I don't do much stream of consciousness stuff. But I love surreal writing. Here's a poem I did after a few nights of nightmares:
The Nine Foals of the Night Mare
Of a night I went to sleep and did not wake:
A night as dark and deep as any sea,
In which I drowned a thousand times or more.
With fear my lungs were risen to the brim.
My bed-sheets; cold as winter ice they were,
And seeped into my skin, their talons latched.
My tears did freeze upon my darkened cheeks,
Though cry them I did not know I had done.
My mind was soaked and heavy with lament,
As like a dampened rag hung in the cold
And shaken in the hardened northern gust.
My heart cried forth in agony and pain,
And as its scream ran rampant through my veins
My muscles tensed and withered like the rose
That cannot stand against the cold and dry:
My soul is battered, crippled by my curse!
The moonlight does not shine for me;
My night is black as black can be.
My death was shown to me as visions rose
Before my mind’s eye, like a dreamer’s trance
Induced by some hallucinogenic drug;
Some opiate ingested unawares.
My thigh was struck by some rapacious teeth,
As though it was being eaten from within;
It fires my nerves and leaves them numb and vexed;
I claw upon my flesh with nervous nails.
The harpies fall upon me like a plague,
The weight of Charybdis presses on my frame,
The sirens beckon me with tainted grace,
As sail I do through dreamscape oceans vast
That roll through ages of the human race
And fall upon the shores of ruined lands,
Where slaughtered dreamers roam in somnolent bands
And sing a dirge both haunting yet unheard.
Their dreams fall short on shores of Lethe,
Which flows to seas of drought, and death.
Nine black foals I imagined came before
Mine eyes and pulled behind them my demise;
A terror great but indescribable.
Now where have all my words of terror gone?
I’m speechless as a babe without a tongue,
Incapable of any expression at all,
Except for what my eyes reflect. The storm
Now gathers up before my weakening soul,
And all resolve floods forth from out my limbs
Like air that seeps from out a pierced balloon,
And limp go all my passions and desires.
I’m stranded on a barren rocky isle.
I’m left behind on cliffs with broken wings,
And stranded on a bark without a sail;
There’s no escape for me now from this fate,
There’s no salvation granted from the gale.
I cower in defeated pose,
And flounder in repeated prose.
The nine foals of the night mare carry me
Into a world that’s all bereft of time;
A world where tortured beings damn their gods
To raise their hopes from out a hopeless vale.
My heartbeat slowly weakens in the wake
Of all this; my eternal curse of sleep.
The light of day shall never greet my eyes
Again, nor part the curtains of my room.
Oh gods of night, where hence has fled my sun?
Oh gods of sleep, where hence has fled my morn?
I’m stranded within my eternal plight
Of madness, and of sickness, and remorse.
Oh Father, why hast thou forsaken me;
Damned me to rot in this forgotten hall?
And so resign to sleep; I sign my peace
And hurl all hope into the limitless sea.
If a ship may come my tale to keep,
Let it find me in a dreamless sleep.
Okay - true to my word, I have fiddled with your work and come up with this. I tried to be conservative in my edits for the most part, but you'll notice a few places where I kind of inserted my own thoughts. Apologies if it strays too far from the original - I just felt like throwing some ideas out there. I may actually end up making an even more butchered version of it some day, since I really like the piece a lot, and I'd like to contribute more ideas to it.
The Nine Foals of the Night Mare
Of a night I went to sleep and did not wake:
A night as dark and deep as any sea,
In which I drowned a thousand times or more.
With fear my lungs were
flooded to the brim.
My bed-sheets
: cold as winter ice
were they,
And seeped into my skin, their talons latched.
My tears did freeze upon my darkened cheeks,
Though cry them I did not know I had done.
My mind was soaked and heavy with lament,
As like a dampened rag hung in the cold
And shaken in the hardened northern gust.
My heart cried forth in agony and pain,
And as its scream ran rampant through my veins
My muscles tensed and withered like the rose
That cannot stand against the cold and dry:
My soul is battered, crippled by my curse!
The moonlight does not shine for me;
My night is black as black can be.
My death was shown to me as visions rose
Before my mind’s eye, like a dreamer’s trance
As though induced by psychoactive herbs -
Some opiate ingested unawares.
My thigh is struck by
sharp, rapacious teeth,
As though
t'were being eaten from within;
It
sears my nerves and leaves them numb and vexed;
I claw upon my flesh with nervous nails.
The harpies fall upon me like a plague,
Upon my frame Charybdis' weight is pressed
The sirens beckon me with tainted grace,
As
on I sail through dreamscape oceans vast
That roll through ages of the human race
And fall upon the shores of ruined lands,
Where slaughtered dreamers roam in
ragged bands
And sing a dirge both haunting yet unheard.
Their dreams fall short on shores of Lethe,
Which flows to seas of drought, and death.
Nine black foals I imagine come before
Mine eyes and pulled behind them my demise;
A terror great but
futile to describe.
Now where have all my words of terror gone?
I'm speechless as a babe without a tongue,
Unable to express myself at all
Except
by what my eyes reflect. The storm
Now gathers up before my weakening soul,
And all resolve floods forth,
out through my limbs
Like air that seeps from out a pierced balloon,
Expelling all my passions and desires.
I’m stranded on a barren rocky isle.
I’m left behind on cliffs with broken wings,
And stranded on a bark without a sail;
There’s no escape for me now from this fate,
There’s no salvation granted from the gale.
I cower in defeated pose,
Lamenting through repeated prose.
The nine foals of the night mare carry me
Into a
frozen world bereft of time;
A world where tortured beings damn their gods
To raise their hopes from out a hopeless vale.
My heartbeat slowly weakens
from all this,
Weighed down by my eternal curse of sleep.
The light of day
never again shall greet
My eyes, nor part the curtains of my room.
Oh gods of night, where hence has fled my sun?
To where my morning flown, spirits of sleep?
I'm stranded
in this everlasting plight
Of madness, and of sickness, and remorse.
Oh Father, why hast thou forsaken me -
Damned me to rot in this forgotten hall?
At last, resigned to sleep, I sign my peace
And hurl all hope into the
boundless sea.
If one day does a ship emerge
Out from this hazy deep
To learn of my tale, may it find me
In a dreamless sleep.