In barren dreams, I suffer endless nights
of dark derision, platitudes unclean,
that beckon blighted, pestilent insights
to rabid filth, befouled beyond obscene.

These devil's tunes, to which I click my heels
with unforced, sly irreverence and fear,
are melodies to rob my fervour's steel
with repetitious horror without peer.

And so, as dawn emancipates my thoughts
with fresh arrears to pay as hours caress
all egos as they stroke with passings bought
by purpose, I will finally confess

the haunted landscape where night terrors stride,
the nightmares that may leave me petrified.



The nightmares that may leave me petrified
begin upon a road, of cars devoid.
As wind accosts dark emptiness, I'm tied
to shades of brown that make me paranoid.

Upon the road is cardboard once alive,
now crumpled by the hatred of obscured
dark recollections, sight for which I strive
through muddy shadows traitor thoughts have lured.

The boxes cannot stay, my panic rides
upon a wave of desperation's clutch.
Illumination fades; I can't abide
the cardboard's droll and dust-affected touch

that drives a spike of hatred through my soul,
and so I flee into the deepest hole.



And so I flee into the deepest hole,
while somewhere in the dark, a malice waits
to set a giant boulder free to roll
without a destination to its fate.

I only know those boxes on the road
are waiting for the hands that cannot move
and somewhere is the boulder's fell abode
where Destiny lies helpless in its groove.

I shriek in fear, protective anger's fate
when rolling rock's behest remains unknown
and all my hope begins to dissipate
as senseless visions will not be outgrown

despite the years that separate their call.
I am a child alone, within the thrall.



I am a child alone, within the thrall
of measurements along a tube of glass,
abused by horror, robbed of wherewithal
by black events in nightmares come to pass.

A plunger sinks, syringes loose their wares.
Repulsive liquids slide into my veins
against my will, as cardboard boulders stare.
The victim of a vote I can't abstain.

I reach without a hand to grasp a tree
ephemeral as justice wrought in hopes.
No explanation's saving grace for me;
I'm lost between the lines of terror's tropes,

forever victim, raging and confused,
participant and torturer amused.



Participant and torturer. Amused,
I turn to find myself upon a car
that surfs towards a pavement underused
by populations raised by folk afar

in media and perspicacious lies
to ignorance. I crash upon their shores
and fly across a field of eyes surprised
towards a razor fence on concrete floor.

Before I'm dashed into a hundred parts,
I fade into a vacuum; stars' repast,
and breathe no air as colour's vim departs
the desolation of the future's past.

Celestial visions no man understands
bereft of chance, I grasp loss without hands.



Bereft of chance, I grasp loss without hands,
and plunge into an ocean full of stone.
As gravel fills my lungs and air is sand,
cold rock becomes my world, replacing bone.

I cannot swim, nor ride the wave of dust
that cakes my being, dry as barren death.
All faith forgot, my mettle turned to rust,
I curse the womb that nurtured my first breath.

But, just as distance dissipates my life,
I fall away, to darkness blessed with cold,
and once again my thoughts and dreams are rife
with endless nights of frozen fear untold.

Full circle is my vicious nightly curse
in desperation's lee, and now in verse.



In desperation's lee, and now in verse,
I cast my plea into the world's abyss
to seek a meaning for the universe
as represented by these thoughts amiss

and passionate to steal away my time
upon the dreamscape's clement visual treats.
If roads and cardboard boulders are a crime,
and dark syringes suckle gravel's teat,

perhaps there is no sustenance to find
and relevance is stymied by attempts.
It's helplessness that rots the dreaming mind
and uselessness that every day pre-empts

attempts to find the enemies I fight
in barren dreams. I suffer endless nights.