February 24, 2019

Three Poems by Marc Livanos: “Another Night”, “Taming the Beast” and “In-sanity”

Marc Livanos lives in Florida and has had poetry published in Straylight Magazine, POEM, Sheepshead Review, Glass Mountain’s Shards, Old Red Kimono, Ship of Fools, Foliate Oak Literary Magazine, Song of the San Joaquin Quarterly, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal and other journals.


                                iStock



Another Night

Terror seeps a chill so deep
your bones ache.
You wake from the caverns of sleep
to ice water flowing over your body.

Damp freezing sheets enshrouded
as in a blanket of snow
make every limb shiver
against your will.

Muscles spasm so violently,
the headboard beats in rhythm.
Your breathing can’t keep up
with your heart beat.

Panic builds till your skull
threatens to explode from your head.
Even the room’s dark shadows
undulate toward you.

Great voids of nothingness
reach out to devour you.
And no matter how hard you try,
they slither over the bed’s edge

ready to descend upon you
weaving a cocoon of evil.
And as light’s rays flicker out,
the screaming begins.

Deep and primal
with the same agony
and pain of a child
expelled from its womb.

You are one with
the grating shrieks,
throbbing, shooting pain,
thunder behind your eyes.

Caressing your face, it whispers -
Made in Hell, raised in fire
taught by pain,
you are mine.


This kind of terror
doesn’t like to lose.
I know. It’s mine.
It pursues me at night.

When those black fingers of shadows
transverse the last specs of light
touching me in my last moments
of consciousness, I scream out -

Why’s this happening to me?
Why does it have to be me!






Taming the Beast

Pain, grief, despair,
dreadfulness, distress
led to loss of control.

Endless clutter
showcased the suffocating
rubble of my life.

The harder I worked
the deeper I sank
trapped in quicksand.

Worsening back pain
eventually led
to drop foot.

Desperate, I needed
to escape and flung
myself far afield.

One day, I inhaled the toxicity
till nothing was left
and saw joy too was there.

Cleansing breaths gave perspective
and an unfettered mind
provided a certain calmness.

Knowing peace was everywhere,
I tuned my heart and mind
to its soothing current.
The trickle turned to a stream.
I re-learned to navigate
the rapids of life.

I turned inside out
to find peace within.



In-sanity

Despair, grief,
pain, distress,
dreadfulness
all led me far afield.

Losing my grip on reality,
insanity gained a foothold
with searing white-hot pains
and soundless screams.

Incessant compulsions
skewed my perspective,
spewed vengeance and
bequeathed no discernible reality.

Everyone stared,
distrust swarmed
and then -
They become the threat.





Marc Livanos

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