Four UK poets gave us dream poems for NPD 2007, and the Scottish Poetry Library published eight further poems by Scottish poets as postcards and e-cards. Read them all here.

National Poetry Day 2007: Dream poems

Dream poems for children, by eight Scottish poets

National Poetry Day - Dream poems

About Jacob's Dream

There was a ladder, you see,
A ladder that reached from earth to heaven.

Was it a rope ladder? Did God drop it down from the sky?
What was it made of?

It was made of hope.
It was the longest, strongest ladder ever.
And there were angels climbing up and down it.

Angels? Why did they need a ladder? Didn't they have wings?

These were early angels. Wings came later.

But wouldn't the angels going up
Bump into the angels coming down?
Did some of them fall off?

No, no. They were nifty and skinny.
They were acrobatic angels. They could balance on a rung
with one foot without holding on. And they had such pretty feet!

What were they doing on earth?

Visiting friends.

Like who?

Like us. All of us.

But it was only a dream?

Asleep you see with different eyes. Maybe what you see
in dreams is just as true as what you see awake.

If I was God I'd give the angels an escalator.

Maybe there is one. Keep your dream eyes open.

Diana Hendry (Scotland)

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Lines

I must never daydream in schooltime.
I just love a daydream in Mayshine.
I must ever greydream in timeschool.
Why must others paydream in schoolway?
Just over highschool dismay lay.
Thrust over skydreams in cryschool.
Cry dust over drydreams in screamtime.
Dreamschool thirst first in dismayday.
Why lie for greyday in crimedream?
My time for dreamday is soontime.
In soontime must I daydream ever.
Never must I say dream in strifetime.
Cry dust over daydreams of lifetimes.
I must never daydream in schooltime.
In time I must daydream never.

Judith Nicholls (England)

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From 'Lightenings' VIII

The Monks of Clonmacnoise

The annals say: when the monks of Clonmacnoise
Were all at prayers inside the oratory
A ship appeared above them in the air.

The anchor dragged along behind so deep
It hooked itself into the altar rails
And then, as the big hull rocked to a standstill,

A crewman shinned and grappled down the rope
And struggled to release it. But in vain.
'This man can't bear our life here and will drown,'

The abbot said, 'unless we help him.' So
They did, the freed ship sailed, and the man climbed back
Out of the marvellous as he had known it.

Seamus Heaney (Northern Ireland)

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The Water Horse

Sometimes when I’m sleeping
The sea taps on my door.
Soon the tide is lapping round me
And sand spreads on the floor,
And I am riding a white horse
In the breaking waves on the shore.

The moon shines on the water,
It silvers the wet sand,
And tonight I’m the sea’s daughter
And I know where dreams are found -
In a shell in a box in a secret cave
Where ships have gone aground.

My horse turns into ocean,
His muscle and his bones.
His breath is the wave’s commotion,
His hooves are shining stones.
His mane and tail are breaking foam
As white as cuttlebones.

Then my horse is lost in sea-wrack,
The tide goes out on the shore,
The treasure’s locked in the ship’s wreck
And my dream curls up with a snore
In a mussel shell on the windowsill,
And morning’s at the door.

Gillian Clarke (Wales)

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Dream poems for children, by six Scottish poets

A little nap rap

When I got home one evening
to my cosy living room
I found a squirrel at my table
and a hedgehog with a broom.

A fox switched on the hoover,
beat my doormat with his tail,
while the squirrel did the kitchen
with a mophead and a pail.

The squirrel was all prickly
and the hedgehog had a tail,
the fox was dressed in tartan
while her coat hung on a nail.

The squirrel used the pulley
as trapeze, from side to side;
the fox slid down the banister,
the hedgehog did a glide.

My floor was very shiny
and everything was clean,
then suddenly I woke up
and found it was a dream!

Christine De Luca

From Goldfish Suppers: An anthology Of Contemporary Poems For Children and Families (City of Edinburgh Council, 2004)

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Eilean Fraoich

"Eilean fraoich, Eilean fraoich,"
ann an solus uaine
eadar d à bh ù th
air Sauchiehall St.

Island of Heather

"Island of heather, island of heather,"
in a green light
between two shops
at Sauchiehall St.

Iain Mac A' Ghobhainn / Iain Crichton Smith
Bho Eadar Fealla-dhà is Glaschu / From Eadar Fealla-dhà is Glaschu (Roinn nan Cànan Ceilteach, 1974)

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Spell

A clip of thinder ever the reeftips
sends like a bimb going iff!
My hurt thimps in my chist.

It's dirk. The clods are block with reen.
The wand blues in the trays.
There's no mean.

Carol Ann Duffy

From The Good Child’s Guide to Rock'n'Roll (Faber, 2003)

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Fram da far-haaf

Wake up man! Waken! Listen!

What?
What is it?

Oh what a dream I've had, what a dream!
You mustn't put out to sea today!
A voice was crying out to me
"This is the storm,
This is the first fierce cloud to gather"
Look to the west'ard!

A raincloud over the headland, a mist!

What a dream!
Foolish heart to fly in the face of omen.
The boat they found last Thursday,

A freak!

Upturned,
When the sea had been silent for days.
O, the dream I've had.

Robert Alan Jamieson

Extract from Fram da far-haaf: a sang-poyim fir twa voisis in Shetlandic and English (The author, 1992)

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No. 115 dreams

The living room remembers Gran dancing to Count Basie.
The kitchen can still hear my aunts fighting on Christmas day.
The hall is worried about the loose banister.
The small room is troubled by the missing hamster.
The toilet particularly dislikes my Grandfather.
The wallpaper covers up for the whole family.

And No. 115 dreams of lovely houses by the sea.
And No. 115 dreams of one night in the country.

The stairs are keeping schtum about the broken window.
The toilet's sick of the trapped pipes squealing so.
The walls aren't thick enough for all the screaming.
My parent's bedroom has a bed in a choppy sea.
My own bedroom loves the bones of me.
My brother's bedroom needs a different boy.

And No. 115 dreams of yellow light, an attic room.
And No. 115 dreams of a chimney, a new red roof.

And the red roof dreams of robin redbreasts
tap dancing on the red dance floor in the open air.

Jackie Kay

From The Thing that Mattered Most (Black & White/Scottish Poetry Library, 2006)

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Spell of the bridge

Hold the wish on your tongue
As you cross
What the bridge cannot hear
Cannot fall

For the river would carry
Your hopes to the sea
To the net of a stranger
To the silt bed of dreams

Hold the wish on your tongue
As you cross
And on the far side
Let the wish go first

Helen Lamb

From The Thing That Mattered Most (Black & White/Scottish Poetry Library, 2006)

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Brekin rainbows

He wis just a wee lad
dibblin in a puddle,
glaur fae heid tae fit,
enjoyin haen a guddle.
He micht hae bin a poacher
puin salmon fae the beck.
He coulda bin a paratrooper,
swamp up tae his neck.
Mibbe he wis brekin rainbows
reflectit in the watter,
his ill-shod feet wid split the prism
an mak the colours scatter.
Onywey he wis faur awa,
deep wandert in his dreams;
it richt sobert me tae mind
a dub's no whit it seems.
An while ah watched an grieved
the loss that maks a man a mug,
alang the road fair breenged his maw
an skelpt him roon the lug.

Janet Paisley

From The Thing That Mattered Most (Black & White/Scottish Poetry Library, 2006)

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A riddle

Whaur the fit has never been
It's there ye aye gang wi' it:
Whaur the e'e has never seen
It's there ye aye will see it.

Whan ye ken that it is near
Nane but yersel' will find it:
Whan it is nae langer there
Nane but yersel' will mind it.

(Answer: A Dream)

William Soutar

From Collected Poems of William Soutar (Andrew Dakers, 1948)

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