BY DR. AGONSON
In the darkness of the early morn,
a dream inside my skull was borne,
a horrifying vision there
that sleep would not forbear
but held before my screaming mind
while I lay trapped in slumber’s bind.
And what I saw, I can’t relate
nor by any means communicate
for there is no comparison on earth
at least no one of any worth
no one that can express it well
that fetid vision from a writhing Hell.
Were centuries spent in that pit
for which the damned are only fit—
were in those flames the eldest sought
the first and longest work that hell hast wrought—
that eldest soul could not obtain
that fiendish face, nor even feign
to make from human meat
an evil so replete.
What metaphor might I seize on!
Blithe. Tasteless. The image gone.
The closest I have come to find—
I shiver for that they remind—
the smiles of that certain sort
who grin when you have no resort
when they demand what is your tongue’s,
to breathe their lies out from your lungs.
But even there, not quite despair,
for Christ’s image love may repair.
This thing I saw was never man,
never earthly. How it began
I cannot say save in a dream,
yet something more these visions seem.
Tale Told 