The Mania Society, That Is Poem by Barry Van Asten

The mania society, that is,
Looks on me in its awfulness.
I shook and accepted, without thought:
Urania - that ilex beauty, sunned
And turned to a brilliant red drift
Where my captive brain belongs.

In this room of indecision
I lie with some kept dread
Of sentimental night, wrapped
In hollow light from the void.
I paced about in Mesmer-white, and
Withered, as I rattled past
That awkward, cumbersome ghost:
Fetish of imagination;
Solid winding hoax.

And in the hours of the left panel
I sought isolated doom...
In contrary tension,
March dust and cyclamen
Hungered for Araradia,
Where the scent of wild daffodils
Filled me with rapture.

Nothing but the ghost and I
Stirred in this awful room.
I thought: What's at the end
Of this nonesense - Utopia?

I calculated:
The sun's not real, nor am I,
And I won't wake to the loathsome day
Where eyes brighter than mine still shine.

And through history's wickedness, when
Some fear entwines us, menacing,
I wait...no terror, none,
Seeks its mad divine rite:
God, accept me as I am!