DEMENTIA

Michael James

I am Dementia. I love you and you and you - all you old folks.

I catch you just before you reach the bottom

Enfold You in my gentle arms

And lull you to sleep, an easy task.

Then while you slumber steal your brain

For my ravening maw

And feast, grow fat on your gray cells 

As I consume them from the inside out,

Until your mind feels like a fly

Trapped within a spider's silken strands.

I am Dementia, death's stepping stone

For all who seek oblivion

I'll help you cross the great divide, the in-between,

By wiping clean your mental slate. 

No troubling memories will come to you,

No memories at all.

I'll get to the rest of you in time.

Be patient, my loves; your turn will come.

I am Dementia; I long for the mating 

Of your sleeping brain with my succubus,

The ultimate sexual union

Of human with supernatural bliss.

l am Dementia, your replacement alter ego,

The worm who ate away the You who you thought eterne.

Out of sight the brain worm turns:

Then gone, a dozen years,

The husband and children, memories kept alive 

By a picture.

"That's my husband, I talk to him sometimes."

Destroyer Dementia, that's me!

I hope to be your destiny,

And visit you with frequent reps

That shake your tottering steps,

I'll fill you full with doubt and fear,

No friends for you,

No loved ones near.

You'll know the fear of midnight's rattle,

Of being lost, of stranger's prattle,

Confusion settling o'er your world

Obscuring all details.

I'll turn Chaos loose on you

You'll have no clue 'bout what to do

When once you're out of your own house,

Less than a human, just a mouse. 

When I take charge, I cull the field,

Restrict what's seen, I do not yield.

Wipe out the dreams of youthful toys,

Accomplishments, and tears, and joys.

As I munch the cells now fails the crone.

Her poor mind wonders  on its own.

Her purse she'll clutch, ransack it sure,

To carefully see each picture there,

Examine yet again her kin,

To try to bring them back again.

"What are you thinking, Gran?" one asks.

"Oh, nothing much."

The brain cells die, the creature fails

She'll now not ever know what ails.

The mind she had which could have told,

Gave up the fight as she grew old.

No time left now to search for soul,

No time to play another role,

To let the line sink in the deep,

To hook the Fish, to see it leap.

In flashing arcs above the sea,

A shining prize for all to see.

No time, and so she sleeps.

I have her now,

Though at one stroke,

E'en that could vanish in

A whiff of smoke

What could have been 

A heavenly rose,

Merely a tickle In the 

Cosmic nose.

February 2012