True Horror

By Cliff Lake

True Horror

 

When the sun has bowed to the horizon,

That slip of orange fire,

A menace of near absence in flame,

Now the long shadows twist too dark,

Animate from sided sight,

Groping arms flat in the receding light.

Listen to leaves restless without wind,

Whisperers of secrets you do not want to hear,

A papery chorus made more clear in the dry air,

Speaking the chill come too quick.

What denial can you offer?

In the failing glow

What truths hold,

And what may be made real,

From the recesses of the mind and

The dark splashes grounded and grown deep.

The hissing leaves tell tales of gray,

The wavering glimmers confirm all and nothing,

Time is stretching interminable,

And all is unfocused in sharp detail:

A piercing fog reaching,

Enveloping,

Surrounding,

To carry your understanding away from you,

Leaving an empty husk of sensation only.

Why do you remain?

Is this what you wanted?

To be diminished to mere reaction minus awareness,

A collection of response without meaning,

A receptacle frozen in twilight.

This is the dangerous lesson:

That you can be removed,

And still remain,

A shell that feels,

Sees,

Hears,

Yet is powerless to act.

You did not choose this.

It was chosen for you.

This is the tale the dying leaves sing at you:

A possibility that you may exit this reality,

And yet live within it…

And that is the true horror.

 

Cliff Lake 10/16/2024

Copyright © Clifford Lake 2024

Location: Wichita, KS, USA

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