Dementia Couplets (My First in a While...)

[MorpheusSandman]

Be kind... I'm out of practice.

==========================

I see the gods at ungodly hours
Devouring graves with infernal power
To ashes, to ashes
In the waning surge of midnight miles
Where the blood moon weeps and the child smiles
The swallow swallows yesterday’s sorrows
And flies through the bog of foggy morrows

Oh who did I see through windows of rain?
A face full of tears of dying pain.

Allow me to sing you a lullaby
To lull you away to a later time
A better time, a better time
And I wished you could be there for the morning sun
To see me through the nightmare’s run
But I fear it’s too late, the cormorant’s home
And I’m out on the skerries of kingdom come

Could you take me to where the river flows?
You knew where it did a long time ago.

I want to get back to my garden of Eden
I know it’s not far, I just lost it while dreaming
Of you, of you
But the falling fires will soon kill the light
And I’ll listen to symphonies with dying sight
The crowd will be loud in the caterwaul
The fire in their throats will beckon the thaw

I’ve walked on too far, did I just miss the end?
All I wanted to see was my dearest old friend.

The lampposts still hang like nooses at noon
But the night’s fallen long and dawn comes too soon
Too soon, too soon
I’ll hold off the demons disturbing my mind
I’ll pray you will help whenever it’s time
But I’ll limp and I’ll skulk down the lanes and the alleys
Through shadows of fear and the antique valleys

If you don’t come believe that I’ll miss you forever
I’ll starve my own hunger in this fruitless endeavor

Riverrun past the Eve of Adam’s rib
In darkened palaces of white lies and fibs
I won’t tell, I won’t
This Styx was a simmer when I lit the match
The 9th Circle’s melting and the lock is unlatched
Unleashed to a world who will never be ready
If I can read my own writing my hand will hold steady…

I’m tired, so tired
I’ll rest in this fire

[balehead]

if this is you when you're out of practice; i'd like to see what you produce when you're at your best!! This is better than anything I could ever dream of writing ... an impressive accomplishment, in all respects

[Pendragon]

The couplets interposed between the longer stanzas make this poem a rare gem, to be looked at with wonder in one's gaze!

[oslemxoslem]

just one word : marvellous

[PrinceMyshkin]

I can only envy the pleasure you must have had writing this, the extraordinary play between the rhyming lines and the ones that don't rhyme and in so doing seem to hint at the struggle of doing this - and doing it so well!

Although it's all very much of a piece I was especially struck by:

But I fear it’s too late, the cormorant’s home
And I’m out on the skerries of kingdom come

and

I’ve walked on too far, did I just miss the end?
All I wanted to see was my dearest old friend.

and

The lampposts still hang like nooses at noon
But the night’s fallen long and dawn comes too soon

but this line:

Unleashed to a world who will never by ready

should surely be "Unleashed to a world which..."

[DanBierce]

Very well done, IMO. Wish I would have come up with "antique valleys."

Typo alert:

"Unleashed to a world who will never by (be) ready"

Thanks for the read. Enjoyed very much.

[nubbienub]

"The swallow swallows yesterday’s sorrows".

Very interesting! I like it very much! Not just that part, I like the whole thing!

[MorpheusSandman]

Thanks to everyone for the compliments! Maybe I'm just too hard on myself...

but this line:

should surely be "Unleashed to a world which..."

Nope, the "who" is intentional. I like what it implies compared to "which".

Typo alert:

Thanks for catching that.