My eyes slowly shut.
Tumble down a flight of stairs –
Revealing dream world.
By Aeronwy Dafies
Comings
By Harris Coverley
Lift me high above my bed
Let my toes drag across the under-sheet
Off and down along the floor
And out the window into the unpitying night air
I’ll dance with ghosts and drunks and dog-walkers
Stumbling in a trance as you try to lift me higher
Underneath my armpits, my pants, you hoist further
And drowsy in stance I fly through the pale hum of the mist
You kiss me firmly with blue lips
And I giggle boyishly, sluggish, violated, chilled
But now I have to go home and sleep for real
For you must know the day is darker than the night
Originally published in The Sirens Call, issue 45
Dream Cat
By DJ Tyrer
Down the Seven-Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber
Each one effecting a subtle change
Ears reshape, twitch, nails grow to claws
Whiskers sprout, eyes transform
Cumulative transformation
So that, by the final step, a majestic cat
Steps forth into the Enchanted Wood and Lands of Dream
Prowling between ancient gnarled boles
In search of sleepy town of Ulthar
Where felines rule, luxuriate
The perfect form for a perfect dream
Dream
By Bruce-Grove
..and dream of hollow earth,
night upon night – wordless and empty.
..and dream of hollow earth,
the faces all the same – looped endlessly.
..and dream of hollow earth,
same place same story – forever repeated.
..and dream of hollow earth,
no hope as such – just illusory experience.
..and dream of hollow earth,
always the rebel struggle – bloodless and slow.
..and dream of hollow earth,
memories again, somnambulist thought.
..and dream of hollow earth,
peace – shambolic and indolent.
..and dream of hollow earth,
salvation/damnation – indifference.
..and dream of hollow earth,
expedient and raw – a real wild ride.
Dream of hollow earth again,
endless and sacred beyond measure.
Blue skies and birds in flight –
they keep me sane.
Within a Dream
By Harris Coverley
I lay myself down in the Vale of Sleep, under a quiet purple moon minding its own business, amongst hills carved from clouds of jade, and with a gentle wind of sweet smoke whispering across the sacred land. But with the land so light, my eyelids will not yield to any sense of gravity, so, as I lounge like a snake, I spy over the hump of the hills the quick coming of a woman in a ragged blue dress with snow white skin and twisted locks of maroon. She stops and leans over me with a bizarre malice, her curled, angry lips held together with toothpicks. I stretch up my right hand and pull them out, one by one, to let her throat bellow forth, from some distant continent, the sound of an alarm clock.
Endless Visions
By Mark Hudson
I look out my window and I can see,
a whole wide world of fantasy.
Below is a world of make believe,
coming to me on All-Hallows Eve.
It’s like something out of a book,
I think I’ll go and take a look.
On with my coat, and down below,
I enter the purgatory that I bestow.
Here is a unicorn that is on fire,
it’s getting hot. I begin to perspire.
Is the land, the lake of brimstone?
I turn around, and start to groan.
Here I look at a carnival clown,
he is not happy, he wears a frown.
Smoke is coming out of his costume,
I want to go back and return to my room.
Then I’m in a waiting room in a hospital,
no! This couldn’t be possible.
A doctor appeared with a big grin,
“Welcome! We’ve also got your kin!”
I enter and there is a surgery table,
this is starting to become a deadly fable.
They cut from me the umbilical cord,
and they cut it off with a giant sword.
Next thing you know I’m fighting Isis,
I got a sword, and I got arthritis.
Suddenly, a sword plunges me in the chest,
I’m at my funeral, laid to rest.
I wake up in my arm chair, wide awake,
I didn’t die, for heaven’s sake!
I will never take my life for granted again,
and no, this wasn’t written in an opium den.
It was written with a little brain power,
I wrote it in probably less than an hour.
The pen is mightier than the sword,
I didn’t just write it because I was bored
No More Adventures
By Bruce-Grove
Sangre and atropine
course through the rhythms
of my dreams –
No more adventures.
Enlightened and passionate
I cross the Styx nightly
and fall, limp and prostrate,
at her feet –
No more adventures.
Saline on my tongue
and cold breeze in my hair
a storm approaches –
No more adventures.
View From Atlantis 