Mr Fear by Lawrence Raab

He follows us, he keeps track.
Each day his lists are longer.
Here, death. And here,
something like it.

Mr. Fear, we say in our dreams
what do you have for me tonight?
And he looks through his sack,
his black sack of troubles.

Maybe he smiles when he finds
the right one. Maybe he's sorry.
Tell me, Mr. Fear,
what must I carry

away from your dream.
Make it small, please
Let it fit in my pocket,
let it fall through

the hole in my pocket.
Fear, let me have
a small brown bat
and a purse of crickets

like the ones I heard
singing last night
out there in the stubbly field
before I slept, and met you.

            What I love about this poem is it reminds me so much of Ray Bradbury’s themes on fear. Bradbury is perhaps one of my favorite authors, and reading of Mr. Fear and “a small brown bat and a purse of crickets” brings to mind “The Next in Line” or The Halloween Tree. Mr. Fear knowing what scares us, always bringing the future or the past (“like the ones I heard last night”) out to frighten us about what is out in the dark (“stubbly field”) or what is inside.

More specific to the poem, I find it clever how the author personifies those nightmares that happen, when something that happened during the day (“He follows us”) or an old memory (“he keeps track”) resurfaces as a bad dream at night (“what do you have for me tonight?”) Thankfully, we mostly forget the dreams or mind makes up during the night (“Let it fit in my pocket, let it fall through the hole in my pocket”) but occasionally we remember those seemingly innocent things of the day turn absurdly sinister at night that only we understand.