<This is also a sestina ((READNEWS POETRY 635 for more information)). I
had to try it, and it lies in stark contrast to my previously posted
poem. Thank you Callisto for reminding me of the joy found in writing
strictly structured poems. -blush- But then I decided to omit the final
3 line stanza, call it my writers licenses if you will. So there goes
structure. -grin->

One Cold and Awful Night

The dusky moons light pours cool night,
Through tenuous panes of glass,
My lone and lonely body fears,
Distorted echoes of the past.
To this cold-sweat terror, bear witness:
Hounding me - my mind.

What are these things that twist the mind,
In the bitter rigors of the night?
The twisted sheets a wretched witness,
To pain impending like shards of glass,
Embedded deeply in the brain, mirror image of the past,
Alluding to all fears.

Fetal, I coil myself, to shut out these fears.

I swear all this I would not mind,
Should you, conjured from my past
At my bedside appear this night,
Transcending with moonlight, callous glass,
And then, you I could let witness! O! See what I have shut-out, witness!
See a whimpering child wrapped in pungent fears,
My pale hand dripping vibrant red, broken though the glass,
Revenge-rabid, I think with moldered mind,
The innocent spray of naive red into night,
Then shuddering, a life becomes the past.

The past,
You can witness,
With me this night,
Translucent ghosts, my fears.
Using a spoon I hollow out my mind:
A tortured bee in a jar of glass.

You who have transcended glass,
Cannot forgive me this tainted past.
My prison forged from my mind,
For no one will bear witness,
To that childs moribund fears,
One cold and awful night.


Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Severin, in the year 114 MA.