INSOMNIA

Tossing and turning, and
rendering drenching wet,
The pillows and sheets with midnight sweat.
Though waking terrors
Plague the mind,
Easier to bear, and far
Less fearful, you find;
Than ghoulish figures that in your dreams are met.

The unsleeping pupil, dark and glazed, as if belladonna stained;
The restless heart, galloping, like some jungle beast untamed.
The mouth bathed and soured
By the ever rising, burning bile,
While the mind walks , ceaseless
Amidst some distant defile.
In such catatonia, you pray in fervour, for the night to wane.

Some moonstruck lover, bemoaning in sighs, his mistress cold,
Or cancerous crone, in writhing pain, yet vainly clutching the mortal fold.
The fallen lord, who lately
Hope in the bottle hath sought.
Or the uneasy, uncertain crown,
In the throes of unwilling battle, caught.
All lie in angst, and in the gloom, their uneasy sorrows mould.

The frenzied brain , glowing bright, in unimaginable hues,
Like artist in desperation, seeking his long forgotten muse.
Gates are opened ,
And instantaneously shut;
While teeming multitudes,
In senseless hunt
Ungirt the mind, and ‘mong the nightly demons, set it loose.

The body is drugged, the senses numbed, yet sleep remains,
As distant, as bright sunlight , from stygian plains.
Then the first gleam
Of a hopeless dawn,
Plunges deeper, the
Unrelenting , insomniac thorn;
From the limb and soul, all semblance, of life blood drains.