her lesbian apostles.
My lust is unrequited, till a small Sex Kitten gives me some wise advice...
CAUTION: CAT NUDITY, BLASPHEMY
CIRCLES OF BONE: by Linda Puffer, 1977/4/27, a poem on a surreal body-image dream
I realize a bone is protruding between my left armpit and breast. I put Maria's hand on my breast and
ask her to feel the bone. But no one grasps what it really is--something sticking out from my heart...
CLAY AND HOP: by Wayan; 2009/10/30, a dream poem with sketches; Dreamverse #63
I touch the secret soul of a cancer survivor, upsetting her. To apologize, I become a goofy hopping god...
CAUTION: FONDLING SACRED FIGURINES
CLIFFMARE: by Wayan; 1988/10/8; a dream of lust vs freedom.
I was a wild mare in heat, torn between longing for sex, touch, love...and the fear of being tamed.
CAUTION: HORSE FRUSTRATION
A CLOSE SHAVE!: by Wayan; 1971/11/7, a short poem of a goofy counterfactual dream
An over-eager landscaper mows my dad's new beard, unasked. Debate in court!
Is the art of mowing free speech, or is your face your castle?
COFFINS: by Beryl and Wayan; 1983/11/5, dark parallel/shared/telepathic dreams
Twin dreams of ghoulish games backstage at a theater.
And they anticipated real long-term ghoulishness...
CAUTION: SLOW DEATH
COLOR OF A BRUISE: by Virginia Brady Young, 1976 or before, a dental nightmare-poem
I stab and stab my pillow. The room rains yellow feathers. The teeth in my head are blue,
growing out of my scalp. A dentist appears, holding a yellow drill. I scream, "No!
It's time to shop for lemons." In the Supermarket my teeth grow wild as tusk...
CORRIDOR: by Barbara Heninger 1996/12/23, a dream-poem.
In the dream-corridor of the many doors, I meet
my husband, my lover, and my daughter...
THE COUNTRY OF THE DEAF: by Wayan; 1982/7/18, dreampoem with stunning Freudian typo
I'm forced to come out to my mom. Not that I'm gay; that I'm psychic,
and find the roar of the mind-deaf unbearable. But Mom's selectively deaf...
CAUTION: ESP SKEPTICS WON'T RELATE
COYOTE'S DINNER PRAYER: by Wayan; 1998/6/5. A waking prayer-poem for you hungry coyotes.
Coyote's pagan parody of the Christian Lord's prayer. Well, actually, it's kind of sweet..
CAUTION: SACRILEGE, ESPECIALLY THE BIT ABOUT TEMPTATION
CRAZY JANE GROWN OLD LOOKS AT THE DANCERS: by W.B. Yeats; spring 1929?, a dream-based poem
Crazy Jane watches a dancing couple's passionate games, and envies even their hate; to her, it's part of love...
CRITTERS IN THE RIFT: by Wayan; 2013/7/18, a weird dream job
I'm the receptionist for a research group of small oracular animals
in an Icelandic rift, who can sniff out the answer to any question...
CROC BOY: by Wayan; 2008/8/17, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #7.
I visit a witch-smeller, who judges apprentice shamans.
But when a boy dreams he's a crocodile, she freaks out...
CROCODILE DREAM: by Patagia; 2015/10/5, a nightmare-poem on recklessness
Closer I edge to admire their scales, the glint of their teeth, and shape of their tails. They cast a strong spell...
CROCODILE KING: by Christina Rossetti; 1855/3/9, a weird dream-poem she may have faked.
On the Euphrates, a monstrous crocodile eats all his kin. But when a winged ship appears, he feigns remorse...
CRONE AND SAGE AT THE MALL: by Wayan; 1991/6/22, a mystical dream-sonnet about malls.
I dream up a shining mall. At a booth selling herbs I meet my mentors, Crone and Sage.
They tease me for building a venue so banal. But I tease right back: "This place shapes you..."
CAUTION: CRITIQUES BUDDHIST PURITY
CROWS USE: by Patagia, before 2007/1/2, a cynical bird dream-poem
Tossing out old papers, I find a dream about crows who
whack pigeons with baseball bats, ending with this moral...
THE CRYPT: by Kathleen Raine, between 1965 & '71; a chthonic dream poem
Holding a luminous crystal sword, I enter a crypt where a king lies--ill, not dead.
An old woman wants to punish him, but as he stirs, I sheathe my sword...
THE CRYSTALLIZERS: by Wayan, 2014/11/21, a surreal dream on the lost art of talking to strangers
I'm in an airport full of aliens who, when bored, crystallize until things get fun again.
My long planeflight glows like a dragon-hoard! But it's lonely...
CURSE HER IN THE OAK: by Wayan; 2009/9/28, dream poem on an odd job; Dreamverse #56
I'm a girl in rural Victorian England working as the county's magical protector. I have my
hands full: a gang of thievish orphans has holed up in an invisibility tree! Showdown at the oak...
CUTENESS PAGEANT: by Wayan; 2008/8/29, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #16.
I'm trapped in a cute cartoon universe! Worse, to judge this beauty contest,
I have to see past our style to our souls...
CUTE-STUPIDS: by Wayan; 1974/1/15, nightmare-poem about a Tragedy of the Commons
Happy beer drinkers from the Now invade the Tower of the Future.
Eggheads find idiots as lovable as kittens, and just can't eject them...
CAUTION: ELITIST; DISSES TRUMPISM
CYCLES AGO: dream by Maud Gonne, poem by WB Yeats; late July 1891, a dream-poem
We were as if brother and sister of old in the desert land;
they sold us in slavery together before this life had begun...
CYCLOTRON OF FLOWERS: by Wayan; 2015/9/13, a surreal dreamscene done as an imagist poem
Night. Rider and mount gallop in a ring, leaving a luminous spiral wake of glowing
flowers. Power builds, but when the spiral gate opens, where will it lead?
D, D, D: by Wayan; 1988/2/1, trance-poem during automatic writing (done to rewire my brain)
I always wrote some letters strangely--my 'd' was nearly illegible. So I set out to retrain my deep motor skills...
DAD'S DATES: by Wayan; 2008/8/17, a dream poem, Dreamverse #8.
After my mom's death, my dad starts dating again, while I hide out and wince. Can't I do anything positive?
DANCING BACKWARD: by Roswila; 2007/5/21, a punning dream-poem
I just watch as all the dance students practice the jive step. I think I already know that one...
DARE: by Catshall; c. 2013/6/13, a haiku on an incubated nightmare
I challenged my dreams to hit me with their worst. And they did...
THE DAY AFTER: by William S. Burroughs, btw. 1984 & '94; a black-humor dream poem
I'm in Lawrence, Kansas, watching a TV ad for hemorrhoid cream that won't solve your nuclear war problems...
CAUTION: LANGUAGE; ADVERTISING; HUMAN EXTINCTION
DEANNA ON THE MAYAN STEPS: by Wayan; 1992/7/8, a nightmare poem.
Climbing a Mayan pyramid in Yosemite with Deanna Troy from the
Starship Enterprise, we meet a gunman who wants to sacrifice...
DEVILMENT: by Wayan, 2017/8/13, two dreams on Queen Bee syndrome, fusing Milton & Milton Friedman
A Queen Bee devil kidnaps my grandniece; I kill her to free the child. Turns out even Hell's leaders are relieved.
She returns as a satanic housing developer. Slicker this time, but just as crooked. Must I kill her again?
CAUTION: DEVILS, VIOLENCE (NONGRAPHIC)
DICTY: by Wayan; 1990/5/9, a rantish poem on high-tech distraction
A catalog of American addictions and the absurd distinctions we make between them....
CAUTION: EMBARRASSING DRUG LIST
DILL: by Wayan; 1988/9/9, a dream-poem about reverse theft
I'm a reporter. In the mall, I get my pocket picked repeatedly--
but the thieves keep slipping mysterious stuff in, not out...
CAUTION: PUN
DINOSAUR BARD: by Wayan, 2005/2/7, a dream-poem advising song
Dinosaurs and tigers fill my music club. Not that it takes many to fill it. So spiky!
A dino bard croons. A tigress leaps onstage & snuggles up! Music hath charms...
DINO FOR A NIGHT: by Wayan; 2017/7/9, a sci-fi-movie dream poem
I'm turned into a small dinosaur and treated as a guard dog. But I meet a dino girl. We have fun,
once we see it's a movie--they won't kill off the love interests. Hollywood rules make us invulnerable...
DINOSAUR GRADE: by Wayan, 2006/1/25, a shamanic workout dream
I ride a recumbent bike up an exhausting slope past browsing bears.
Oh. Not bears. Dinosaurs. No wonder I'm so tired! Timetravel's hard...
DISCARDS: by Wayan; 2008/3/24, a rap heard in a dream--Dreamverse #39
A Marin girl finds a dirty secret in the school library--they discard the unpopular.
She kinda identifies with the discarded books. And discarded people...
THE DOCTOR KILLS A TERN: by Wayan; 1988/9/24. A dream poem, Dreamverse #4
Dr Who kills his best friend, a huge white tern, on a whim. Furious, I demand a rewrite...
CAUTION: WANTON MURDER
DOCTOR VENTRIL: by Wayan; 1978/9/22, a nightmare where I'm the nightmare.
A doctor lures me into his office. What he turns out to be scares me less than how I defend myself...
CAUTION: VIOLENCE, ARACHNOPHOBIA
DOCTOR WHO AND DEATH: by Wayan; 1984/6/30, a hopeful dream of betrayal.
Dr Who, that lovable BBC alien, grows a sappy flower-face and
allies with Death. An alarming turn-around! What's he up to?
CAUTION: GOOD DOCTOR GOES BAD?
DOG IN A CASSOCK: by Wayan, 1972/2/3, a comically surreal dream-poem
A master criminal is tracked down by a hound in a monk's robe
who's introduced to me as... the President of the United States?
THE DOG KING: by Wayan; 2009/9/28, a short dream poem with portrait; Dreamverse #55
Around royalty, protocol gets complex. I love the Dog King;
despite her title she's female. Does that make her a...
DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW: by Wayan; 2020/1/2, an embarrassing dream poem
The guest room has a giant plush doggie. Next thing I know, I'm humping her
doggie style, on the windowsill where the girl driving the backhoe can see...
CAUTION: CRINGEWORTHY SEX
DON'T YOU HEAR THAT WHISTLE BLOWIN...: by Denise Levertov; 1974/9/6; a dream poem
4 AM. A train wakes us all. We watch it pass, thinking of lost friends. And then I wake again to find...
THE DOOR THROUGH DEATH: by Wayan; 1981/10/25; a Greco-Egyptian nightmare poem
At death's door, my friend lets Cerberus devour her, so I can enter
Death's pyramid alive and expose the truth about the afterlife...
CAUTION: FATAL DOG ATTACK
DOWN UNDER: by Kenneth John Atchity; c.1976, a comic on-the-road dream poem
I ride my tricycle all round Sydney trying to get bureaucratic approval
to feed bananas to my friend the grizzly bear, gooey though he gets...
DRAGON-JEWEL: by Wayan; 2013/6/27, a 1001 Nights epic dream disturbingly predictive of ISIS
In Old Palmyra, I stumble on a dragon-hoard. Wizards and caliphs hunt me--how to get out
of town? Magic carpet? No. I put on a brown coat, borrow a delivery bike, and slowly pedal...
THE DREAM: by John Hollander; spring 1974; a painful dream-poem
I find my lover sharing our secret joke with another. But I already knew
I'd lost her! Why'd my dream salt the wound?
THE DREAM: by Theodore Roethke; before 1958; a dream-poem? Or not?
A mysterious night-encounter with a shapeshifting spiritwoman as elusive as Roethke’s poetry...
DREAM DANCE: by Allan Goldhammer, 2004-6; a dream-poem
A high place at night. The lights of a great city below. I step off into the air, and dance...
DREAM FLOWERS: by Kathleen Raine, between 1953 & '65; a dream florifying dreams
I dreamt I was given verbena sprigs--from my mother, I'm told. But am I me, Persephone, or all the daughters given love by all the mothers?
DREAM OF A DREAM OF NIGHT: by Robert Watson; 1960s, a dream-poem
The goddess of Night is in love with me, but I'm married, and tired, and just full of excuses...
A DREAM OF HEREDITY: by John Calvin Rezmerski, 1986 or earlier, a shape-poem of a comic nightmare
I'm in a tower of men, each son on his father's back, down to a patient overburdened ape.
His savanna's full of angry women who can only see him to yell at. Standoff. We can't escape.
I wake saying "Ease off, let the ape breathe. Let me down...
DREAM OF KOA RETURNING: dreamed 2009 or before, by W.S. Merwin; dream poem on a ghost dog
I reached back slowly hoping to touch your long amber fur wondering if you might be a dream...
A DREAM OF ROSES: by Kathleen Raine, between 1965 & '71; a colorful warning dream
I walked a vast rose garden, but all were Ophelia's yellow blooms of love forsaken; not one was the color of love's true flower...
A DREAM SESTINA: by Donald Justice, late 1950s? A nightmare-poem.
"But what is wrong with my friends' faces? Why have they changed that way to wood?"
THE DREAM TREE: by Roswila; May 1997, a dream-poem on roots
I have no roots but those I steal--until my father leads me to a sacred tree, saying "Look to your mother"...
DREAMISH HEART: by Wayan; 1983/8/15ish; a poem about a subtle way to sabotage dreamwork.
I write, draw, admire & carefully interpret my dreams, but do I ACT on their advice? Not so much...
A DREAMKU PRIMER: by Roswila; 2007; how-to guide to dream haiku
Distilling a dream to one key image can clarify it. But don't be ruled totally by traditional haiku form...
DREAMKU, JUNE 2006: by Roswila; various dates up to June 2006; thirty dream-haiku
Daily dream-poems in haiku style, nonstop for a month. A flood of animals, revenant ghosts, sex changes...
DREAMKU, SEPTEMBER 2006: by Roswila; thirty dream-haiku with various dates from 1960-2006
One dream-poem in haiku style each day for a month!
Ghosts, snow, penguins, yoga babies, elves who leave their tree...
DREAMKU, JANUARY 2007: by Roswila; various dates up to January 2007; 31 dream-poems--mostly haiku
A month of dreams full of science fiction: galactic navigation, spacedragons, oppressed fairies, alien love...
DREAMKU, MARCH 2007: by Roswila; various dates up to March 2007; 31 dream-poems--mostly haiku
Dream poems laid out like a calendar. Themes? Horses, camels, abused girls, vampires--all want their freedom...
DREAMKU, APRIL 2007: by Roswila; various dates up to April 2007; 30 dream-poems--mostly haiku
Dream haiku laid out like a calendar. Roswila's favorite is the pirate, but mine is the were-salamander...
DREAMS IN WAR TIME: by Amy Lowell; c. 1917, a chain of seven small dream-poems
Terse dreamlets quietly catch World War I's effect. Faith died in the trenches...
DREAMVERSES: by Wayan; Aug-Dec? 2008, a dream-poem experiment
Each morning when I wake, I write one dream as a poem. What’ll emerge by the hundredth day?
DRILL TO FLOW: by Wayan; 2011/4/8, an anti-frustration dream
A panel of argumentative gods grant me a spare lifetime of piano practice. It takes that long, but...
DRY HUMPING ON STAGE: by Marilyn Stablein; 1968, a dream while visiting Nepal... for six years
I'm chosen to demonstrate crazy sex positions with a Tibetan lama on stage in front of a crowd...
CAUTION: GOOFY SEX
EAR TO THE, UH, WALL: by Wayan; dreamed 1983/10/10
Granny's magic nipple helps me foil the yuppies dumping toxic
waste. But does it count if I did it just to save my own...
CAUTION: CRUDE TALK; STETHESCOPIC NIPPLE
EARLY MORNING DREAM: by Brian Cronwall, c.1986, a surreal dreamlet turned poem
Night. Heads shaved, in loose-fitting gray robes, the young men swing from eave to eave. Two lose their grips.
Hard fall. Blood. Assistants call ambulances. Others swing on, house to house, before dawn...
EDITORS: by Gavin Ewart; late 1970s, recurring nightmares of censorship.
My new editor starts rejecting my poems. My new new editor rewrites them for me. I feel lucky not to be arrested...
THE ELEMENTALS: by Kathleen Raine, between 1953 & '65; a shamanic dream of earth-spirits
Giant presences; rock, hill and crag are aspects worn. Shape-shifters they are; each in as many forms as eyes behold...
ELEPHANT UPSIDE DOWN: by Xanthe, c2001, a surreal underworld-dream
In the underworld, soldiers chase fundamentalists in underwear, as leopards stare. The
upside-down elephant plugs the exit. We can only escape if we write right the situation...
EMBARKATION, or, THIS PORTAL COIL: by Wayan; 2013/8/28, a magical dream on dreams
A spiral pillow-path leads to an astral portal. But creatures arriving and departing
jam the same path! Squeeze by, hop over, apologize... flirt
Wait, isn't this a dream-image of death & letting go? Then why's it look so fun?
ENCHANTED GLASS; before 1983, by Charles Gullans, a recurring nightmare of shapeshifters done as a poem
Their bodies shift, and alter. Antlers sprout... much has been taken, and something terrible is grafted...
CAUTION: RAMPANT PHILOSOPHIZING, HUMAN SUPREMACISM
THE ENTWINED CHILD AND MADAM PURR-SAY: by PurplePurplePurple; 2013/7/5, twin poem-dreams
I dream my autistic son, miraculously high-functioning, recites a math-poem to a crowd...
Then I become cartoon cat Madam Purr-Say and chant my own defiant poem at the dream gods...
CAUTION: FIRST POEM AUTISTIC, SECOND PISSY
ETNA-SHASTA, or, GROOM YOUR OWN FEATHERS: by Wayan; 2008/9/18, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #28
On a volcano's rim, watching the lava fountains, I interview a huge blue alien bird who never planned to be a monk...
EVIL ARCHY: by Wayan; April 2008; a non-dream poem in terze rima
Money, power, race and gender stifle my working friends less than hierarchical structures...
THE EX-GODDESS: by Wayan, 2010/11/9, a dream-poem on a god in hiding--in plain sight!
I meet a forgotten goddess--outlived all her cults. Today she passes as a psychic, reads a crystalball...
CAUTION: NUDE CHALK SKETCH
EXTRACT FROM A POEM IN PROGRESS: by D.M. Thomas, c.1972, a poem of an advisory dream
As it was revealed that the pianist in Truro Cathedral was T.S. Eliot's illegitimate daughter, her
wretched playing suddenly became beautiful. I knew the dream meant "cleave to the illegitimate"...
EYDIE GORMÉ'S DREAM PARTY: by Carl Linkhart, 1994 or before; dream poem/painting
The sixties. I'm at a party with Eydie Gormé and Sammy Davis Jr.
I get a laugh with a pun about para-keets/para-chutes/para-shoes...
EYE OF TOOTH, or, THE SCORE: by Wayan; 2014/1/28, a cryptic dream prescription
I'm a time-traveling revolutionary seeking a coded message from Pancho Villa.
I find it in a music score... but what's an Ojo de Diente? When I wake...
FALL AT THE RIGHT SIZE: by Wayan; 2018/7/14, a dream shape-poem on a lifesaving indecision.
I fall off a tower, but I can change size. Tiny things fall slower, but they also tempt the local falcons!
Be big & hit hard, or tiny & be eaten? There's a third choice, but I sorta fell into it...
FAMINE: by Marilyn Stablein; 1968, a dream while visiting Nepal... for six years
Famine in the monastery. We add weather charts, leather laces
and walking sticks to the menu. Even the ghosts are hungry...
FAR ALONG IN THE STORY: dreamed 2009 or before, by W.S. Merwin; a surreal dream poem
The flock of cranes called to the boy but he could not hear what they were telling him...
FAREWELL: by Georges Perec; January 1969, a dream prose-poem of loss foreseen. Dream #6
Dream of a breakup I see coming but can't prevent, and the devastation it works on my lover...
FATHER CARES: by Roswila, 2007/9/7?; a dream haiku
A watershed dream for me, since my relationship with my father was, shall I say, conflicted...
CAUTION: ABUSE ISSUES
FATHERLOOMS: by Wayan; 1983/?, a nonliteral diagnostic nightmare.
I was a 30ish woman discovering that my chronic pelvic inflammation was from childhood molestation...
CAUTION: MOLESTATION IN DREAM-PAST
FEATHERWOLF: by Wayan; 2018/9/20, a joyful gender/species-bent flying dreamlet.
A shapeshifting girl lets me try her spell--I become a
wolf-raven-parrot-human blend. Weird, but I love flying...
FERRYGOAT: by Wayan; 2009/8/15, a dream warning what I was becoming; Dreamverse #48
That levitating bear's not tightrope-walking--she rides a goat strung like soap-on-a-rope. A goat that's me! I'm eating...
CAUTION: UGH!
FETAL PAUSE: by Wayan; 2008/8/31, a nightmare-poem, Dreamverse #17
As I write a sad sex dream, a madman curls up fetally in the road outside my window. I'm slow to call 9-1-1, and...
FEVER DREAM ON THE EVE OF ILLNESS: by Joyce Carol Oates, 1979/12/24? a nightmare of self as skyscraper
My body is a residential tower sheltering centipedes, basilisks, dragonflies, bagworms,
skeletal cranes; without my blood's heat and the moist caverns of my soul they would die...
FIBONACCI: by Wayan; 2011/4/18, a dream-poem with answers
My friends are all computer programs. But then, so am I. But it's not so bad, because...
CAUTION: DREAM-PUNS
FIGURE AND FIELD: by Wayan; May 1990, a poem on the dark side of a human ability
We see patterns everywhere... but that also means we relegate nonpatterns to the background...
FIRE-CATS: by Wayan; 1981/10/10; twin dream-poems on over-discipline
For mere disobedience, I EXECUTE a forest-fire-fighting cat! So next
I'm trapped in a security-obsessed job; how do I like it? I flee...
FIRST IMPRESSIONS: by Wayan; 2004/5/20, a dreamsong (MP3+lyrics); Dreamverse #0
I meet a monster--half earthworm, half giraffe. Then I realize she’s kind of cute...
FIVE BLUNT TEETH: by Wayan; 2011/2/17, a biting nondream shape-poem
I read The Best American Poetry, 2007, but it just isn't, and I find myself writing a Savage Poetic Response...
FLIGHT: by Denise Levertov; 1945; a dream poem
I meet William Blake! He says "The will is given us that we
may know the delights of surrender." While in my bedroom...
FLOO PORTAL: by Wayan; 2015/12/4, a dreamlet-poem on stepping over lines
I live in a huge half-hotel. The only way into the other half is through a fireplace.
It's forbidden. But one woman steps through the fire--do I dare follow?...
FLOWER DREAMS: by A.D. Winans, c.1975, a pugilistic nightmare-poem
I try to pick a flower in Golden Gate Park. But it fights back--plucks an ear, an eye, my nose.
A half-gardener, half-cop hands me shears. But I turn from the flower at the last minute to cut...
CAUTION: SURREAL VIOLENCE
FLYING CARPET: by Marilyn Stablein; 1968, a dream while visiting Nepal... for six years
In Kathmandu, I'm given a flying carpet--but it skims along
only a few feet up, and ambles slower than I can walk...
FLY & ULTRASOUND: by Wayan, 1987/9/4, a surreal dream on chucking out experts
THAT DAY: I test my hearing range; it turns out to be more dog than human...
DREAM: To banish a teacher & her giant fly, I summon a musical goddess...
FLYING IS TASTELESS: by Miriel; 1985/12/11, a warning dream
I dreamed I learned to fly. But my so-called friends
told me flight is tacky and I should stay grounded...
FLY-PARADISE: by Wayan; 1978/12/15, an automatic-writing poem that worked like an advisory dream
I'm a fly lured to a bright but sealed window. The only way out is to ignore the light
and brave the dark--and only when a door opens. Patience AND boldness...
FOOT!: by Wayan; 1980/11/3; poem based on silly obsessive dreamlets
I dream all night of weird feet: a blue alien holograph of one, a band called Foot, parasails turning into sky-feet...
FOR THE FIRST TIME: by Jack Kerouac, Nov? 1954, a lucid dream of escaping a rut
I've climbed a cliff and cower on the brink; but for for the first time I need not
fall or retrace my dangerous path down. I know I'm dreaming, and wake...
FOR WORLD DREAM BANKERS: by Patagia; 2007/9/21, a praise-poem for dreamers
Dreamwork takes discipline, but writing and painting dreams for others takes even more: courage!
FORGET THE FLEURS DU MAL: by Wayan; 1983/1/1?, a poem on nightmares.
In the richest regions of the sea, dead stuff wells up to meet the light. Do we have similar zones?
THE FOUNT OF CANADIAN WISDOM: by Wayan; 1982/11/17; a dream-poem on miracles. Stupid miracles.
A Jungian figure dispenses Wisdom. Overwhelmed, annoyed, I try to shut him up
by manifesting money out of nowhere. But nothing shuts up the Fount of...
FOUR OF TEN: by Wayan; 2021/4/3, four examples from ten dreams in one night
Books are clothes, and always were. A potato makes me lie, and everyone gets it but me.
Sex in a crowd disarms the Mom Squad! And a Mystic Autistic's soul explores my room...
CAUTION: PUBLIC SEX? PROBABLY.
FOUR PERCEPTUAL SCREENS: by Wayan; 2018/1/24, a dream urging me to drop some armor--but not all
I dream my Doors of Perception have four layered screens to keep out mosquitoes, when one is plenty...
FOX COUPLE: by Wayan, 1990/2/15; poem of a warning dream
I meet a tall bipedal talking fox. He has a human house. And a pet vixen--on a leash. But
she talks too! Tells me he mounts her--yet treats her like a pet. She's never come yet.
But she stays! Still, I'm as dysfunctional as either of them--if not worse...
CAUTION: SEX TALK
FOX-MOTHER: by Wayan; 2008/8/12, a dream poem; Dreamverse #2.
The goddess of the Cult of Clutter catches a little thief, and tastes her to see if she’s worthy...
FOX ON THE TRAIN: by Wayan; 2015/1/9, an advisory dream painted & poemed
I'm a guard on a train crossing the desert who falls in love with a refugee fox-girl,
despite heavy specist peer-pressure and the archaic Railway Code...
CAUTION: NUDE FOX
(A DREAM OF) FRANCES SPEEDWELL: by Robert Graves; 1971?, a dream-poem
Decades ago, I was too shy to talk to Frances. Now I'm going upstairs with a girl who looks like her but...
FREEBIRD TOWER: by Wayan; 1975/1/10, a rebellious flying dream
I was a bird-girl, the pet of some rich, royal humans. I summoned
a storm of rebel birds, flooding the moat and driving out our owners...
CAUTION: BIRDGIRL NUDITY
FREUD WAS SOME WRONG ABOUT DREAMS, and THE AUTUMN BREEZE: by John Berryman; ca. 1967.
After a year of intense dreamwork, Berryman rejects Freud and accepts open-ended dreaming, and writes Dream Songs...
CAUTION: SIXTIES STONER REBELLING AGAINST SPELLING... and grammar... and punctuation...
FRISCO GONE: by Catshall; c. 2014/10/23, a nondream haiku on a flooded city
old Frisco gone, high-rise condos obscure the view: hives for techie...
FROG: by Wayan; 120K, 2000/4/19, a narrative digital picture-poem
I was single and tired of kissing frogs. Then I realized--I AM one. Or worse: a pretentious polliwog...
FROGWOMAN MARCH: by Wayan; 2000/11/26, poem of a surreal but almost plausible dream.
Two protesters, under the weight of full scuba gear and flippers, waddle toward City
Hall--the first steps of a transcontinental march. Or at least transcontinental waddle...
FROM THE BOOK OF TIME: by Mary Oliver; c.1998, a poem of a transformation-dream
The white horse, Earth, ambles on between the stars, and then unfolds into a swan...
FROM THE HORSE'S MOUTH: by Roswila, August 2002; a dream-poem illustrating dream reentry
My horse and I dove into a lagoon and sought buried treasure on the sea-floor. What are we really after?
F*CK CALIFORNIA!: by Wayan; 2004/10/15, a surreal, embarrassing dream
I'm trying to hump the entire State of California. In public,
too. What brought THIS on? Well, actually, I know...
CAUTION: OBSCENE SITUATION--AND TITLE. OOPS, TOO LATE.
GEEK SHORTAGE: by Wayan; 1990/2/12. Epic primitive digital painting on body image
A mural on how I became a dancer--the day I lost my old
body-image, failed to recognize myself in the mirror...
GEOMETRY OF DAWN: by Bruce Kawin, c.1983, a sexy metaphysical dream?
My anima sends me on peculiar journeys--smoke rings, islands, conversations with a stone--
but at last it's just us. She has something more she wants to teach me. On that bed...
CAUTION: ASTRAL COME-ON
GEORGE AND WILMA: by Wayan, 2011/10/25, an animation-mashup dream done as a poem
George Jetson is married to Wilma Flintstone--though they're both big cats.
When George comes home high on mushrooms, he doubts what's on his bed...
CAUTION: CARTOON ADULTERY
THE GEYSER: by Wayan; 2014/3/22, a mock Dickinson poem on a dream telling us what to be
I dream my sister has an epiphany--we should relax, blur our boundaries, and just be
sloppy old Geysers of Good. Surprisingly, my financier mentor agrees...
CAUTION: DECLARES CAPITALISM OBSOLETE
THE GHOST OF CREATIVE CATASTROPHE: by Wayan; 2020/3/25, a dream of Covid as... playful?
A whimsical spook causes a chain of crashes--a pedestrian dodges an elephant, swerving a car
that shoves a cyclist into a luggage-wrangler whose rolling suitcase panics a dog who runs into...
GIANT'S HANDS: by Wayan; dreamed 1981/12/23, a split-consciousness nightmare
I was a giant carefully & guiltlessly flattening San Francisco--just following orders
to recycle it! Killing how many? While my mind inside the giant's mind was appalled...
THE GIANTESS OF THVERA: by Viga-Glum Eijolfsson; early 940s?, a very public clairvoyant dream.
Viga-Glum dreamt a giantess came to visit. "She is the spirit-guide of my grandfather in Norway. He is dead...
GIRAFFE MISSION, or, THE 17TH FOOT: by Wayan, 2017/1/30, a Seussy dreampoem on breadth of view
I was in the Mission with friends. A giraffe saw me as narrowminded, and lifted me up
to show me HIS viewpoint. No insights--till we topped the roofline...
GIRL IN THE WATER: by Wayan, 2000/10/7, twin dreams on... dreamwork?
In a California with no Gold Rush, wild deer carry a girl over the San Fernando hills to a secret dream-pool...
Then in a Japantown hotel lobby, that girl floats meditating in a huge aquarium, as local gossips lie about her...
GIRL INTO HERON: by Wayan, 2017/11/7, a dream-poem of an uncertain choice
Four thugs stalk a gawky girl through the Everglades. She treads on a black stone and...
becomes a blue heron! Her stalkers vanish--did they become birds too? Should I step up?
GISLI THE OUTLAW: by Gisli the Outlaw of Iceland; 966-973, a series of at least ten life-saving dreams.
Gisli had two spirit-wives who told him in dreams how to evade the bounty-hunters after him... for 13 years!
GOD DRESSED YE, MARE: by Wayan; Christmas carol misheard 1968/12/25, dreamt I sang 1984/9/16, & drew 2008/6/28.
At 15 I misheard God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen and liked my version better. "Lit muffin, rude Esmé"...
GOD OF THE GULF: by Wayan; 2021/3/3, a dream warning piety has hazards
I'm in the Gulf of Mexico watching the Creator of North America place mountains, rivers
and ancestors just where they belong. I wake knowing this pious, static view is immoral...
CAUTION: CRITIQUES TRADITIONALISM
GODEVILLE: by Wayan; 2013/9/1, a nightmare of that Old-Time Religion
I'm at a vaudeville for gods. Cthulhu the squid-god nearly tramples me--and then gets horny...
CAUTION: GROSS GOD, GROSS GOO
GOLD EGG: by James Russell Lowell: 1850s? a dream-poem
I dreamt a couple toss out a shabby old hen. But it lays golden eggs! She becomes an eagle and carries me off to...
THE GOLDENE BOOK OF VENUS: by Anna Kingsford; 1881/3/15-16, a poem read in two dreams
Poem from a book on how love can save lives & souls, read in two dreams of a Renaissance astrologer's library...
A GOTHIC TALE: by Roswila; 2000/4/7, a dream-poem
Nightwalkers lured our empath away. We come to their castle to rescue her.
But she's pregnant with magic. Will she come or stay?
GRANDMA LILY: by Wayan; 2023/6/18, a dream on... dream interpretation?
I wake in a suburb with Dire Wolves next door. I'm told an herb will appease them.
But the local herbal expert's a regal talking lily--and can I speak plant-language?
GRAVE: by Wayan; 1999, a poem of everyday life, if this is your everyday life.
So I looked out my window and saw this guy burying a tiny robed woman in a trench in the street...
GROTTO OF BREASTS: by Gary Snyder, 1965/7/3, a bizarre High Sierra dream
In Europe, I enter a cave-shrine. Rock walls with... breasts! I suck one. It gives milk. A plaque says...
CAUTION: WEIRD
GURU IN BLUE: by Wayan, 1990/5/10, a dream-poem of BEING a nightmare
I want to meet my friends' spiritual teacher, but he cowers, runs from me in horror.
I chase him yelling "BOO!" Why am I acting as his nightmare? I don't know...
HALF-ELF: by Wayan; 1996/2/14, a predictive dream fable.
A biracial girl doubts her own heritage; a human friend has to confirm the obvious. So what am I blind to?
HALF'S HARD: by Wayan; 2014/11/24, a frustration dream hiding a diagnosis and prescription
Night. Broken metal sculptures, a welder too horny to weld safely, and a steel panther longing to be whole and loved...
CAUTION: KINKY SCULPTUROPHILIA
HAMM: by Wayan; 2008/9/26, a dream poem; Dreamverse #31
A lecturer tries to help the homeless founder of Hamm's Beer, robbed by bankers. But the talk may harm more than help...
THE HAUNTED CODE: by Wayan; 2017/6/16, a warning dream about denying history
A mail-order warehouse in Kansas sends ghost-infected software out, causing mayhem.
But less than when Kansas exported the killer flu 100 years ago...
CAUTION: DISSES KANSAS & CAPITALISM, FOR GOOD HISTORICAL REASONS
HE SAW: by Jeffery Beam; c.1983, a nightmare with three selves
I, sleeping me, watch dream-me find a third me who saw too much
in the kitchen. Unconscious or dead? I just don't know...
THE HEAD FACTORY: by Wayan; 2014/8/24, a dream-poem on changing your mind
I toured the factory where they make the spare heads you put on and
take off to change your mind. Nothing creepy about it, nothing at all...
HELL CAFE: by Wayan; 2009/10/21, a dream poem w/sketch; Dreamverse #62
A Buddhist scroll shows me Hell Cafe, where diners become entrees. But I read the scroll
backwards! You can escape Hell just by walking out, against the traffic flow...
CAUTION: CANNIBAL SOULS
HELL IS HEAVEN!: by John Keats; 1819, a happy scandalous dream
I dreamt I was in the outermost circle of Dante's Hell, among condemned lovers, floating forever, in love, in bliss...
HER GESTURED ROUTE: by Wayan; 1984/6/16, a dream poem.
How's it feel to be an anima off the job? Is it lonely, when no one even believes you're a real person?
HER LOVELY AWKWARD SYNTH, by Wayan, 2009/3/9; a dream-poem, Dreamverse #43
A musical prodigy has a gorgeous, unplayable keyboard.
But serious creativity takes a dull, regular, ergonomic instrument...
THE HERONS' TANK: by Wayan, 2020/11/12, a sonnet telling an astral-plane dreamlet
I climb a small-town water tower. The tank holds a reedy marsh where sentient herons live! They say
the Heartland below them is a nest reserved for greedy, screechy, flightless, half-grown souls like us...
CAUTION: DISSES SMALL-TOWN VALUES
HIJACK! The Christmas Special: by Wayan; 2012/4/13, a trapped-in-bad-TV dream.
I'm stuck on a jet full of cartoons. We get hijacked by a kid who just wants
pilot practice, and then a talking cactus counter-hijacks us...
CAUTION: THE F-WORD
HITLER'S ROOST: by Wayan; 1983/2/14, a fierce dream-poem hinting at a dirty secret later bared
I built a Bavarian treehouse with a great view, hoping Hitler'd confiscate it.
He did! Now he's exposed to Allied spy planes--and assassination...
CAUTION: CHILD-MOLESTING THERAPIST
HOBBIT ERUPTIONS: by Wayan, 1990/12/31, a counterfictional dream poem
I contemplate Bilbo taunting Smaug, then Frodo, Sam and Gollum triggering Mt Doom to erupt,
but next I "remember" other fiery catastrophes and "realize" hobbits are always causing...
HOGAMUS HIGAMUS: by Mrs Amos Pinchot, or Claire MacMurray? Nov. 1939, a disavowed dream-poem.
She dreamed she'd written a wise and beautiful poem. Half asleep she scribbled it down. Awake, she found...
CAUTION: HOGGEREL
THE HOLLOW HILL (PART 6): by Kathleen Raine, 1940; a dream elegy to a mentor
In Ireland, in Yeats's stone tower, he leads me up the spiral stair toward a thyme-scented portal...
HOLY ZEN MONK: by Wayan; 1978/4/24, a dream of suicide as political protest
I'm a Zen monk riddled with holes from a weird disease the government denies
is real. So as a protest, I stand naked atop a wall and let the air-sharks take me...
CAUTION: SURREAL SUICIDE
HORSES OF THE AQUARIUS: by Wayan, recurring dream 1956-8, poem '72/6/24, art 82/12/11
My earliest memory's a recurring dream: I'm a wild horse near Shiprock, recurrently dreaming
that I'm a human child! The two lives alternated for years, each a dream to the other...
HOT-AIR FEMINISM: by Wayan; 2019/1/3; a harsh political dream
The latest MeToo meme is to leave a door open at night with a heater on, so a hot-air plume marks
a refuge for women in danger--or, of course, burglars! So I stalk our neighborhood locking doors...
CAUTION: DECRIES HOT-AIR NAÏVETÉ
HOW TO SURVIVE NUCLEAR WAR: by Maxine Kumin; early 1980s, a dream poem.
In Japan, sick in bed, reading a book on radiation sickness, I dream of a restorative ritual for trees...
CAUTION: GRUESOME
HOWL: by Wayan; June 1983, a picture-poem on a daydream of deep time
Surely the dinosaurs were as vocal as their little cousins, the birds.
But bass to the birds' soprano! So when dinos sang to the moon...
I DIDN’T DIVE IN: by Herbert Read; before 1938, a dream-poem experiment.
I watched her dive into the lake... and fail to come up. Her golden cloak
floated on the water. I hesitated just a moment, and...
I DREAM OF DERIVERRANS: by Wayan; 1982/11/16, a Joycean dream of surrender.
I must rescue Ann Soforth from righteous rapists, then Paul McCartney from a musical curse...
CAUTION: ABUSED CHILD, JOYCEAN LANGUAGE
ICEBERG WRANGLERS: by Wayan; 2015/8/4, an otherworldly dream-poem
Captain Ahab's part-whale students are better ice wranglers than I'll ever be--
wrestling icebergs of possibility round to their best outcomes, in this pea-soup sea...
ILLUSION: by Georges Perec; December 1968, a prose-poem of a nested false-waking dream. Dream #4
I am dreaming. She's beside me. I tell myself I'm dreaming. I wake. She really is beside me. Delirious joy. I embrace her. I wake...
IN MY DARKEST HOUR: by Arlo Guthrie; 1967, a song heard in a dream.
A man in a castle plots against his enemies, while his rebel-daughter meets her lover outside...
IN PRAISE OF DREAMS: by Wislawa Szymborska; c. 1992, a paean to why dreamwork's fun
Yes, dreamwork can be heavy, but remember all you can do in dreams...
IN THE CAMP (THE NAKED POEM): by Karl Patten; 1972/10/27; a death-camp poem dictated in a dream
Fat Max eats with Heinrich the guard on Tuesdays. He talks too much. You and I are hungry. Tonight...
The poem appeared in the dream as it appears on the page--words, even punctuation...
CAUTION: DEATH CAMP, DEATH PLOT
THE INCEST DREAM: by Maxine Kumin; 1979? a dream-poem
As my brother was dying, I had a series of vivid premonitory dreams about him. But I was unprepared for...
INCEST IMPROV: by Wayan; 2005/6/13, a flying-dream poem, Dreamverse #21
Improv-dancing with my sister, I get turned on. But then a repressed Asian girl joins our dance, and...
CAUTION: INCEST MENTIONED. OOPS, TOO LATE.
INCREMENTAL HEAVENS: by Wayan; 2016/9/5, a reincarnation-frustration dream, baffling then. Not now.
I keep getting reincarnated in dull heavens where all is blocked by know-nothings. After the 2016 election...
CAUTION: CAUSTIC
INDUSTRY'S SHORE: by Wayan; 2008/9/24, a dream poem; Dreamverse #30
In the hills above a polluted shore, I find hidden valleys with huge rare trees, and realize it's my choice...
INTERNAL SCROLL: by Carolee Schneemann, 1975, an embarrassing dream acted out on stage
I dreamed I was pulling a scroll out of my vagina and reading it like a tickertape. I was
reluctant to perform the dream--I knew I'd get into trouble!--but I felt compelled...
CAUTION: NUDITY
THE INVESTOR DREAMS A WOLF: by Wayan; 1983/10/30, a dream poem.
My dream characters aged and tamed until they sit in a genteel Victorian flat. Then a wolf rappels in...
INVOKE THE ANIMAL POWERS (or was it PROVOKE?): by Wayan; 2008/9/9, a dream-poem, Dreamverse #24
A children's recital of "Where the Wild Things Are" turns into a riot-orgy. And it feels... political?
CAUTION: WILD THING ORGY
IRISES: by Frederic Mistral; 1834, a four-year-old's ecstatic dream
That day Frederic, craving irises, fell in the water three times. At night he swam through an iris paradise...
IS A SUN: by Wayan; 1992/2/20, nondream picture-poem.
Poem by Emily Dickinson on fighting depression, which I get when my neuroallergies are severe...
JAMES MERRILL REMEMBERED: by Rachel Hadas; around May 1995; two dream-poems
Soon after my friend and mentor James Merrill died, I had recurring, elusive dreams about him...
JELLY REBELLION: by Wayan; 2008/8/19, a poem of a diagnostic dream, Dreamverse #9
I interview my own metabolism. Trouble in Cellville! I've got strikers and usurpers. But at least no invaders...
JETCATS: by Wayan; 1990/5/24, a surreal dream hiding a message about others
Our black cat Purr and our new blonde kitten fly around as if jet-propelled
dive-bombing the roof. Alarming, but their cat-reactions aren't like mine--
fast as a test pilot! For me it'd be suicide; for them, just playing...
JOE COOL IN FINANCIAL HELL: by Wayan; 2009/6/15; Dreamverse #46
When the school district goes bankrupt, students flee creditors into a hell-cave.
But Joe Cool can skateboard even on lava in the Pit...
JOURNEY IX: by Gary Snyder, 1970 or before, a dream of ascending through death
Ko said "Now we have come to where we die." I thought it looked just like the land we'd been traveling,
and couldn't see why we should have to die. Ko grabbed me and pulled me over the cliff...
CAUTION: DYING IN DREAM


See also Dream poems K-Z

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