DELIRIUM

Influenza's taking hold now
with feverish fingers of burning ice
that penetrate a weakened brain.
Neural pathways open out
into vast tunnels, allowing
bizarre notions to stream in
from beyond the outer limits
of ordinary reality.

Bedroom window
frames hostile steel-grey
winter sky
that wants to pull me through
and suck me up
into it's watery vastness.
It's denser greys
take on monstrous shapes
of ether-demons, who
silently call my name.
I'm beginning to levitate
out of bed
towards them.
Shutting eyes tightly.
The mental link shatters.
I'm back in bed
with a shocking jolt.

Pulling the duvet closer
around my shivering body, and
clenching teeth to stop them chattering.
But it's no use.
There is a sickening sensation
of falling through the bed
and into the Underworld,
where the Ancestors beckon me
to join them.
Suddenly I'm ultra light,
like a thread of gossamer
carried away on a spring breeze.
I've become transparent, formless.
But still so cold.
How did I come to be lost
in this Siberian blizzard anyway?

TV screen darts back and forth
across blurred vision, it's
unintelligible voices
teasing consciousness
to the point of exasperation.
I reach out to steady
it's erratic motion.
But it's much further away than it appears.
Distance has become fluid,
a rough storm-tossed sea.
I'm clinging to a broken sail mast,
as fifty-foot waves engulf
my tiny sailing yacht.
Struggling helplessly,
I'm pulled down
into the vortex
of a treacherous whirlpool, until
I'm fighting for breath
in a freezing, saturated - bed?

Panic takes over.
Nothing makes sense anymore.
Erratic, pounding heartbeat
translates into train wheels,
clacking out of sync
over broken tracks.
This train's racing out of control,
heading straight for a precipice
of the Grand Canyon.
There's nothing I can do.
I'm over the edge.
Falling.
Falling,
ever faster
into russet oblivion.......