Thy creature here before Thee stands,
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act
O, free my weary eyes from tears,
But if I must afflicted be,
Then, man my soul with firm resolves
A Dream Within A Dream
By Edgar Allan Poe
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow---
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
a portion from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
Darkness and the Shadow of Light
by James O'Barr
I feel like a statue of an armless angel
Broken; hurt
Flawed at my very core,
Rage jets thru my veins, a
Black blood poison
Hot with fury
It rolls off me like smoke, like
Sad music
My soul rises up from the
Red sky of the west
A fiery chariot amassed of
Iron; steel:
Engine parts
Bones, both human and animal
With a hideous velocity I
Scream across he heavens,
Washing the countryside in
A sick sweet death like some
Monstrous plague
Anger boils over me in a
Screaming rain and
I want to destroy everything;
If I were a god everything
Would die a slow, horrific
Death
I look at my arms.
There are spiders in my veins,
They are glossy blue-black:
The color of sin, the color
Of a waxed Porsche.
The crimson hourgasses on their backs
Shine like Christmas tree decorations
The spiders mate, they f***
In my blood
Discharging a sick dead venom
That dozes up and down my
Arteries
Eating at the last innocence
Of my soul
To live, I must release them
With trembling fingers
I pick up a straight razor,
Its rusted serrated edge like
The fringe of a shadow
The razor needs soft flesh
Like a dozen red roses I
Give the gift of freedom to the
Spiders:
A rush of blood, down my
Forearm
An alizarin crimson curtain
Rising, like my soul, to
Signal the start of the end
Who will be the slave to
The spiders,
Now?
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