NIGHT TERRORS (photomorph) & NIGHT CREATURES (free verse dream poem) by Roswila

NIGHT CREATURES

sitting on the bathroom throne
in the wee hours of the night,
drowsy and vaguely enjoying
wool gathering as I wait ...

yikes! what's this I spot from
the corner of my sleep-gritty eye,
clambering over the tiled sill
of my shower?

no creature I've ever seen! and
though it resembles a large ground
hog, I somehow know it's not of this
earth nor even from a different plane
of existence

I succeed in scaring it back
into the shower (out of sight out
of mind) by stomping as heavily as I
can with one of my feet, what a relief !

as I start to go back to muzzy musing
while I sit, it shoots straight back out
of the stall shower, its scrabbling
echoing in the small bathroom as it
hurtles toward me like a small brown
bowling ball

I begin stomping first one foot and then
the other in a poor imitation of pile
drivers, even as I reach back for a
broom I keep propped against the wall
by the toilet tank

but I know all of this will avail me of
exactly nothing, and I let out a short,
sharp yell that I fight to shape into an
understandable "HELP!" knowing that
this will lift me out of the belly of this
rare night creature: a nightmare


[free verse poem on a dream of 2-5-18. Becoming aware I'm having a nightmare and actually yelling out knowing it will wake me up, is something I have had to do maybe only a half dozen times in my life as I rarely have nightmares. Or rather, dreams that I call nightmares. Painful or scary is not enough for me to label a dream as such. It has to have a totally intolerable quality. And it's that quality that leads me to yell to wake myself up, subsequently thinking of it as a nightmare. (Yes, in order to know I need to wake myself up indicates I am vaguely lucid, as I know I'm dreaming by that point in the dream.) But why I did I have this nightmare, my first in years? Not sure. But I have been dieting and my body is beginning to change further. I'm also involved in what is, for me, a rather unusual sort of relationship. And at the time of the dream, I was at the end of the second day in which I had such terrible knee pain I had to use my walker to get anywhere (I usually only use it on long walks, or to haul heavy things). I'll only add that my intuition says that this is not a warning dream, but an emotionally based one (with probable input from a physical healing crisis due to the weight loss process). And that it's one of those dreams that I'll have to go to the Tarot to really explore. Photomorph "Night Terrors" (12-30-17 009v12a) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

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until next time, keep dreaming,

[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post); TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.