In nightmares they solely deal,

When the soul is stripped of pomp

And the conscience of the corporeal,

On a leaden-footed romp

Through fields of lavender remembrance,

Trampeling blue the treasured

And muddying purest essence.

Their subhuman howls prove measured

To best rip the fabric of the mind

In irrepairable scars and tatters--

They're gaining, they're behind!--

Sanity falls away and shatters

To the fear! The fight, the fate

The walls of soundless sound and

sightless sight and no before no

after no ground no sky no nothing

but the fear! The crushing weight 

of certainty of the uncertain and

horror at the heels--

Reality reassembles in white rooms.

Black splotches under the eyelids.

Every spot a memory of every night

Every past refuses to be forgotten.

Reminder that no healing daylight

Can reconcile the ghosts

Beneath the consciousness.