#poem #poet #poetry #night #creeper #sleep #wound #deaf #light #black #white #moon #clock #hands #nightmare #blind

His footprints always meet, not here, but only

In your mind’s eye;

Night’s horizons a dream when you embark

Into the womb of the full moon.

In a dark suit, in an old trench coat,

He unleashes nightmares from his

Satchel, a full-tilt unholy night wrecked sleep,

Lulled into a darkened oblivion.

Tossed and turned around in doom-struck slumber,

Bone shank thoughts will blunder you into a wet drench;

Rave on in a quicksand nemesis lullaby

While the clock hands tick in shaded ambivalence.

The moon leans down hard like a brazen harlequin

Mocking you, flicking light on and off,

Black and white, much as a ranting jackanape

Fluting a stiff march into a deaf.

The paradox is that the nightmare’s the thing,

Though this primadonna won’t leave a trace, knows

How to lacerate a sleep wound,

Withers dreams into a hell surrender.

Then the awakening, pay the piper

With tears; rationed through a kaleidoscope

Of shapes and absolutes;

Congealed into a knowing, a polemic scattering

Into the narrow crack of sleeplessness;

Cradled deep in a suspense, defenseless as a

Sitting duck, knocked down by a blind shot;

All your senses carol for a respite.

Lance Sheridan