The Life of a Poet

Shadows of loneliness,
Shadows that speak to me in my darkest days,
Shadows cast upon my heart,
Made by the fiery images burning in my mind...
My home...
My sickness...

To respond to the voices in my head,
To succumb to their veiled will,
Is to put quill to paper.
Disregard is not an option,
Lest the miserable battles remain
In my fleeting, scarred, and frightened sanity.

I'm haunted by the moonlight
And the shadows that it casts,
And the deaths that it creates--
The shapes and forms that grasp at me,
Begging me to join them
In their psychotic dances.

Ghastly figures awaken me
From blood-drenched sleep.
Alone with a scream,
With heavy breath,
With racing heart,
With cold sweat.

In my phobic existence again.
Fear of existing,
Fear of others,
Fear of the light,
Fear of an exit.
Fear.

My tired black heart
Permits my anxiety.
Intense bitterness towards
The human condition of feeling.
Depression.
Anger.

Why must I be delusional?
Or am I just paranoid?
Normality needn't write.
Perhaps I needn't live.
My life imbibes in the misery,
The misery that brings me to my knees.

Why must I be human?
Why must I feel?
Why must I fear?
Why must I continue to live?
This is a weary hour.
This is a weary hour.

---

Originally written:    November 3, 2001
Put online:    November 4, 2001
Discussion:    This is another poem that deals with the insanity of my creativity. It also touches on the nightmares that are behind a lot of my writings (and, indeed, much of my existence). The nightmares are particularly behind those poems that are more murderous and gory.


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