Huck Finn’s Nightmare

In realms of early morning sleep
I float on streams of time
down canyons of dark memory
beyond the reach of rhyme

ghosts of those I should have loved
and those not meant to hold
clutch at me with tendril arms
and make my soul burn cold

flashes of what might have been
things that could not be
ride with me along these currents
into a spectral sea

there to swim in unknown tides
beside my dreaming form
causing turbulent duress
that culminates in storm

nightmare waves that crash and sculpt
an unresisting shore
until the wind itself has died
and stirs the sea no more

then, abruptly, I awake
in rivulets of sweat
knowing that I now must face
those things I haven’t yet

another day of stress and strife
until the fading light
returns me once again to dream
of terrors in the night

C. Lon R. Bruso