Aphelion Issue 292, Volume 28
March 2024
 
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Brain-Sturm

by Gary W. Davis


Verdant woods, yellow dirt road, setting sun.
Fading colors in a day almost done.

Ah, what a still life well composed.
If only I could relish such repose.

Motions and emotions now swirl in the dusk.
But they’re nothing I can see, nothing I can trust.

Acute sensations of smell and sound
crescendo in my head unbound.

I had thought all this a nature trick
fear of the forest or a little bit sick.

What started as a wormhole in the mind
has left my real self far behind.

What is real now I’m not so sure.
Only this brain-sturm I must endure.

All thoughts are deeply visceral,
a blur between mental and physical.

The cerebral surge flows down the torso,
sprouting muscle gnarls I don’t want to know.

Coarse matted hair all over is exuding,
bony shoulders and a heavy snout protruding.

The woods are bathed in crepuscular light,
as the full lunar orb gains in height.

My humble hominid self is now re-centered.
Power suppresses fear, hunger severs honor.

Oh Super-Moon, I can feel you abreast,
as did the ancient masters of the forest!


Previously published in Bloodbond May 2015


© 2020 Gary W. Davis

Gary Davis likes all things classic horror. He has published Halloween short stories in Aphelion (October 2019) and in Frostfire Worlds (2016-2019). He has published poetry in Aphelion, The Vampire’s Crypt, Bloodbond, Illumen, Scifaikuest, Star*Line, Tales from the Moonlit Path, two Lester Smith Halloween anthologies and in a sci-fi anthology, Kepler’s Cowboys (2000-2020).

Find more by Gary W. Davis in the Author Index.

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