Conjuring and Remembrance

The conjuring of what-could-bes and remembrances of things that aren’t restrain me in my woe,
Out of the mist they arise; in their nefarious claws they clutch me, pulling and tearing to and fro,
These brutal behemoths – these titans in tandum! – with me whither I go, Necromantic in their appearance, unkempt robes athwart their forms; the latter black, the former white,
Ghoulish in twain with caustic eyes that wreak pain, upon me to perform the rite.
They bound and suppress, convolve and restrict, and induce the dream of the dead:
In a harrowing chamber I stand hearing only my heartbeat, seeing nothing but thy glowing frame caged up ahead,
I reach to touch but thou’s intangible, ethereal; and neither key nor lock to break the dread,
A reverberation of cackles, devilish and raucous, further enervates my strength to endure,
I look thou in the eyes and fortitude fully wanes; thou’s too enrapturing in thy august allure,
To the cold granite I fall whilst away thou slowly fades, an unreachable apparition who holds the cure.

Conjuring and Remembrance

A nightmare of such satanic proportions that its terror still disrupts my sleep,
The closure of an eyelid and I sense the presence of Conjuring and Remembrance upon me creep,
Conjuring teases thy breath against my neck; Remembrance comes to the fore, all this over me sweeps,
Conjuring takes my hand and places it in thine; Remembrance enters the fray, from thy warmth it keeps,
Conjuring taunts thy beauty and draws my smiles to thou; Remembrance seizes centre-stage, misery ‘pon me heaps,
Conjuring twines my embraces ‘round thy sumptuous shape;
Remembrance bars the twine, from the mist it leaps.
To kiss and to caress and to please – without concealment – and to whisper in thy ear,
To touch thou and revel in thy warmth and to each other endear.
But when desire arises so does mist from whence they emerge: Conjuring and Remembrance, Master Puppeteers of Scourge,
Offering thou before me in that impermeable cage, to pluck at my strings and guffaw like all the world’s a stage.

- a poem by a lad who escaped their tyranny, whose sweetheart was not so lucky