Cold Dreams, by Mary McCarthy

Clyties of the Mist, by Herbert James Draper (UK), 1912.

Cold Dreams

Come whispering up
from the deep trenches
undersea, exhaled
like poison gases
feeding the strange lives
that can live nowhere else-
Oddly luminous,
blue-white beautiful,
their songs a dark music, rising
like the voices of the drowned
who have swallowed the moon
and wonder why
there is no light.
They use up all the oxygen
making it impossible to breathe
the leaden air,
impossible to avoid
infection by the burden
of despair, unsolvable,
a crushing weight
keeping you down until
a new sun rises
strong enough to melt
an age of ice.

Mary McCarthy

This was written as part of the 20 Poem Challenge.

​Mary McCarthy has always been a writer, but spent most of her working life as a Registered Nurse. Her work has appeared in many online and print journals, including Earth's Daughters, Gnarled Oak, Third Wednesday and Three Elements Review. She is grateful for the wonderful online communities of writers and poets sharing their work and passion for writing, providing a rich world of inspiration, appreciation, and delight.