The Phantasm

The phantasm hung over me nightly,
Fixing me to the mattress with its mad stare.
The phantasm was a beast unsightly,
With long lank black and bloody hair

That would dangle down and scratch my nose,
And I never dared move even my toes.

The phantasm would hang from dusk til dawn,
Hovering only a few feet above my bed.
The phantasm’s mouth was fixed like a yawn
And it would drip blood down upon my head,

Where it would collect and flow to my sheets
Stained red as Christ’s hands and feet.

The phantasm’s blood and hair I felt on my face,
Yet when he left me in the morning
The phantasm’s blood left no physical trace,
But for a slow thought within me dawning:

A phantasm by its very definition
Could only be in my imagination!

The phantasm, then, did not exist,
Though I saw and felt it every night.
The phantasm, then, did consist
Only of thoughts made into fright.

And how do you rid yourself of such a curse
Before you wind up being driven in a hearse,

When the phantasm controls my brain
During the time meant for dreamy rest;
When the phantasm my energy drains
So that I lose every single bravery test?

Surely then I had to accept
A life where I never slept.


But what if I could change my mind?
What if within me I could find
A way to alter this hovering beast
And upon his carcass feast?

What if I could use another part
That would not project hell’s darts?

In the daylight hours I looked for it,
The weapon that would cleave into it,
Push it through and out my brain,
Crush it with a heavy goods train.

It took time, but when the answer I found,
I fell down laughing on the ground.


If this thing was to be found within,
Then maybe I could dictate its horrid grin.
I started with its festering locks,
Cleaning and cutting to a tidier block.

Then the face, starting with the eyes,
Exchanging them for dreamier pies.

A smile that was rank and crooked
Became instead smooth and nicely hooked.
A body emaciated, pale and sallow,
Became something a lot more fallow.

Every part I changed of him,
To create a whole no longer grim,

But instead a spectre of awe and delight,
A beauty to slice this darkness, to smite
The evil one away forever, to be replaced
With a man I wanted to meet face to face.

In my mind’s eye and to my delight
I did: night after night after night after night.

And never did I have a better, deeper, sleep
Than the first time my hand went on a creep,
And changed everything with a gentle rub
As soothing as a long, hot soak in the tub.

And ever after my fears drifted off and away:
Through force of thought and simple pleasures

they were totally allayed.