Nightmares

This dream had sharper edges,
it sliced, nicked and burned.
Jarringly lucid, unmistakably direct,
inflicting raw scars of lessons learned,
demanding wakeful pledges.

Pointing scaly talons at the soul,
death-masked faces,
cloaked in gloom,
cackled in reedy, screechy voices,
warning against entering the room,
of indulgent distractions; the only goal.

Morning’s pledge of mended ways,
fleetingly burdened a tense brow;
scattering, shattering as the body rose.
Trampled over, discarded, dormant for now,
Glinting heads of Hydra, in menacing arrays.