The Starless Night of Dreams

I know the eyeless ever-clawing scream 
Dragged out from in the heart of my own mind
That fills the haunting starless nights of dream.

The blankness filled with every futile scheme
Informs my soul and desperation blind.
I know the eyeless ever-clawing scream

Behind me in a rolling, crushing, stream,
Comes terror of a chilling, evil kind
That fills the haunting starless nights of dream.

On foolscap, ink records a nightmare's gleam
Then burns each day with red-hot flames entwined
I know the eyeless ever-clawing scream

Of gaunt and ghast and red-lit burning steam
Upon the flesh of helpless ones confined
That fills the haunting starless nights of dream.

Spare me the embrace of the fiend supreme.
Who stole my eyes and made me ever blind.
I know the eyeless ever-clawing scream
That fills the haunting starless nights of dream.
 

Reviews

[W.k.kortas]

One of the difficulties of restrictive forms such villanelle or sestina is that in can be difficult to maintain a narrative thread--it is all too easy to shoehorn ungainly words into the rhyme scheme, disrupting meaning and meter. Happily, there is no such difficulty here. The narrative is strong and well-built, the meter flawless. Fine, fine work.