Nightmare
You hide yourself in shadows deep
to watch me as I fall to sleep.
Half-lidded, with your sleepy stare,
you cup my cheek and stroke my hair.
I do not know as I fall deeper
that you stalk this drifting sleeper.
Then just as I do not resist,
you give my hair a painful twist.
I try to jerk awake but fail.
I tense my muscles, fight and flail,
but I cannot escape your grasp.
I call for help, I moan and gasp.
Sir Nightmare, from where do you come
with death knoll beat on ragged drum?
I hear its pulse now through the day.
At every hour, it sounds the way
back to the horror of the night––
a pathway to that final fight
when I will mount at last that steed
that nightly stands to do its deed
to carry to oblivion
this sleeper off to meet her kin.
That father lost, those lovers three
who wait for my delivery.
Is this nightmare just a dream––
a mere digression from the stream
of conscious thought––a nightly swim
through a fantasy most grim,
or a window showing me
an inevitability?
(The photo is intended only as an illustration and has nothing to do with the person pictured!!!)
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 
I really like this one! And it reminds me of a nightmare verse I posted awhile back. This gives me an opportunity to pingback that old post to today’s prompt. Thanks!
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I loved/shuddered at that poem of yours.. Thanks for the link.
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I do love those dreams that reunite me with loved ones lost. Hope this nightmare isn’t your destiny.
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Of course it is all our destinies.
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Pingback: Old “Poems”: Help! | serial monography: forgottenman's ruminations
… freaky strange!
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Wow! Well done and fascinating perspective!
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Judy, I thank you for the damnedest nightmare roller coaster ride I’ve ever been on. I think? That was really a pulse teaser, mind boggler combo. I would recommend sleeping with all your lights on from now on, no shadows deep or anywhere. Sweet dreams.
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loved this!
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Great poem. Really captures that feeling. And I like what you’ve done with the image. Very nightmare.
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