Umbral Valleys - a poem from The Tin Men

UMBRAL VALLEYS


Do you know about the Umbral Valleys,
those nether realms
Of longed-for death / perpetual despair?
I have been there
All thoughts gone wrong
Troubled in mind
Separate and alone
I’ve journeyed to the dark side
Prisoner of nightmare
Wandering black maria
That refuse to appear on any lunar map
Pursued by cowled nightmares
shambling wantonly
on unlisted flights of stairs
As arbitrary as the stairways
in an Escher print.
Sane responses elude me,
For what is sanity
in a realm gone mad?
Long time I dwelt there, till
The stench of my own necrotic flesh
Was a comforting balm
Within the labyrinths revealing
I am chained to every wall;
Where the jaws of my tormentors
proved more welcome
Than my thoughts . . .

And is the fabric
of these dark regions
Wrought upon His loom?