A Poet’s Nightmare on Elm Street

Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep,
                                                            or poetry will follow you.

Light slices through darkness,
                                    where poets encounter the unexpected.

Imagery lurks in corners of dreams
                                          like monsters underneath your bed.

Elm Street might be shady but, like mushrooms, poems
                                                             need darkness to sprout.

And poets, there’s no point in cowering
                                             and no need to scream and shout.

Kim M. Russell, 28th October 2025

Image by Dania Shaeeb on Unsplash

It’s Tuesday Poetics at the dVerse Poets Pub and Mish says that it doesn’t have to be scary!

She explains: “Though my prompt fell into the time frame of Halloween celebrations […] I believe we have enough to shudder and scream about these days. At the same time, I searched for something light within the darkness to bring you today’s challenge.”

Mish has turned to iconic lines from horror films for today’s prompt, on which she would like us to throw some light, and take them in a different direction. Our mission is to choose one of the fright flick quotes she has provided as the first line of our poems. If we’re compelled to write from the darkness, we may, but Mish thought it would be interesting to let the line lead us somewhere else, and we can write in any form or none at all.

I chose “Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep” – Nancy Thompson, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and to play with American sentences.

54 thoughts on “A Poet’s Nightmare on Elm Street”

  1. I love the line you chose, Kim! 😊 This is gorgeously rendered. I especially admire; “Elm Street might be shady but, like mushrooms, poems need darkness to sprout.” ❤️❤️

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  2. You had me at the first line, Kim and I like the references to the movie. Also, I like the suggestion that we can find a good balance between cowering and shouting, even in our written work.

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  9. Wonderful word weaving and I like the messages, like gifts, to be found within it about the darkness and not getting bent out of shape when poets go dark and tell truths some would best like to stay under (w)raps. Love it, Kim.

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  15. We both took the same lines and ran in the opposite directions! I just love what you did here. Love, ” Imagery lurks in corners of dreams
                                              like monsters underneath your bed.”

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  25. i like this intuitive remark—like mushrooms, poems
                                                                 need darkness to sprout. yes indeed. Thanks for sharing your words.

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  26. How about this? Could we “twist and shout” This is a beautiful poem, Kim … I dream many of my poems, at the very least the outline of them and why I keep a notepad next to my bed. Thank you for leaving me a comment.

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  27. A great line because of course the minute you say that… I wish poetry would follow me to sleep and still be there when I wake up lol! I have to write it down or it is gone forever. Nightmare on Elm Street oh wow, scared the daylights out of me back then.

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