Nightmare

White sands and a blue lagoon, The perfect dream, alone And, as the actress said, I wished to be alone. The idyll didn't last for long As dark dreams swooped in, Bearing me off into another world, A wrecked arrondissement Of Paris, staggering past Peeling posters of girls Clad in gaudy underwear, Shuttered shops with paint stripped bare, Broken masonry here and there, Neglect and decay imposing a terrible absence And the desolation of desire, Streets only fit for gang warfare And the flitting shadows of malevolence. And I alone in this hollow silence, With mixed emotions, Desperate for directions, Yet fearful of the approach of strangers. No one came. I was truly alone In this crumbling maze of night Yes, truly alone until the sobering sunlight Quite suddenly dismissed the cloying nightmare. I was left to wonder why my mind Had conjured up the perfect peace of loneliness And destroyed it with the loneliness of despair.