“This is my poetic expression of what the “night terrors”, I have experienced all my life, feel like to me. My “night terrors” are actually traumatic, ‘imageless’ dreams, that fill me with so much deep dread that I often wake up moaning loudly. It is a type of nocturnal madness from which I wake completely disoriented and terrified. Once awake and composed, I am usually unwilling to attempt to quickly return to sleep. It seriously scares my wife when they happen to me.”
“Descent Into Madness” by: Rob Kistner
steep-steering the black nocturnal nest,
perversely born fantazury,
fresh hatched night’s mad menagerie.
Scream-bringing hoard of twisted truth,
zoom-zooming in this blue-black world,
called forth to gorge in ghastly feast,
first stir, they roust — then gore the beast.
Dark distressing visions overflow,
madness stabbing with a brain-jolt pierce,
disgusting curiosities,
brute-flung to hideousity.
Jerk and lunge these soul-cleaved demons,
death scratch-scratching through doomsday’s door.
Perverted serendipity,
they swarm in crazed horrorifity.
Flaying bone-toed my synapses,
hell’s fleshless hounds devour my peace.
Mind-ghouls shake and shiver me.
Oh gentle morne, deliver me.
rob kistner © 2019
It’s all you can hope for in those times…
“Oh gentle morne, deliver me.”
I beseech the rising sun everyday for peace Lisa, from the mad manic nightmares and twisted thoughts of the sleepless night before.
Your dark poem pounded in my head like a bass drum, Rob! The steady pace and rhythm together with the rhyming couplets (fantazury / menagerie!) gave it the feeling of a dirge. For those of us who suffer insomnia and nightmares – night madness – your lines ring true.
That is what it is like when I try unsuccessfully to sleep Kim — I cannot quiet my head! It is a strange kind’a madness.
I feel the dark struggle for peace in the dark and the hope that morning brings.
Lived with “night terrors” my whole life Astrid, though they are less frequent now that I am older.
From one insomniac to another – darkness is for sleep but it has that other meaning of ‘the black nocturnal nest,’ – a very gritty response to the prompt and one that leaves the reader longing for the morning too!
Sorry to hear Laura, that we both share the sleeplessness night can bring. This is my poetic expression of what the “night terrors”, I have experienced all my life, feel like to me. My “night terrors” are actually traumatic imageless dreams that fill me with so much deep dread that I often wake up moaning loudly. It is a type of nocturnal madness from which I wake completely disoriented and terrified. It seriously scares my wife when they happen to me.
The poem felt like walking into the hell of Hieronymus Bosch.. all those growling words felt like beasts eating my flesh… visions like this would drive me mad too.
This was my best effort Björn, to capture the madness of the “night terrors” that I have experienced all my life, though fortunately much less frequently as I’ve grown older — but they still occasionally wake me up panting, sometimes moaning, unwilling to go quickly back to sleep.
Wow, Rob. My heart goes out to you and your wife. You have conveyed the terror here so well.
We have learned to live with these occasions Linda. However, the first time it happened was 32 years ago, shortly after we met. She ran to the living room and was ready to either get a neighbor or call 911. I had forewarned her of the possibility, but it still freaked her out. She came back in the bedroom as I was becoming lucid. We laugh about it now.
I used to experience vivid nightmares as a child…they subsided with adulthood. I understand a little of your reluctance to sleep!
Not as I’d like it to be — but what is must be dealt with.