Where I Was Before

Authors note: There's a certain amount of symbolism in this poem related to my life and love for my wife, a person I feel truly saved me from my biggest enemy long ago...myself. An Angel on my shoulder I'm sure.


Where I Was Before

I woke beneath a thunderous clapping,
my world filled with gnashing teeth and slapping
horned fists, I ran from the snarling, snapping
jaws of Satan’s seething demonic hoard-

         My tears steamed and stained burning pitted floors.
         Fires flared, red heat I could not endure.

I had to hide, my lost spirit tapping
against fiend’s doors, my knuckle’s raw rapping,
found fanged beast’s lairs, their leather wings flapping,
though one must lead me where I was before-

         I pushed and pulled on every stone carved door.
         None would let me escape this ghoulish moor.

I looked behind, cursed cruel maws were snapping,
I looked above to wicked wings flapping,
about fires flared, torrid tongues lapping,
weeping wounds I knew not I had before-

         Bloody tongue's sticky feel I did abhor.
         Those foul fiends fought to feed upon my gore.

My strength, my hope suffered sorrow’s sapping,
my nerve's frayed fibers began unwrapping,
and with those un-caged feral fiend’s lapping,
my soul screamed, on this heinous, hellish moor-

         When a ray of gold light pierced horror’s core.
         It kindled strength I knew not had before.

And I stood, with once weak muscles strapping,
grabbed a brutish beast, his caked claws scrapping,
for a hold to wrest hands from now snapping,
his snake’s neck, drinking from my seeping sores-

         And it fell beneath angry anguished roars.
         Fire in my eyes beasts would not ignore.

That golden light, like a sword’s pure wrapping,
I used to smash gnashing teeth, while slapping
horned fists away, and the snarls and snapping
stopped where I fought upon their very moor-

         I threw their caked black tongues upon the floor
         I wondered where my savior hid before.

Was then I heard the foulest foul flapping,
the Devil loomed, with his booming laughing,
he rose above me, with thunder clapping,
and I once again found myself unsure-

         Til’ golden light bled through a little more.
         And the Devil, now he himself unsure.

Battle renewed beneath thunder’s clapping,
from golden light came Angel’s wings flapping,
and he fled before gold arrows, snapping
curses as I slumped upon smoking floor-

         My Angel raised me from that fetid moor.
         She sang near to me, her voice honeyed pure.

My dream broke, seemed I was naught but napping,
held by a love, her arms tightly wrapping
around me, and I noticed drape's flapping
in eve’s breeze...then did notice something more-

         She stirred...a gold feather fell to the floor.
         She'd brought me back from where I was before.