My best beloved nightmare

(On Gottfried Helnwein’s ’Self- portrait as sub-human’)

’...I guess I enjoy the visions of Nightmares. It is the antithesis of the beautiful, and it makes beauty what it is...’

Lepers among us

teeth sharpened into fangs

burn your skin with their flaming tongues

black flesh, torment contortion torment

you feel the heat of the fire that consumes you on your face

they cut off your fingers

with a blunt knife and every movement

of the knife echoes screamingly in your ears

and they shred your veins with pliers

the skin tightens, resists, burns

then succumbs with howling pain

your throat bursts

            Woods of Wallachia

            the trees spread dark malevolence

            something evil walks from shadow to shadow

            stained clouds cover the moon on the black sky

they pierce your lungs

you feel death creeping up your throat

his strangling fingers binds your neck

you want to scream but you are mute

you want to writhe but you are paralysed

you want to cry beg for redemption

for DEATH

but your words have suffocated, you can not speak

suffocation is rattling in your head

your sight grows dim

immense heavy objects

crush your each and every bone

you hear them crack

your every sense is shouting screaming howling whining

the cacophony is unbearable