Art and Octopuses

I don’t know why on the 3^rd March 2023 around two to three in the morning I became transfixed with writing poetry and flash fiction based on octopuses, but I do know one thing…

I am really good at painting octopuses!

I don’t really know why I wanted to share this; I am writing this after writing the flash fiction story called “A boy’s unconscious battle”. 

I feel like painting the scene in my mind right now, but we all know why that can’t happen right now.  No available art table and I am not too keen to go downstairs within ten feet of a rat to paint at near four in the morning when its freezing cold downstairs and Ray (my house rabbit) will have a temper tantrum throughout the whole painting session because I am disturbing him at an unholy hour and please turn out the light you selfish human!

Rightly so too!

If I could have painted I know what the scene would look like.

My son Henry twisted in his blankets like how I saw him tonight, surrounded by his sea of teddy bears fallen around him in what looked like their attempt to try and free him from the onslaught of sheet tentacles around his hips and arms, Henry’s legs and arms all over the place too – he didn’t look very comfortable.  A pillow on the floor and chewing in his sleep – he was talking about different flavours of gum moments before he slept.

It would have been fun to have painted it, at least six hours as it would be a complicated piece for me, a mix of ink and watercolours.

Thanks for reading…

Written 3:19am 3rd March 2023

A boy’s unconscious battle

Legs akimbo and arms too, laying on the bed a little boy fast asleep visiting the land of dreams as moonbeams paint the room a silver glow.

His white sheet alive with action slithers like a tentacle around his hips and the boy slowly and sleepily coiled in its clutches; teddy bears fall in line to pull the tentacle away and rescue the boy their friend.

The boy twists in and out and in again getting further and further tangled in the octopods tentacle as he too, grows tentacles to go into battle to save himself as he continues in his slumber – an unconscious battle for freedom done in slow motion in the moonlit sea of silver and blue.

Teddy bears thrashed to the floor all around helpless they lay motionless on the ground. 

When morning comes all is peaceful, the boy well rested springs up from his bed like he had been catapulted kicking his allies across the room knocking them into unconscious sleep for another day.

For tonight, there is a new battle!

Written 3:02am 3rd March 2023

Two fighting octopods

I watch you, like an octopus in bed

Lumpy pillows by your head

Twisting yourself into knots and throws

Snoring away all your woes

Dreaming about all the things you love

A sheet wrapped round your hand like a glove

Chewing away as you sleep

I wonder what you dreamed to eat

What made that smile on your lips

As the sheet wraps around your hips

Two fighting octopods in the bed

I wonder what goes on inside your head?

Fast asleep yet fighting there

Amongst all the sheets and teddy bears

What a battle and such peace

The wonder of you will never cease

I shut the door and leave you to the land of dreams

As the landing is lit by moonbeams

Written 2:45am 3rd March 2023

Sea of teddy bears

Drowning in a sea of teddy bears

Arms and legs akimbo everywhere

Snuffling and snorkelling in the sea of fluff

Fast asleep in mounds of stuff

A lumpy duvet collected by your head

As pillows have fallen from your bed

You slumber into a world of dreams

Where nothing is quite as it seems

Never knowing who lurks by the door

Watching you and listening to your sleepy snore

Sighing as they know so well

That soon adulthood will cast its spell

And you won’t be like that in a year or three

Because that is how it’s meant to be

You’ll grow up and leave this place

To go off into the world your dreams to chase

And you will be the one by the door

Watching your children as they snore

And seeing them go and chase their dreams

Because this is the way of life it seems

Written 3rd March 2023 2:32am