Haunted by Toni L.A. Cross

The darkness comes
with teeth and knives
I’m hounded by a dream
Chasing, swirling, whirling night
Deeper, harder, plunging faster
Torn by rabid black
Frantic now
the walls are slick
No doors or windows here
Can’t breathe
Can’t speak
Or whisper here
No sound escapes
This place

Neverland by Toni L.A. Cross

There is a happy neverland

somewhere between here and sleep

It’s where all untold wishes live

the wealth of secret dreams

If one could drift amongst its foam

or dive into those depths

Their human heart would surely burst

From the sweetest of pains

 

Flaming Sheep: A Nightmare Villanelle by Toni Cross

 

Pulsing through my mind is nothing but fear

Running from a dream that stalks the edges of my sleep

I’m screaming and screaming where no one can hear

 

From the darkness, faces are pausing to leer

I fight towards consciousness, but I’m in too deep

Pulsing through my mind is nothing but fear

 

In this careening night, there’s no one to steer

I’m slipping on a cliff that is slick and too steep

I’m screaming and screaming where no one can hear

 

Wild flame of thought burning swift to sear

No counting can be done as I stare at blazing sheep

Pulsing through my mind is nothing but fear

 

Reality is thin; like oxygen it’s sheer

Bolting my eyes tightly, I will not steal a peep

I’m screaming and screaming where no one can hear

 

Fast breath, slow breath, gasping, acrid hot and clear

Daring into nothing, I quickly, blindly leap

Pulsing through my mind is nothing but fear

I’m screaming and screaming where no one can hear

 

 

What is a villanelle?

“The highly structured villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with two repeating
rhymes and two refrains. The form is made up of five tercets followed by a
quatrain. The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated
alternately in the last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the final
stanza, the refrain serves as the poem’s two concluding lines.”

For more, go to: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5796

 

Suprised… by Toni Cross

 

Looking

Out the corner of my eye

Seeing

What I thought was impossible

Breathless

At the dream that just wandered up

falling from fate… by Toni Cross

sleep

slip

silently

into

internal

isolation

drifting

dreaming

dangerously

falling

from

fate