Night hours are long

A poem I wrote after a disturbed night:

Night hours are long
Minutes crawl lifetimes strung
Between seconds which drag and stretch
Like a murdered corpse
Trailing blood across a tiled floor
After the sudden sharp stab
The knife-edge jolt into wakefulness
The night horror quickly evaporates
Leaving only terror’s taste
And that strange static electricity
Amid the grains of grey half light
And each interminable tick of the clock
Or flick from one red figure
To another, to another, to another

And all the while thoughts congregate
Like a crowd at the gallows
Day’s innocent angels are night’s demons
And night hours are long
Pray them away these dark visitants
These satans of the night?
No Saint Antony I lie
Sweat-drenched lie breathless
As the red figures march by

When dawn’s first light, my amnesty
Arrives at the window
Only then I am saved
And then only by grace

And yet in quick bright hours that follow
I remember my captors – and laugh