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Nocturnes: The Obsessive
Dark visions come. On moonless nights, your head
fills with grim thoughts of other ways to live;
live without conscience---live to take, not give---
live in the shelter of vague secrecy
(of which, impenetrable, the less said),
the cloak of sinister perversity.
An ancient, bestial, carnal, dastard need
that darting demons' drive can only feed
when others, innocents, suffer and bleed.
These visions gather just beyond your eyes.
They prove false all the civil, social lies
you once believed, or spoke. Horrific sights---
that beggar ordinary words---are crammed
there, where, before your final choice, your soul
dwelt tenderly; until, aghast, it fled,
leaving your more humane emotions dead,
and what is less humane, out of control,
wanting to rend, to mar. On moonless nights,
chuckling, you do not even fear the dread
lake of hell's fire to which you will be damned.
Reprobate mind, careless of what requites . . .
out of control . . . chuckling . . . on moonless nights . . . .
