That Sweet Torture.

By R.T.M.

The wind rattles at my window-pane ....
Ahhhh .... Pain.
Bitter-sweet sensual longing, again and again
Lashing with fury bursts.
Why should it be so? — The dancing leaves, dim figures, drifting mist, slow moan,
Like memory:
Imagination, faintly perceiving
The mystery, of ....
The [unclear: drizzel] cools my face, pricice my eyes,
Gusty wind uplifting my spirit - nearly me -
Jerked back by my physical infirmity.
Oh, the frustration of stableness!
It is always the same -
Spirit soaring instantaneously, transcending human concepts,
very reality, floating in a distant dimlit world, searing pain
and the joy thereof, ecstatic torture of escape, writhing, entwining, ever-upwards
Snapped!
Back by the sniggering laugh.
Will I ever make it,
That sweet torture of thought?
The truth has gashed my mind,
Leaving it red, raw, open,
Bleeding with reproach, pitying the flesh that it needs.
That vicious flesh that lock-mocks thought so close to comfort.
But conflict is lost in song — the soaring phrase, the surging rhythm, the hint of pain —
I am lost in someone else's make-believe.