Inspired by Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”
Scream
I am screaming.
Look at me.
I am screaming.
For unquiet nights, and sunless days;
For meaningless fury, and futile sound.
Horrors swirl both within and without;
Fear is my master, and I its bondservant.
Madness erases my features, liquefies my form;
To give vent to the smoke of my soul’s bonfire,
I claw at my face and open my mouth wide.
I am screaming.
Standing sentry in endless hell,
The timekeeper tells me it is dusk.
But eternity yet stretches before me;
All my yesterdays and yesterdays to come have lighted fools.
I am screaming.
Melancholy contracts my world and expands it,
Contracts and expands — like my beating heart,
Beating and beating to the drumbeat of war
With neither a soldier’s uniform, nor arms, nor courage.
My heart was a virgin candle,
Beauteous and full of promise.
Yet now my wax is fully melted;
The ghastly wick smelling of sorry smoke.
I am screaming.
Alas!
You can hear me now.
Recognize not in you
The same scream within?
