Lauren M. Hancock Poetry and Prose

Tag: nightmare

  • Poem: An Illusion – Spoken Word and Text – 13/07/20

    Poem: An Illusion – Spoken Word and Text – 13/07/20

    Audio: An Illusion
    My hands present as aged and weary,
my flesh paper-thin and melting 
like an image of Salvador Dali’s,
with bones like soft honeycomb,
where bees cheerfully settle in.

Their wings frantically beat
they seek nectar from the rhythm,
the rhythm,
hands slowly try itching them away,
off my skin,
away from an arm which they travel upwards,
ignoring my slow decay.

Other insects join in,
stinging mosquitoes,
beautiful butterflies
who live but three days without sin,
it’s rather unlike the diaries of old,
to go three days without intentional error
would utterly amaze.

The bees are now concerned,
combatted by the wasp
whose angry demeanour wishes to fight
my friends,
in my shin’s honeycomb land,
the buzzing, the droning,
whom will succeed at their intent?
At securing a home of marrow-less matrimony?

A fly settles on the wall of my wrist,
sardonically smiling,
he decides to join in the violent tryst
of bee upon enemy
upon melting candle-wax skin,
dream-like
or like a nightmare,
reality is falling.

In the heaviness of a veil
which draws itself away from my subconscious,
I'm once more myself,
no more strange images,
curious bees
butterflies, maddened mosquitoes,
wasps whom will not leave.

My bones are themselves again,
full and not deprived,
weariness dissipated and skin almost
pristine,
I am alive.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by PollyDot from Pixabay

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  • Poem: Beneath the Surface – 24/05/20

    Poem: Beneath the Surface – 24/05/20

    On the surface of a scarlet lake
are dreams and nightmares cast aside,
laid to waste.
None have the desire to peruse
or recollect,
the enmity of these experiences,
why, no one wants to look back.
 
The moments of the night wander in a shimmer,
upon a crystalline surface,
like oil mixed with water,
they simply do not gel well,
their animosity alive rather than
a sheen of sheer consistence.
 
Nearby stand two fishermen
with their fishing rods so pliant,
I wonder what will they capture –
if anything at all –
or is their joy mainly in the process?
 
Their lines and sinkers are slick
with the congealing of subconscious creations,
confused moments,
surreal expressions,
and here the men are,
happily, into the night,
casting their lines again and again,
no disappointment at their lack of capture,
those dreams and nightmares do evade.
 
And then suddenly there is a bite,
something below the layers,
these creations of the night,
and rise unto the air,
a water-falling shape is revealed,
cascading around a moment of precious truth.
 
The creature hooked is nothing like something
ever seen by you nor I,
an abomination,
non-descript to most,
yet something which terrifies.
 
The fisherman grins,
pleased with his prize,
he is the master of
slowly cleansing this lake
of that which is untoward,
unworthy of remaining alive.
 
I realise now his role is not to be self-sufficient,
nor to enjoy the actual process,
but to purge this lake of things which should not belong,
removing the waste of nightmares
and dreams which hold the ability
to cause a sleeper harm.
 
And into the night and morning,
for days they will remain,
the demons of the lake,
expelled one by one,
through and through,
they shan’t remain.
 
I wonder how long it will take them,
if ever they will succeed,
at making this lake fresh and transparent,
a wondrous and true beauty to be seen.
 
Oh, hark! I tell myself,
I am sure there will come a day
when the water is cleared,
and the drippings of a drain of
combined subconsciousness,
dream time of many sleepers eventually cleansed away.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Image by 272447 from Pixabay

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  • Poem: Insomniac – 18/02/20

    Poem: Insomniac – 18/02/20

    The second hand ticks,
each click like the repeated trigger of a pistol,
fearful, I lie in wait,
as it speaks of how affected I will be if I remain
in this involuntary state.
 
I’ve barely slept in days,
awakening hours always the same,
middle of the morning,
the arms at those memorable angles,
I wish I could slip daintily into my dreams.
 
Instead, nightmarish awakenings
where I beg for liquid,
I am strangely thirsting,
as though the method of fighting to stay under
the surface of consciousness has drained me of all
moisture;
I am but a slice of aged parchment.
 
And upon me there are unintelligible words written,
scrawled, in fact,
speaking of that which I cannot understand,
let alone behold,
but the effort behind the scratching,
the etching seems atrociously laboured,
is this what I do in my short periods of sleep?
Where I detail myself or,
I detail the unknown controllers?
 
Because that is what it feels like,
I am a being not of my own accord,
when I lie there awaiting sleep,
I ache, anxious butterflies in my chest,
anxiety, anxiety,
there’s something there, unheard.
 
Like a pinprick in the distance, not many would register that sound,
but to understand its existence is of a severe knowing,
a recognition of something there unknown,
an insomniac’s thoughts pinned in the clouds.
 
And I lie here,
waiting, waiting quietly,
my eyes widened and my heart beating in such a state,
how long will it be before the pills take effect?
Before falsified sleep is forced upon me,
a method of a chemical dream, dream, dreaming?

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

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  • Poem: A Nightmare – 26/01/20

    Poem: A Nightmare – 26/01/20

    In the darkness, I can feel the heaving,
the staggered breath of something unearthly,
with rounded edges that pulsate eerily upon my fingertips,
da doom, da doom.

I envelope myself around this living catastrophe,
it’s begging to be tamed,
assumed,
taken over,
approached with the lushness of virginal buds of spring,
I can carry us under, and over,
and away.
 
Who explicitly states we must be separate — fools!
No allowance to be entwined together until the light of day?
Ne’er will their permission
come,
be saved,
in the trying periods when mess gets in our way,
shoved aside,
then hands and feet we crawl,
dragging through the thick soupy darkness,
only to again meet this being,
Thing,
it seethes at me,
I simply cannot allow myself to take it in.
 
There are too many possibilities to trial, you see,
too much future aggravation at stake.
 
© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved.
All images signed “LMH”
are copyrighted 2019-2020 by Lauren M. Hancock
and all rights reserved.

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