Child's Sleep Poem by Sandy Player

You, my bed,
Four legged minotaur
Soft-bellied gestapo man,
I am your running gypsy
Your Greek take-away.

Do you spy me when
I put a cross through a line
Or eat a cupcake?
With your spectacled deep black
Animal eyes?
You must smell my fear through your
Pink flabbed ringed nostrils.
My fear, my fear.

You get me.
Every time.
I fall off the hour hand
As it re-loads at twelve
And you chew me all night.
Your stubby cow teeth are worse
Than lead weights
A sea of heavy water.

You torture worse than history said so.
Did Mr. Perseus have to go
Through the tar-black maze
Whilst you gassed it?
And you couldn't hold back
Flooding me with your hot

Salt sea. I wake in it.
You've branded it on my thick-veined forhead.
I pick the chlorine coloured sleep from my eyes
And roll off your noxious tongue
For another day.