Today’s dVerse provides a list of well-known lines from horror movies, inviting poets to be creative and build alternative stories in a form of our own choosing.
I’ve selected “Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep” – Nancy Thompson, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep
‘lest ways of mammon upon you creep
Stocks and profits would have their way
so easy and enticing to lead astray
Why not slumber and close your eyes?
There’s wealth aplenty and in disguise
Waiting for those with proper thrall
To nod off and forget their higher call
Forget the woke and remain a slave
Sleep is your haven from being brave
Pursuing the treasure within your dreams
That turns to nightmares full of screams
Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep
The woke see deeply what’s here to reap
Alert to humanity’s deeper soul
The common good that makes us whole.
(c) Dennis Ryle, October 2025
Wondering Pilgrim 
You know it has been explained so many times and I have read numerous articles about what woke means…For some reason my brain refuses to retain its meaning, which might be a good thing?
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LOL – you’re not wrong! Depending on one’s ideology “woke” is either a slur or a compliment. I take it as the latter.
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There are degrees of awakening. It’s a compliment to someone who’s actually doing things that help actual persons who have less, AND a slur to someone who’s merely voting for a party that no longer makes much pretense of helping those persons but annoys everybody with quotas and the p.,c. language police.
As an older woman I know who’s even trying to figure out, much less support, what I’m trying to do and who’s telling me, now well past midlife, “We’re supporting your right to choose abortion! So just sit down and shut up about anything you want, or have ever wanted, to choose!”
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Oh, the cookies thing. I’m Pris cilla King, from Blogspot. I usually just lurk here so you probably don’t know me. I don’t really know you either, but I like this poem.
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Sleeping is the last thing any of us need right now. We need to be on high alert. Interesting poem!
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Indeed… sleep is not an option in these times.
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Yes, agreed Denis, we live in dangerous times, even here where the majority are napping.
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For some reason WP logged me as anonymous 🙂
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Yes, the same thing happened to me on another post. The goblins are at large already!
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All week I’ve had to log in to various platforms, and as it goes, I’m in a hurry, grrr
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Not being woke means that you are asleep… indeed.
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Yes, falling asleep is the easiest way to escape reality, truth, and fear of what is difficult to understand. Sad to see so many still sleeping, too lazy to learn and evolve. A timely piece.
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~Mish
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