My Dreams Are Troubled

by Clive James and Pete Atkin

My dreams are troubled
Full of childhood terrors
Doubled and redoubled
Catalogues of errors
The scares and worries
Of the years are flares and flurries
In my mind's eye

The fuss and bother
Things I couldn't put right
Whole days together
When I couldn't put a foot righ
t And still they haunt me
In my dreams they come to taunt me
Through my mind's eye

They say before you die
Your life goes by before your eyes
I must be dying in my sleep
I knew that every thought and deed
Of every single day
Was in the mind to stay
Well I knew it in a way
But I didn't know that it could go so very deep

The sudden waking
Is something you get used to
My hands are shaking
You see what I'm reduced to
I'd like to be where
The light was less on me where
I'd be free of what I see there
In my mind's eye