Dreams (01)
I've been having some crazy dreams during the pandemic. These are just some of them:
TOM CRUISE WAS A VAMPIRE
Last night I dreamed
That Tom Cruise was a vampire
And I was his best mate.
He was trying to figure out
Who was causing all the deadly landslides.
He suspected the journalist,
Who suspected him back.
And someone tried to kill him
With a silver rifle, but I saved his life.
A woman tried (and failed) to kill him
With fake price tags on the Swedish fish.
“He’s a vampire!” she screamed.
“We know,” said the woman
At the sweet shop checkout.
“He told me yesterday. He’s very open about it.”
ANOTHER DREAM OF THE FAMOUS UNDEAD
Last night I had another dream
Of the famous undead.
“Well,” she said. “If she was truly dedicated,
She wouldn’t let being dead
Stop her from her charity work.”
THE ROYAL FAMILY
Last night I dreamed
That the queen was coming
On the Tube
And the station was quite full
Of royalists who wanted
To see.
I wasn’t interested,
But I did chat to Megan Markle
Who was hobbling,
Having hurt her ankle,
But still wearing high heeled shoes
As she limped hurriedly
Away from them all.
GOODBYE
Last night I dreamed
That I got to go home,
Saw my mother and father both,
Got to say goodbye.
So this wasn’t real life then.
NO PARTY HERE
Last night I dreamed
That they turned up at my house
With fake ID
Wanting to know where the party was.
But I couldn’t tell them.
I was too busy vacuuming
And trying to stop the Kardashians
From feeding my dog
Green smoothies
And yelling at the motorcyclist
For treading mud all over the carpet
With his heavy boots.
PATRICK SWAYZE
Last night I dreamed that I solved the crime
And they were arrested, but then killed in jail
Because they knew too much.
Now I too had to go to jail,
Because I was the one found them out
And so was responsible for their deaths.
But I worked out that it was the warden
Who killed them, to hide his own embezzlement
from the mob and so I was free and safe
While he sobbed they would kill him.
Also Patrick Swayze was in this one,
Which was nice, though it wasn’t a speaking part.
He was young and we all had ‘80s hairstyles,
Feathered and lacquered into place.
SHIT SHOW
Last night I dreamed
That I had to go to the show
But it was a shit-show -
People running around
An enormous building
Wearing their best clothes
And I was completely lost and alone.
I should have stayed at home
And eaten jam on buttered toast.
TIME TRAVELLER
Last night I dreamed
That I could travel through time,
But I ended up when I shouldn’t be,
So the time travel police came after me.
SECRET
Last night I dreamed
That he was dead
But that I hid it from you
For as long as I could.
UNDERCOVER SPY
Last night I dreamed
That I was an undercover spy
Whose backup didn’t turn up on time,
So I had to do some fancy driving
To get out of there alive.
Also, my boss kept sending me
Coded messages through copper coins,
Which really annoyed me.
A DREAM OF A GIANT SHIP
Well - in this one
all the land was gone,
so the human race
lived on a giant ship
floating on the vast ocean,
except for the conman
who escaped to Mars
from where he’d try to destroy us all
so he that he could keep
the prize money that he stole.
GOING HOME
Last night I dreamed
I’d returned to my childhood Island home,
Where it was dark and wet and full of bigotry.
I tried to argue against the haters,
But none of them would listen to me -
Not even the children.
And the ground was crumbling beneath my feet
So I, and everyone else who was despised,
Flew away on our broomsticks.
FAX MACHINE CHEESE
Last night I dreamed
That a ten year old learned
How to send cheese by fax machine.
It wasn’t as good as the real thing,
But we all agreed
She had a bright future.
SPACE TOURISTS
Last night I dreamed
That a tech genius jumped and died.
I felt sorry for his baby, who survived
To grow up unusual and despised
In a world gone mad and fallen on hard times -
But for the space tourists,
Who crowed with delight.
For they were only along for the ride.
JAMIE LEE CURTIS
Last night I dreamed
That I’d invented a new computer screen
That could be bent and stretched
Into any shape at all -
A polyhedron or a ball.
But Jamie Lee Curtis was not impressed -
She couldn’t see the point at all -
So she commanded that I leave
And take my stretchy screen away with me.
DUMBO
Last night I had so many dreams,
Bursts of surrealism
That made no sense
With a supporting cast of villains -
And Dumbo, for some reason.
A NIGHTMARE WITH REESE WITHERSPOON
Someone is trying to kill me.
Someone is trying to kill me.
Someone is trying to kill me
And I might not last the night.
They come at me in different forms
And at different times:
The hawk with the sharp beak
And the accusing eyes;
The nurse with the strangely
Metallic smile.
And even Reese Witherspoon
Can’t save me tonight.
Someone is trying to kill me.
Someone is trying to kill me -
A heavy shape smothers me
And I cry out for light:
“I’m frightened! I’m frightened!” -
And then it’s all right.
You’re tucked tightly against my side
And I am safe for the rest of the night.
SO MANY BAD DREAMS IN ONE NIGHT
It was a long, complicated dream
Full of plot twists and surrealist turns
As the hated turned on the haters
In a vicious cycle of revenge for revenge.
No one was a hero, we all deserved to die.
I kept waking up and falling back to sleep
Into the same twisting, turning dreams
And I kept thinking we would win -
But the enemy kept resurfacing.
Sometimes, he looked like George Clooney
Who checked my passport at the gate
Where I boarded the plane that flew
Into the 3D blueprint of a virtual building
That was a diagram of my past
And all that happened there.
MEREDITH GREY
Last night I dreamed
That Meredith Grey
Was eating Chinese take-away
Whilst getting lost in the strange one-way
Systems of these London streets,
From which she could not escape.
ROSES
In my dream, I stole his roses
because he was dead
and would not miss them
and I was a god
who did not understand
the mortal need to grieve.
AMISH
I dreamed of beaches
And of people I’d not seen in awhile
(None of whom I was pleased to see.)
They were queuing outside
An Amish restaurant
That was the cool place to be.
GODS AGAIN
Last night I dreamed of gods again.
They gathered around me and then
They treated my like a puppy,
Playing with me before deciding
Where I should be sent.
Then the devil came to micromanage me
And I had to pretend that all was well,
Or he’d have taken me to corporate hell.
And my friend just found out she was adopted
And responded by playing the violin, badly
(She was in the habit of being a drama queen).
The devil said I should substitute her and I agreed
Whilst secretly plotting to keep her -
Though at least now she knew the reason
For her disability.
PRETTY IN PINK
This was a dream in which Molly Ringwald
Made her acting come-back with Andrew McCarthy
And they were both teenagers, falling in love again.
They worked in a Blockbusters and they courted
By watching Pretty in Pink on repeat.
WHAT THE HELL?
Well, I thought, as I pushed her soul
out of her body.
She should have held onto it better.
SCARLETT'S DINOSAUR
Last night I dreamed that I bought Scarlett a dinosaur -
A real one - and you kept it in your pond.
Do you even have a pond?
You were scared of it, but Scarlett loved it,
Though it was very ugly.
You were mad at me, but were too nice to say so.
MAX
Last night I dreamed the devil came back
As a golden cocker spaniel called Max.
We thought he was dead, but he revived
And though I loved him dearly
My neighbours were terrified.
DANCING IN THE MUSEUM
Last night I dreamed
That all the planes
Were full of passengers.
Meanwhile, we danced
In an empty museum.
There were no visitors
And no exhibits,
Only the two of us.
HAVE YOU?
Have you noticed how Wooster
Only talks to me in my dreams,
Never in real life?
GREY'S ANATOMY
It was the early years
And the interns were all staying
In a boarding school dorm.
Someone scribbled hate-filled graffiti
On the bathroom wall
But when she was caught
She cried that she was misunderstood.
WOOSTER
Last night I dreamed that there were
Cute puppies playing everywhere.
I called and called for Wooster
But he never appeared.
It was a nightmare.
THIS ONE WAS A BIT WEIRD
In a world in which men were women
And women were men
(this made more sense in my dream)
I was asleep when they all
Came trooping in
And my mentor smiled at me.
She would not let me sleep,
I had to learn my weaknesses first.
But I only wanted to find my love
And protect him from the mean girls.
THE MOBSTER
I dreamed I was a bodyguard
For a mobster who died.
After his funeral I slept with his wife
And only then did she realise
That I was the one who’d killed him.
THE MOBSTER'S GIRLFRIEND
This time I wasn’t the bodyguard
Who’d betrayed his mobster boss
(Though I dreamed this the same night).
Instead I was a PI, tailing him as he met
With the mobster’s girlfriend
On a crowded train platform.
She explained that she mourned
The mobster so much
That she’d sold her yacht
And all the booze on it.
“That’s one way to quit drinking,”
The bodyguard said.
A NATURAL DISASTER
I was a young teenage girl
And the only survivor
Of a natural disaster
That had claimed the lives
Of all my classmates.
I don’t know what the disaster
Might have been, but I was a refugee
And as my boat sailed away
It sounded its horn once for each year
That each girl who died had lived.