The Time After Sleep

Thoughts belong to memory, yesterdays kept
Safe in the minds of those who dreamed while they slept,
Preserved by empty lines, wanting substance. Except,
When truth saw morning, they looked away and wept,
Having spilled ink on their clouds, unable to accept
Their folly. Nowhere fear fogged. In, the mists crept.

With that haze, terror down the storm drain crept.
It spilled ferociousness, flooded tunnels that kept
The calm intact, yet not for eyes to accept
That burdened the wanderer while they slept
Unsoundly in a twisting sopor. Any wept,
Windswept, subservient to villainy, except

Hanging by a thread exempt from torture, except
That buoyant rain-defying ring. A curtain crept
Across the window, yet while the welkin wept
Was there left enough tranquility, kempt kept
For an advent. Among the musing of the slept,
Lived beyond reminders, that which they would accept.

It happened when the sun eagered to accept
The yonder's invitation. What was except
Before first light, was undone afore minds slept
And outside life's palms did they believe they crept.
They but forgot who them had begot and kept
In joy. For that remembrance they wept.

In a symbolic gest, had the firmament wept
To imitate the gloom of refusing to accept
Responsibility for the fanged pets minds kept
Out of sight. So the world was poured misery, except
Its cup had a chip through which suffering crept,
Leaking into estuaries while minds slept.

Poison diluted, life did not die. They slept
Beside each other, sharing spare hope, and wept
For their mistakes, until a glance of light crept
Into their eyes, forgiveness, yearning to accept
Their tempest as a passed zephyr. Except
This memory, only verity was kept.

Minds have ere slept and in waking, taught to accept
The traces of tears they wept. There was no loss except
Of the channels in which hollowness crept. Such thoughts, only memory kept.