Reaching for Roses

Images dance through my mind,

coming in as a flash,

and burning brightly behind my eyes,

as if I gazed too long at the sun

and left with the pain that dwells,

dulling my senses and fogging my thoughts.

  Oh, why can’t they stay hidden?

Locked, secured, kept safely away from attention,

pushed aside with reason.

I wish they would vanish,

fall away.

  Images dance through my mind,

coming in flashes,

burning brightly behind my eyes,

as if I held my gaze too long with the sun,

left with the dwelling pain,

dulling my senses,

fogging my thoughts.

  Stay hidden, silly memories,

locked away, secured, kept safely from attention,

swept aside with reason.

No greater wish

than for the flashes to fall away,

to vanish,

William Ernest Henley (1849 – 1903)

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unfortunate soul.

  In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

  Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

  It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate;

I am the captain of my soul.  

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