Lucid Dreaming

One of my earliest memories is of a waking nightmare.

I must have been four years old. I was running a high fever and struggling to breath.

I sat up in bed, opened my eyes to the pitch black, only to find that it wasn't black. The walls were glowing a dull, greying rotten corpse flesh colour. They were wriggling. Closing in. The walls became masses of writhing tiny human-like figures. Only they weren't people. They were more like beasts or demons.

I got up off the bottom bunk, stood in the middle of the room, closed my eyes. I couldn't breath. I could still see the small throbbing creatures with my eyes closed. It was as though my eyelids were translucent. This was the greatest fear this dot of a four year old had ever known.

I opened my eyes. The things quickened pace. Enclosing me. I needed to escape. I found my voice.

"They're coming out of the walls!" I screamed.

My older brother, on the top bunk, began to laugh.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

I ran from the room, screeching and shouting until my mother appeared from her room and comforted me in her embrace. The forsaken things ebbed slowly away, slinking back into the glowing walls.

I think this may have been my first asthma attack.

I had amazingly vivid, horrific nightmares throughout my early childhood up until around the age of 9 or 10. They mostly occurred when asleep, but occasionally I'd have that same waking hallucinatory experience. It was at this age that I developed the ability of lucid dreaming.

For those who don't know, lucid dreaming is when you become aware that you are dreaming. I went a step further and began to be able to control the nature of my dreams out of necessity and perhaps instinctual self-preservation.

I realised that these dreams were mine alone and they were coming from me. Therefore, my child self reasoned, I could do whatever I wanted in them. I turned the tables in the nightmares.

Freddy Krueger shit himself when I started chasing him. Chucky's little doll legs couldn't carry him away fast enough when I conjured up a chainsaw to dismember his doll parts.

When the fever hit again, those little bastards coming out of the walls didn't know what hit them. I took a breath on my Ventolin inhalor, made a Tommy gun appear in my hands and sprayed the walls with dream bullets until they oozed with the blood of a thousand minuscule demons.

I'd defeated the nightmares.

Those nightmares gave me a gift from then on.

I was fascinated with the dream-world. I could fly at will, create the most extravagant adventures. I was a kung fu master one moment, a zombie slayer the next. I was a superhero.

I even developed the ability to leave my body and travel elsewhere as a ball of light, but that's another story...

Deep Reflections

In this life we move to stay alive.

Evolution and change are necessary to learn

the connections in disorder, to organise our hive.

Expectations of power exist in our lust to earn.

Deep reflections in the lake within a lake;

I’m unchanging in this world of dreams,

this world, contrary to perception when awake,

make no mistake, everything is and isn’t as it seems.

The lake is a portal to the tree of life.

Proceed no further without proper guidance.

Follow your guides to your staircase of life,

paths cross to help or hinder, trust providence.

Each step is a different length and height;

as you struggle, things try to stop you.

You must stop and learn from their might

to move towards the goal you’ve pursued.

The final step leads to a crown-like castle.

Within are your guardian and a spiritual machine.

Choose to pull the lever, exercising your freewill

and dive bravely through destiny into your chosen scene.

Deep Reflections was one of the first poems I ever wrote around 1997-1998. It has it's origins in a recurring dream I had throughout my adolescence.

The first time I had this dream I was on the bank of a huge lake looking into it's vast depths, fighting the urge to jump in. For months I'd have the same dream, I would just stand there, not jumping in, knowing that I couldn't swim.

Months later I was back in the same dream, only this time I trusted the urge and dived straight in, swam around. I'd wake up in a panic if I went too deep, thinking I would drown. I never did drown, no matter how deep I went.

Every time I'd have the dream I'd go a little deeper, until one night I caught a glimpse of another lake at the bottom of the lake. I plucked up all the courage I could and went all the way to the bottom.

I passed through the new lake into another realm where there was a huge oak tree. On either side of the oak tree stood my two sisters, although I don't think they were my sisters. In the middle of the tree was an opening with another new world inside. You can see the rest of what happened in the poem above.

This dream recurred over a matter of years. It was filled with Jungian archetypal imagery. In the dream, although it was lucid, I could only control myself as I would in everyday life, unlike the other lucid dreams where I had power over everything.

This lead me to reason that there are at least two different types of dream. There is the dream that takes place purely within the subconscious part of the mind - which is the one I'm able to control; and there is the dream which seems to take place somewhere outside my subconscious - where I can control only myself as I would in reality.

This brought me to three possible conclusions about the second type of dream.

1: The dream took place in an alternate universe or reality - that is a real world that exists somewhere on a different wave length to that which is experienced in waking reality.

2: The dream is formed from archetypal imagery more ancient and complicated than I can fathom; Possibly formed from a universal mind made up of all possible thoughts from the beginning to the end of time - something which we can all tap into through our subconscious mind within the dream state.

3: I'm a crazy bastard...

Or perhaps a mixture of all three.

Pykey Recommends:

Write Out Loud,

The above link will open a new window showing you an awesome website for poets. It's an excellent resource showing up to date competitions, publishers asking for submissions, poetry news and views, poetry gigs and open mic events, and you can start your own poetry blog on there if you wish. Highly recommended. Give it a try.

And the Dragons Made Love...

A water dragon penetrated the rock like a sword in the stone,
the air dragon rippling its wings as it flew down to the ground.
The water dragon’s scales shone green and blue in the sunlight
as it slithered toward the earth dragon’s centre,
the dwelling place of fire dragons.
The elementals were intertwined
in snake-like love making,
as they have always been,
since the beginning of thought.


This was the waterfall
where dragon masters met
to discuss the future of mankind,
their spherical garden of Eden.
Their voices can still be heard
rattling through the trees nearby.
They may be the only ones to understand
the true meaning and power of such a place.


Offerings lay scattered
in honour of the dragon spirit:
prayers, wishes and desires
for sanctuary, wisdom and healing.


I left a prayer
for a loved one,
then droplets of wisdom
fell onto my page
from an unknown source,
leaving a dragon seed.


The fifth is a dragon of creation
and we are made of all five-
plus a sixth;
one fashioned by our own minds:
a dragon of power.

This poem literally dropped onto the page of my notebook somewhere in Cornwall I think (it was about 10 years ago and my brain is pretty hazy at the best of times).

It was a clearing in the middle of an ancient forest where a stream flowed through a hole in the rock to create the most amazing waterfall I'd ever seen.

I dream of the water dragon occasionally. He smiles with his watery eyes and sometimes allows me to eat one of his green and blue scales, which for some unknown reason taste like smoky bacon flavour crisps. After consuming it I usually feel empowered and awake feeling stronger and more confident.

The poem was drawn from sounds, images, feelings, legend and what I can only describe as automatic writing brought on by the incredible power emanating through the trees, wind, rocks and water. It needed very little redrafting in my opinion and I’ve retained the slightly chaotic rhythm to reflect the ambiance of the piece and the place.

...And a fresh new poem with no explanation...

Routine Procedures


Routine is like your threadbare sofa,
familiar, but will open up bed sore
style wounds on your arse
given too much time.


Routine was sold to you by your parents,
bought from teachers, exploited by slavers.
"Stand up straight, line up, get a job",
spend your wages on routine fashions.


Routine is four walls at home,
then work, then home, then work,
then bright lights and impulse buys of Asda,
then home, then work, then home.


Routine is angular like a bony elbow
or the corner of your room
in which you hide, watching
the four corners of your TV screen.


Routine is tapping and swiping,
tapping and swiping
your rectangular devices
like caressing your comfort blanket.


Routine is the serial killer,
carefully planned slow rotting
death like teasing your carotid artery
with knife, hoping for slow bleed.


You're not built for this routine monotony,
you're not a metronome.
You have natural rhythm beating
the skins below your surface,
a malleable universal melody.


Break the bony elbow of routine,
go off path into woods,
follow the dryads to places without walls,
where everything is curvy and waiting.


Get lost in a place you've never been,
fear not, you need to lose yourself,
to break routine
to feel again
the sexy twin thighs of contentment and freedom.

The Human Animal: thoughts and poetry on the evolution of humanity

A collection of thoughts on the evolution of our species

Is a group of humans a tribe, a flock, a gang or just a crowd?

Can we ever know who or what we are?

To seek yourself is the paradox of being human, but to define yourself is to put yourself in a box.

We know not what we are, for to get the ultimate definition of self is to change the self into something beyond definition.

We transcend who we are every time we learn something new.

Then what box do we put ourselves into? When do we cease being human and become something other?

Man-made mutations have perhaps stopped our evolution - we adapt the world to our needs instead of adapting ourselves to fit into the world.

We're at war with the world and with ourselves, but we're no match for either. Our violence is bestial at best, true to our nature as arrogant animals.

It is our curse to never understand ourselves in our current form, but that won't stop us searching. If that search is ceased, all meaning would dissipate and we would become the animals we are.

An evolution of consciousness - is this the key to human evolution?

The Scarab

I speak on behalf of all scarabs.

We’ve rolled our balls of crap

for over forty million years.

We’ve been here long

enough to know

when a species needs to evolve.

The Earth has become a sphere of human droppings

- but within that dung are eggs of change,

waiting to hatch into larvae and feed.

So, will you wait for Anubis

to open your mouth?

Will you be reborn

as something other than human?

Or will you roll

your faecal globe

into a burrow

of destruction?

Watching the Masquerade

I am the spirit of lost ancestry,

watching the movements of humanity.

People are becoming marionettes.

Everywhere I look, I’ll never forget

the soulless faces, repeating phrases

devoid of true meaning, as if possessed.

Once lined with wisdom, expressive faces

have been replaced with Ekpo masks*, excess

layers of makeup, botox and plastic.

A dangerous ghost wanders all nations,

eating life, devouring talent, mastic-

-ating soul; it’s known as corporations,

government, establishment, media.

So begins the human-robot era.

*Ekpo masks are still used in traditional south-eastern Nigerian masquerades, where the maskers impersonate ancestral spirits. The Ekpo mask in particular had a moveable jaw, allowing it to speak, and it is said to represent a dangerous wandering ghost. See the picture below.

Modern Man

I caught a glimpse of him.

He was sat on the pavement,

head in his hands,

feet in the gutter.

He moved like a stick insect

-a jerky motion

in no particular direction.

His predators were anything that moved.

When he spotted something threatening

(a lady struggling up the hill with a pram)

he blended in with a lamp post

as grey as his once tidy clothes.

He came close enough to make out his features

-like last week’s discarded newspapers,

forgotten stories hidden under growth.

His eyes were glazed, intoxicated;

they told of a family that couldn't cope

with his abusive addictions.

Poems from the Dark Side - Form vs Free Form

Dark Connections 

Take me to your dark place, 

that database within your psyche 

where memory has no face, 

just vague guilty connection 

to obsession, 

paranoid delusion, 

combining of separate events 

meaningful 

malevolent 

coincidence. 

Give voice to fear 

peel back the layers, 

ride it on through 

to the end. 

No harm will come 

if you harm none. 

Ride it through, 

until the lesson’s through. 

Ride it through. 

Now Rattle Your Bones

Shelter upwind from clouded memories,

away from where demons of the past swell,

lurking downwind from future melodies,

straining to hear what only time will tell.

As warm breeze dwindles dead and time stagnates,

past demons rise to play with lost marbles.

Sanity is swindled as mind gyrates

in time to music, offbeat and garbled.

But as wind picks up, bone branches they sway,

rattling dances tenderising gristle,

winding the smell of rancid meat away,

fiend song whittled to faint fetid whistle.

When past demons fade downwind between clouds,

sing a new song loud and dance in the now.

The Battle Between Form and Free Form

How do you decide what form to use when writing a poem? Do you choose a form before you begin to write it? Which is better - free form or form? Where can I learn about the different forms?

You don't really decide on form when writing poetry, it seems to me that the poem decides that for you, which was the case for the two poems above.

Try writing two poems on the same theme. For the first poem, choose the form and then write your first draft. For the second, write your first draft and then look for a form that would suit, editing where necessary. The second way is best in my opinion, but there's always exceptions.

Look at how your draft sits on the page, check for a natural rhythm within the flow of the words and exploit that - it should take little editing and it should never be forced. If you choose the form first and then write the poem you'll probably find that the poem becomes stagnant and unnatural upon re-reading - it should flow off the tongue with the natural rhythms of your language.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you look, you will not find a traditional or modern form that the poem will edit into - if this is the case, then create your own form, re-edit the original draft, cutting out anything that jars with the flow of the poem, check the syllables on each line, let it fall into a rhythm of it's own, it can rhyme if you like, try mid-line rhymes, try no rhymes at all.

You may just create the next popular form in modern poetry, failing that, you may have just written a kick-arse free-form poem.

Play around with form as much as you like - it's your poem. Try taking a traditional form and mutate it into something else. Free form works just as well as form, so the battle would be a dead heat in my opinion.

Experimentation is key.

Learn about different forms on these useful links:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/glossary-terms?category=forms-and-types

http://www.poetryarchive.org/glossary/form

http://www.shadowpoetry.com/resources/wip/types.html

The Forest: raw draft to final poem - an exercise in editing.

Transcribed Notebook Extract:


…Chilled, the trees reach to the sky above me, spreading their roots of natural knowledge throughout the ground below.
What ancient beasts of unknown origin have passed through these now less than swollen forests?
Memories of an ancient time vibrate through the echoes of a goat’s voice, a time when all beings could remember their connection to everything else.
The rain gently washes away technology for a few peaceful moments.
Freedom is here; I must remember to thankfully receive this ancient power of liberty and keep it with me everywhere I go as my soul may share such tranquility.
The wolf was here once, a power animal for someone nearby.
Over there, high in the trees, the bird regards humanity with welcoming song and unseen eyes.
I feel as a guest to nature amongst these trees. Branches stretched out in greeting and acceptance, allowing us to breathe in gentle harmony.
In my heart I still run joyfully free with the ancient power animals whose spirits remain. I can fly with the birds if my mind is softened and willing; they would accept me with open wings and happy tears when I’m ready to join in their harmonies…
-Written in amongst the trees of Snowdonia.

The Finished Poem:

The Forest

An ancient goat’s voice echoed through the remaining trees.
It bleated a message of natural interconnected memories,
Liberated tranquility,
Disconnection from technology.


A vibration in decaying undergrowth
Introduced a power animal’s presence;
The maternal spirit of a she-wolf,
Guiding descendants of her crescent-moon killers.


A guest to Nature,
Humanity can run free in her forest.
We can fly with the birds
If our minds are softened and willing.
They would accept humanity with open wings
If we could all just sing with Earth’s gentle harmonies.

The first draft of a poem is usually an instinctual process, it flows from your body's centre to the pen in your hand like automatic writing; in the case of The Forest this was certainly the case.

Sometimes the original draft stands well on it's own as a stream-of-consciousness poem and in many cases it serves well to leave it as is and not edit in the slightest.

However, sometimes that first draft can be a little too raw, overly wordy and obscure to the point where you'll probably be the only one to understand it.

Editing is a very difficult skill for a poet to use - it can feel like slicing away pieces of your very soul.

The way I like to think about it is that editing a poem is like putting chainsaw to ice to produce myriad sculptures that melt slowly into soul cocktails supped by the poet and their readers.

I Punched Buddha

I Punched Buddha

I punched Buddha this morning,

hope this doesn't give me bad karma.

Sitting Bull stood witness to the mishap,

spear in one hand, peace pipe in the other.

Frozen Idols of forgotten faced Gods

didn't move a muscle in response

for they too were statues

like the Buddha who tasted my fist,

all symbols depicted as people

with liquid lives solidified,

propped up for others to lie

prostrate in herd mentality,

in fear of mortality,

pieces of broken hearts offered

to those who were flesh and blood,

fractured souls collected and frozen

in sacrifice to show faith

in Gods made of plastic,

base metals and wood.

I punched Buddha this morning,

it was an accident,

meaningful coincidence,

Freudian slip of the hand,

not meant to cause offence.

In recompense I offer this:

It's safe to seek divinity

in another's footsteps,

it's a path well trodden,

cobbled and tarmacked,

leading to universal truths

shrouded in words and symbols.

The path I choose is equally divine,

no cobble or footstep

has passed this way for all time,

at least none that can be detected,

for it is overgrown and forested,

almost directionless,

with a divine knowledge

that this is the way

I'm heading.

It didn't start with punching Buddha,

but that felt like tolling

the bell from a different ship

of fools in the distance.

Why did I punch Buddha? He's a chilled out guy after all, not really the sort of bloke who'd be partial to or deserving of fisticuffs.

However, it is a true story, I really did punch Buddha, well, a statue of the dude anyway. It was an accident. He sits on my windowsill in my cave of a flat in Oxton, Wirral. He meditates next door to a statue of Sitting Bull.

I was sitting there on my sofa ignoring something crap on the TV screen while facebooking away, wanting to write something new and wondering why I had writer's block. The sun was shining through the window onto my computer screen, so I went to close the curtains, lost my grip and actually punched poor Buddha square on the jaw. He hasn't got a glass jaw thankfully, I think it's some kind of clay-like material - anyways it didn't break, but I sat back down and thought

fuck, what if there really is something in that karma thing after all? I just punched Buddha, I'm screwed!

Then I wrote the poem.

I wouldn't say I'm a religious man, I believe in my own thing. I happen to think that organised religion tends to be corrupt and hierarchical to a point where it doesn't really take into consideration the needs and the inherent divinity of the individual and everything else within that individual's universe.

Instead of being a means to set people free on their own path and their own belief system, organised religion sets boundaries where there should be none. It institutionally seeks to control the belief system of each individual so that we all conform to a particular way of being and it seeks to eradicate individuality and humanity's ability to come up with our own set of beliefs.

The Inner Critic and The ‘Hook’

My confidence was in danger of being taken over by self-doubt once more. I was surrounded by some great writers and performers who had much more talent than I felt I had. Negativity was bearing down upon my writing hand, making the pen heavy with stagnant ink.

The best way to boost my waning confidence was to go to the open floor poetry night to perform.
Before I went on, my inner critic kept telling me that I was not a natural performer, too controversial, too obscure, too arrogant.

My awareness of the staring audience seemed more heightened than usual, setting me on edge. I held up my printed poetry as a paper shield, stuttering the introductions and refusing to listen to my own voice as it projected the poetry.

After generous applause I returned to my seat in quiet introspection, attempting to listen to the other poets but only hearing my inner critic’s mocking voice.

They hated it, you stumbled over two lines. You were too quiet and showed no feeling or personality. The guy at the back wants to give you a good kicking.

The reassurance of other performers helped to quieten that inner critic and remind me that I was a good writer, still in development.

One guy reminded me that some people won’t like the poetry and some will, it’s all down to personal preference. He maintained that some of my poetry had the all-important ‘hook’ to get the listener’s attention.
I think the ‘hook’ is also an important part of written poetry and fiction. It can be an object, a person, a situation or a number of other things that the poem or story revolves around, acting like the keystone of a building.

Bad Power Trip

World leaders, take an ayahuasca trip

into collective tribal memories,

forget yourself more with each noxious sip,

vomit forth images as yet unseen:

the alligator man rips at his skin

to reveal your face, reptile mind within,

but still human, emotions wild, like rice

poured from your hands into mouths hot with spice,

our mouths spitting your lies into your ears,

shrinking your head into a tiny sphere,

like the earth in a universal truth,

spinning stories that make no sense in soup

sipped from the bitter ayahuasca cup,

foul tasting pictures of the world ripped up.