What Dreams Are Made Of

I lay my head down on a pillow -

Not a cushion but a toadstool in disguise.

The sleepy branches of a willow

By a pond where a tidal wave sighs.

I gaze tiredly at my mother -

Not her face but a clock in the hall.

I look blandly at another

And see myself smile through a hole in the wall.

My chair transforms into a table

As my lunch dissolves slowly into rain.

I read some letters on a label

Which drift me blandly down a transient lane.

A scarecrow gives me vague directions

As my sister’s voice rides high across the grass.

A farmer carries out inspections

While the duke and duchess fleetingly pass.

Transluscent plains suddenly surround me

And I’m accosted by a sad cellar of salt.

The cellar then looks back and hounds me.

It’s Lott’s wife who says she wasn’t at fault.

Her lustrous eyes are sadly crying

But her mouth’s seducing me with lambent smiles.

It’s not myself she’s slying eyeing

But a pillar with her bland, robotic wiles.

I drift into a church in Leyton -

Not an altar but another person’s shrine.

A man turns round and it is Satan

Drinking water that is really gin and wine.

He pushes me down a vast chasm.

I feel I’m falling and my body starts to shake -

Not a reaction or a spasm

But a signal that I’m just about to wake.