Sweven

Skyshake
Love old lyrics. Dance the storm. Learn to suffer thunderous things. When clouds collapse and sun spears shine, reclaim the world and kiss the sky. "See the lights!" she cries. Above golden hour and scraps of grey slither rainbows of northern serpent rays. "How do you say it, in your way? They shake the sky?" She asks. I answer. We both welcome the heavenly end.

I Love You
Can't comprehend the whispers. The words should be warm like a burst of sun some snow blown day. There is only a chill. He sings again, again again but still there is only chill. Finally he screams, "I love you, idiot!" I spread a mile wide moron smile, spin, and walk away. There is more warmth to be found in the wind on a winter, new moon night.

Untie-able
Floppy shoes. Sloppy feet. Can not get anywhere. Walkers and scurry-ers surge around the boulder I become. Attempt to tighten laces but they are slippery, shifty things refusing to be knotted.

Twenty Third

Dream Webs

Wake.

World is dark drenched. Not a spark of light to guide. Leaden limbs slog. Twitch. Struggle. Surrender. A familiarity flutters, a swell of ethereal moths. Is this a dream? Or the dream before a dream? Slip sideways through webs of space...

"Dreaming... "

Allow the slip. Embrace the fall. Darkness parts. Land, lucid, in the lightless hall of my dream spun home.

"Dreaming," I announce to all. Wave a hand gently through the webs of the wall. Push through. Through. Through. Fall.

Wake.

22nd

Evergreen Girl
She is stuck in an evergreen. The tree morphs and bends, artfully evades helping hands that reach for her. "How did you get up there?" I call. "I don't know," she answers and then reality checks. Wide eyes. Wiley grin. She leaps from the crown and soars off on the wind. The rest of us lurch off upon our non lucid feet.

Giraffes Headed
From a naked lower human half sprouts two giraffe necks and heads. It staggers about. We do nothing but watch the wobbling monstrosity. There is a twisted beauty to the being but my camera is not here to capture it.

Hunting Hunters
One slumbers, sprawled across my couch. The other lumbers, rummaging my house. They are hiding. An affection grows, though I barely know these two intrusions. In the blink of the eye they are gone. I had wished to tag along this time. But then, were they not hunting me just the other day? Now, it seems, has come my hunting day.

Winchesters
With new moon eyes, scarlet grins, relentless sins, Winchesters run rabid. Finally, feet refuse to flee. Stand. Wait. Brace my soul for unholy fate. But they two tremble like a mirage. "You aren't even real," I dare. Send them off in a dust-devil dance. Now stride off to seek survivors.

Hungering
Insatiably she hungers for his touch, embrace, and taste. When he is away she licks, nibbles, and suckles on what rigid shapes she finds. It is both comical and concerning. "I'm not a nympho," she asserts, "Or maybe I am but only for him." She wishes it were otherwise. She wants back her unwedded world. He returns and her exclusive wants become unfurled.

Screamers
The world is awash in glitz and glimmer. Steel and concrete shine. Mirrored anthills rise. Cords and cables like chrome coated webs crisscross dawning skies. Lavish lords and luxurious ladies sashay through pristine ways And all is beautiful but for the beams and the voices. Everything and everyone screams... screams... screams.

Blanket Maker
An army marches. It is the color of dusty dollar bills uncrumpling against a tombstone sky. We barricade. We weaponize. We camouflage. A tank stampedes our way. Prepare for war. A line of women rises. They dare the tank to crush them down. It lurches forward. The oldest lady, in rippling threads, lays hands upon the rumbling beast. It flattens. Its green fades to copper and white. And as if it were a mere blanket, the elder folds the flattened tank and sets it lovingly aside. In this way she wins the war.

March has been pretty sketchy for dreams. But then i haven't made the proper time or space for them either.
I do need to add my lunar eclipse night dreams.

(pre eclipse)

Lunatics
The world winks black. Souls sense disaster. My lone heart mourns. I will miss this rusty moon. Shade windows. Lock doors. Search shadows on all floors. Calm babies. One sleeps west. One sleeps east. Arm myself with bouquets of blades. They glint out from between fingers. "Look at me. I'm Wolverine," attempt to jest. We are too tense. A movement on the porch. The lunatics are here. "Is someone at the door?" I whisper and slowly slink near.

Sky Strings
A slowly undulating sky is waves of blue and white. I am transfixed and attempt to decipher the shapes made by the shifting strings of shells.


(post eclipse)

Hell Run
Tires slosh and sludge through boggy field. Water stands too thick, too deep. Try to back out but our beast coughs and dies. Others roar and spin. Can not escape the mess and mud. Smoke bellows from rears. Fire flares from fronts. None will help slow with the threatening glow that flickers neath the hood. Snuff out the flame. Abandon the game. There are better hells than these.

Warped Space
We flee into the empty embrace of a new found space. We are frightened. We are free. Rejoice with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a few sock tucked bills. She chooses the largest room as her own. I choose the smallest, heart hoarding hopes of minimalist mornings. Her floor is warped. We measure and make plans for her crooked place. "Look at the windows, we can watch the eclipse from here," I mention then forget what we are fixing. The place becomes a jumble of odd tilts and obtuse angles. Can't even care as I obsess over the coming of the blood moon.

March 1st

Bender
We mean to leap, just for the thrill, from a platform too tall and thin. A meaty man comes to stand at the top with us. The tower bends. Clench arms and legs round warped metal. We near slingshot off as the heavier one falls from the platform. Tower stands. Platform stills. Now comes our time to trust and leap, saved only by a bungee cord. Now, to the next thrill.

Swift Step Out
We are in line, for hours it seems. Step. Step. Step. Wait. This slow torment for a chance to enjoy a concert by Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift? Why am I here? Step out of line. Pass my ticket to a passer-by. Explore the streets of this strange city instead.

Street Steaks
Snow stands high. Sister and I sleigh ride until we shiver. She sparks a fire in a giant pothole mid street. We gather round to warm. Suddenly sister is grilling steaks over the street hole. A Studebaker slows and circles every so often. Keep our eyes sharp as steaks sizzle.

Lake Blanket
Waken to the warmth of sun upon my face and the chill of water about my body. I sleep on the sand. Except for my head, my entire body is covered by a crystal sleek blanket of lake. I am rested, languid, naked. People pass. Some stretch their claws my way. With a pacific hiss remind them that my nakedness is not an invitation. They heed.

Flat Collapse
A wide, flat construction collapses. I see it with my dusty eyes. I feel it with my rusty soul. Far too many died. Try to out run the memory. Everywhere I go it follows me on television, on my phone, on the lips of morbid creatures.

Tri Job
Skittering again through familiar halls. Happy to return, dutifully I perform the tasks of my three jobs. Should be overwhelmed but oddly, I am not. A jumble of patterns smooths the madness.

Collapse
She flips her phone my way, "Look at this!" Upon the screen is a booming crash and broken screams. Turn my face away. "I dreamed that just last night. I'm afraid I'm starting to get precognitive dreams," comes the quietest of confessions. She thinks it's a great, god granted gift. It is not a gift if all such dreams are of future disasters.

Feb 27th

Fires & Mentor
Grass fires crackle closer. Warn cabin owners. "It'll pass. It always does," she sings. Kayji speaks of her mentor and it is realized that some of us still have much to learn.

Two Crows
It leans over a cliff, wispy arms waving in canyon winds. A nest crowns the conifer. Within are sheltered the children of two crows. Kayji, desiring a crow child, climbs the leaning tree. Crow children fall. Kayji falls. Crows dive after. Run to the cliff edge. Call her name. Can't hear her. Can't see her. "Don't worry," says an old woman, "The crows have her. You'll not see her again, I expect." Not a scrap of Kayji is ever found.



Feb 28th

NMF

Tranduil Rescue
From underground we stream, a company of dwarves and me. Past a clot of twisted trunks lies a cube shaped hole in the ground, a trap. Thranduil, king of the woodland realm, sloshes within. Near suffocating in mud he calls for aid. Tauriel rappels to rescue. A look lies between them. It is not for us to decipher. She lifts the king. Dwarves pull him to safety. We clean the sovereign and are celebrated in his realm.

Political Office
My home is new, stories tall, brimming and bright. It is a mini version of a childhood library. Kayji claims the enlightened upper levels. I remain in the main. From nowhere Marem and his father arrive. They search a place to base Marem's political office. They ask K. They are denied. There is but one office on the main floor. Marem and I split it. Our desks nearly fill the room. Despite the squeeze it all works out somehow.

Standing
Concentric rows of vehicles enwrap the house we once called home. The tiny house still standing tall it will not fall despite cracks in cinderblock feet. It hurts our hearts to see the green constantly swept neath blacktop sheen. We should stand too, against the creep, but our feet are not so tough.

Boxes
All smiles and waves, shadow and shades, he drives through rooms of my humble home. His vehicle? A cardboard box. He is the one. Amused by his strange intrusion, attempt to catch and question him. He slips through floors, races on walls, splits and appears on ceilings. He stops, but once, and waits. Ask him to teach me to drive a box between dimensions. His straight lipped smile disheartens me. "I can't. Not until you see that there is no box." He speeds away, still haunting the halls of the box that holds me home.

The end is nigh. Ghosts flutter by pre ravaging the earth and each other. My heart is light. Wade untouched through human streams and near death screams. Long to see it, our hellish end. Sun arms bend, whip, and stretch to embrace us, one and all. Suddenly pulled aside and stuffed under earth. Here we should survive. But with a passion as raw and as rapturous as first time love, ache to see the sky. I escape. Long to see heavenly streams of fire blaze across a blackened sky. It is breathtaking. Beautiful. Sole, step high. Love the light. Reach for shining Armageddon arms sent to love us to death.

I seem to have misplaced a couple of days worth of dreams. Will add them when they're found.

22nd

Runner
Seary runs away backward. "Come back!" I yell. He laughs and runs. Catch him mid street. He is a young woman. Enraged at having to pursue, I slap her in the face three times. With broken obedience, she follows me to the sidewalk. Witnesses don't admonish my violence.

Basslines
It's Duff from Guns and Roses. Catch him. Walk. Talk. "Have you heard my solo stuff?". "Of course," I lie. He asks if I like the bass from tow or undertow better. Lie again. We carry on a half fake conversation about basslines.

Flatlands Camp
No hills, trees, or other vertical elements except for tents and their people dotting the landscape. A campground of absolute flatness. A boring spot to settle. On the bright side, when it is dark, the starfield will be spectacular. Live for the night.



23rd

Hypnagogic
Grocery aisle made narrow by wire bins
Wall of computer monitors stretches across my field of view
A very tall narrow building, only the width of a room
A limping man with a dog whom he slaps at lightly
A woman's neck compresses, she's a head on shoulders
Someone carries too many grocery bags through a crowd

Art Stock
Stock art supplies in some store. Mybur's children happen through. Give extra supplies to them. They talk about an art show they joined. Luc said he painted a tree. Mys says she painted a sunset. We wish there were more art shows for youth.

Knocking
Midnight knock on a front door. Navigate shadow to answer. No one. Back to bed. Knock on the back door. Navigate again. No one. Then a rain of random knocking, windows, walls, roof, doors. See no one. Call 911. Digits are disorganized. With bat and my longest blade, await. Back door creaks open. Stranger steps in. Slash and stab. He screams. Bash and bludgeon. He falls. His dying words, "It was just a prank." Now wait for whatever will fall.

A Hand
Mybur's children find me again. Steer me to their art. Show me to their mom. She and Dohaw lounge neath an oak. A stone summons me, a petrified, coiled leaf. It softens, uncoils. A strange shape is revealed. Turn it upside down to see a flattened, mummified baby hand, wrist bones exposed. Go to the gallery to notify whoever needs to be notified. They take the hand. They take, too, the the giant ostrich plume I didn't know was mine. Return to oak. People are gone. Sit. Pick through the leaves for further parts.

Feb 17th

Plane Sight
Sky shakes straight above the house. A passenger plane is stuck in space, so low that we can see the face of the pilot pleaing, "Help." Instead we plan to run, fearing the plane will plop onto our roof. Peer outside. Plane has shifted. Still, it's still, nose angled high. Everything will be alright.

New Stars
Low north west horizon holds a gift. There shines a new spattering of stars like an elongated lyra. A new constellation. Research its name. Nothing. Look outside again, the constellations are diamonds and strings. Their names shimmer beneath. 'Wood elf' is the new stand of stars. There is nothing more to be learned.



Feb 18th

Tygen Beam
The world is a warped mess of woe. Caught in a roaring undertow of frothing words and slippery time, I flail. Amidst the stale ebb and flow of suffocating same ol same ol, a flash of golden hour grin. Little arms open wide. Ringlets, clutched in a little fist, bounce with every step. He is bald. He is beaming. For a while the tide draws away. We sing. We dance. We play.


Sun Dog
A child in the surf, in the sun, on the sand, content with a family that is not mine. A horse of a dog pins me. The creature is massive, fur clotted and matted. Foam slops from its fangs and slaps onto my face. Is this how it ends? It barks. I bark. It woofs. I woof. It arfs. So do I. And just like that a monster is befriended. I sit. Beast stands over my head, about to mount my face? Try to move but am locked in place. A rib cage splits and spreads over my head. Locked in the cavern of an empty dog torso. There is a growing light. It blooms into a tiny sun. "Beware the sundog," I mutter. Break myself away from the hollow being. It bounds one way. I bound the other in search of my fake father and mother.


19th

Flicker Man
"Thought and environment shape our bodies, our hearts, our minds. We are masters of our own wellness or illness," preaches some white haired man. He talks of genes, and twins, and unbelievable things that somehow still make sense. De-aging as he speaks, he flickers from a real man and an animated Bob Belcher.

Driven
Engine roaring. Wheels spinning. Finally free of the unplowed drive, I drive. First is second. Owl flies over, kitten in claws. Feathered lands and feasts on the furred. Attempt rescue? No. It's too late. Around the bend charred blackened bones of the newest homes still smolder. Investigate? No. It's too late. Meander on to meaningless songs and finally find the market. I do not find the natural kind of medicine that I seek. Keep seeking.

Abducted
Wear sandals in the slush and snow. Shards of white don't sting my toes. City bus passes. Charter bus passes. Finally a school bus, with flapping curtains over the windows, sloshes to a stop. Get on. It is only me inside, aside from the doctor-driver. He holds a needle up and grins. Try escape but the aisle is too thin. Stabbed. Numbness. Dumbness. Am caught and flopped into a seat. It is like sleep paralysis. I can fight it. I can escape. I lay and fight.

Blisters
Dofran is ill. "Check my back," he rasps. There are scattered patches of blisters full of red fluid. Recoil. I've not seen such a blight before. "No doctor. No clinic. No hospital," he says. "Well, you can't stay here," I counter. He lays upon the couch. Red, gooey splotches smear about it. Run for my phone. Try 911 but get random homes. Dofran's brother knocks with offerings of books and food. I tell him of his brother's plague. He lugs his brother, fast, away. Try to use my phone again.

Autobiography
The writer's circle shares their souls. I love the way they weave their words. Except for one, whose autobiography is mess of misery. He whines of a girlfriend that does not cook, clean, or obey commands for sex. Circle leader asks if he does anything for her. "No," he snips, offended. Circle leader suggests rewriting but from his girlfriend's point of view. Autobiography agrees. We move on to sweeter songs.

Lucid Rangers
Gathered around grandmother's old tv, we await some new show. It's like Power Rangers but more gritty, forged more for adults. There is no story to be seen. Mind meanders until I hear, "Reality check NOW!" The characters each perform a different reality check and transform into super heroes. They each are expert with one lucid ability. One is the fighter. One is the flyer. One can fold reality. They fight through waves of nightmares, collecting more lucid dreamers along the way. Of all the times they yelled, "Reality check NOW!" I didn't reality check once.

There was another couple of dreams but I didn't write them down in the middle of the night.
Very grateful for another great batch of recall.

Tyson Typer
Caught in a cubicle maze. Placed at the front beside Neil deGrasse Tyson. I read his emails. He dictates replies. He spells out levels of stars. Feel a shine from within. There comes a lull. Silence settles. Boredom soon after. Our combined desk is a table stretching to the edge of a play room. Children enter and run wild. The table between us is filthy. NDG will not let me clean it. It is not our job. We just sit and watch. Spin in my seat. Ride it across the floor. Coworkers join the chairodeo. Cubicles vanish. We spin, roll, crash, laugh. This work is not so bad.

Hide or Flee
We are packed and prepared for an escape long overdue. As the car is loaded we see strangeness in the west. The sky blinks hellish scarlet. Distant booms announce some doom. Machine guns stutter, sputter closer. "Into the house. Hide.," I say. Everyone obeys. To the basement we crawl and cower. Blip. We are packed and prepped for an escape long overdue. As the car is loaded we see strangeness in the west. The sky blinks scarlet. Booms and stutters tromp closer. "Into the house. Hide," I say. But before they can obey I order, "Stop! I think we did it wrong last time. We need to escape. Get in the car. Go!" They obey. We leave the spilt blood sky and the wails of war behind.

From the 13th

The mess is endless In the underworld. There is only time to sleep or to clean. Never is there time to rest or to dream. But wait, cleanliness and unchained light are everywhere found. Disbelief sits me down. Only in dreams are my chambers so clear. Reality check.

"I'm dreaming. Of course!" Reality check again and laugh. "Yes. This is a dream." Sing of running down a dream to keep lucidity alight. Run upstairs. Shake the doors. Punch the windows. Charge the walls. Escape escapes me.

Voices resound below ground. Perhaps they know the way out. Down the stairs. Kayji and Seary are playing games there. Seary's voice runs nonstop, a sharp sound lopping away my lucidity. Snap! Shove Seaery down. Push his head ever down until it is lodged fast in the floor of cement.

Silence.

Thoughts return. "Kayji, this is a dream," I share the secret.

She simply replies, "I know."

"I can't get out of the house. Maybe you can get us out. Where do you want to go?"

She stands, and grinning, chants, "Bee and PuppyCat! Bee and PuppyCat! Bee and PuppyCat!"

"Lets go!" I take her hand. Run up the stairs. Chant our escape. Go no where fast. Re descend to the underworld. How to get out? Call a character from the show, "TEMP BOT! TEMP BOT! GET US OUT!" We remain un-rescued. Spiral in thought, an idea ignites. "Kayji, you have a bell on your backpack! Ring it. See what happens."

Kayji does. A feather light envelope flutters to her feet. She snatches it up and rips it open. "We have a job!" She jumps for joy. My own heart jumps with her.

Dark falls upon us. We roam the echoes of a gigantic, abandoned room. Shadows seem restless. The floor is like flesh. Unease knots within. Reality check. Once. Twice. Three times. Yes still dreaming.

A hole erupts in the floor between Kayji and me. It widens and contorts until a gulf, like a festering wound, convulses between we two.

"Temp Bot!" Kayji greets the gaping, infected chasm. The hole opens and closes, flapping disease. She hears its words. They are undistinguishable to me. "Come on! We got a job!" She calls and leaps toward the hole. She hovers, hand held out. Wary, reality check again. I sigh, "Okay. Lets see where she sends us." Take the leap. Clasp her and plunge into roaring dark. Fear flutters the heart. Anticipation frazzles the brain. From shadows PuppyCat's voice echoes a mystic song. We fall... fall... fall...



Asking a dream character where they would like to go was interesting. I think I'll do that more often.