Music of Truth

Other worldly music vibrates my brain cells,
as if they were the metal strings
of an electric guitar. Sitting in a mausoleum,
I reflect on the maddening mystery of it.
The musician is unknown,
but he speaks to me as if he had composed
all my days, and I am afraid yet unafraid.

I had known the melody
before I was born, and it is deep in time,
coming to an infinite instrument
of which I am a part.

Is this madness to carry the music
in my mind a microphone
of everything that is?
I am at the center of things,
and this is not madness, but truth.

I am the author of three books of poetry, Poems of the Divided Self, In Shadow Lands, and The Shadow City, and the short story collection Gothic Fevers. I have published works of literary scholarship and criticism, such as Ramsey Campbell, J. Sheridan Le Fanu: A Bio-Bibliography, and Robert Aickman: An Introduction. I am also the founder and editor of Gothic Press (http://www.gothicpress.com/).

Find more by Gary William Crawford in the Author Index.

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