The gauntlets of darkness compress my brain

Feeling constantly stoned, drunk with too much wine

Yet I have partaken of neither grape nor herb in years!

My eyes are not in sync as I stumble around

like a Dickens character trapped inside an unfinished novel

Never to be read or published

Flitting from page to page searching for my lines

For my own story within this crazy story…

These days, even though I sleep longer, I still find no rest

I dread waking up! Oh! so grateful I do…

Has my God left me? Am I deluded?

Sent out of his pity?

For to see the wretched humanity deep within my soul

would be too much sorrow for a man to bear…

Am I a lost boy to conscience?

Alone running through a petrified forest

Thunder, lightning overhead, my own 1812 overture

While shrieking ravens fly above

Mocking! Mocking! Mocking!

Dark ravens of madness that now forever fly inside my head

Mocking! Mocking! Mocking!………………

M C Bolton 2021 @MarkCBolton1