"Anxiety," a Poem from the Collection "Midnight 30, American Poems"

Anxiety, by Edvard Munch,

1894,

Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway

Anxiety, by Edvard Munch,

1894,

Munch Museum, Oslo, Norway

Anxiety

Thus, I had a recollection

That we were as good as dead already

Dwelling in our seething megalopolis

Suffocating as we gasped for a breath

Going crazy with the noise

Unbearably crisscrossing paths and streets

Teeming with beings and desires.

Death, grim death,

Was all over us like mushroom clouds

Inexplicably holding us down

The fierce claw of the eagle

Clutching our thumbing limbs

Beating the living hell out of a body

Relentlessly and unforgivably.

Though I knew not the word that opened up

The way, yet I sought for salvation as

The brooding, tarred sky closed down upon the earth

The galaxies ripped open and the cold stars blinked

Thus, I had a recollection

That immortal was all

That never lived and never will.

From the Collection "Midnight 30, American Poems," by A. Baruffi,  published by LiteraryJoint Press, available as e-book on Amazon Kindle, iBookstore, NOOK Book, Kobo, and Lulu.

Midnight thirty: half-hour past "Geisterstunde," as it is still called in the broody hillsides hamlets of inner, rural Pennsylvania. In the deep stillness of the night, the tongue is loose, the eye quick, the ear alert, and the mind finally conducive to grasp all that in daylight is hidden. It is only at that time that truth is said, or whispered...
"In this surprising work of modern American literature, like a shimmering, wild creek under the full moonlight, the vein of poetry taps into the inexhaustible resources and riches of the land, and runs with inspiration and wisdom..."