“Why
Do I So Often Fear The Coming Night ?”
(is
it because of seeming, endless, horrid nightmare, that in consuming all, would
also seek my breath, or, rather that each night is thieve to prior day, to
bring me that much closer unto death?)
dedicated
to my dear friends, ‘mabri’; ‘DenverCowboy’; ‘1magicman’; to Joan; and, of
course to dear, ’Strenuba’
09/03/12
I
I often wonder, now, why I fear so much the coming night?
Could it be that—in depression, and a hundred, other
agonies, I do not want to surrender any—should there have been some--of a day’s
calm, and wonderful sight.
Exhausted, more than sleepy, now, I know I shall
awake red-faced, sweated, fearful from nightmares that collectively affright,
and, gasping-know that nightfall signifies one less day,
even if those days are pain-filled and unpleasant, marked upon the calendar of
my life when—in my long-ago, and dusty youth—so much seemed to delight,
that only now is a nonetheless failed and traduced
attempt at memory’s second sight.
II
Or—rather—it is that the house has become too quiet,
that I truly know that I am alone,
pausing to utter fractured prayers of a base
unreasonableness, to a God I’ve never seen: to atone,
and, in giving—gladly—all my goods and worth I own,
abjure past sins that gather me in coldness now,
when the cardboard fortress that is my home is too empty and too quiet, saving
for an old dog’s moan,
for she is running to some private, hunting dream,
and lost in an old dog’s sleep I cannot find, for me—instead, there IS no
comfort known.
III
And why cannot I find some lingering sense of peace,
somewhere among the scores of medicines I take, which are pushed and pulled by
illness, pain; that offers only brief respite, but really does not abate
the chilling thoughts that horrid dreams will pursue
me, to lead ever downward to that great,
and fiery lake; how then can I at last pay Charon’s
fare across the Styx?, where a triple-headed, monsterous Cerberus lies in wait
as guardian to a hellish scape of unending torment,
or, rather would some dreamless sleep prove to be my fate.
Though I would choose sweet angels to bear up my
soul, their rap’tous songs of evanescent joy elate.
IV
To find myself face to face with a kinder, more
forgiving Lord,
Who—in made manifest, eternal love—would gather me
‘round with soothing word,
forgiving me for a life-time of slights, both minor
and major failures of the soul, however odd.
At least—in dreams—of beauty rare in cleansing,
clarifying, changing to some perfect self be heard,
And by that gentle, soft, and reassuring Voice,
instead, be stirred!
V
But, once again, I find myself awake—too early—as if
beaten by a hundred whips to face the dawn.
And in my collected sorrow know that, still… somehow,
life—as such—must go ever forward, and still forward, until such time when
life—itself is gone
with naught else to anticipate, save a cup of
coffee’s ‘fun house’ reflection of a face so tired and wan
that were not my barren tears used so nearly up, they
might fall to some desert patch of sleeping earth to somehow make it less
despairing, and in a joyful fruitfulness, respond!
Oh !, could I at last be as unchained from nightmare
chained to nightmare, chained to the evilness of nightmare? With its inevitable
thoughts of death, to ever fly away, and fly beyond!
VI
To be ever less consumed with pain by day, of
course, would doubtless—so continued be my flight,
Until the dark, and dreary end of day, would prove
to ever still the ravening fear I have each night.
End
Please
always know you occupy some larger place within my heart.
Love,
‘Zahc’/Charles
