"The Gloaming"

A poem by noted poet W.B. Yeast*:

Staring at the candle I fritter away
The last few hours of a winter's day.
Thinking deeply, on all that has past
On fractured remembrances of friend's days last.

Lost in the gloaming, the darkness creeps in
On the flickering light that is all that was been.
The candle goes out! Now what shall I find
In the deep, dark recesses that I call my mind?

The mind, the mind! Tis all we have left!
When the world turns funny and all reason has left.
Tis there we feel peace, tis there we feel calm.
Its meditative space is the Gilead balm!

Yet tis there I feel sad, tis there that I hurt!
There festers Paranoia, who keeps me alert!
Is nowhere safe? Is my temple profaned?
Maybe demons live in it to keep me insane...

Is that what tempts me? Some phantom, some ghost?
Is the world at large not what devil's me most?
Perhaps it is something beyond understanding...
Or maybe tis someone on some distant landing...

High up the gods, those distant great figures
Look down on us like we are low crawling creatures.
They break us and burn us and blow us to pieces.
Might also they stride in our most sacred places?

My thoughts aren't my own! My temple is theirs!
From them comes all that I think unawares
My love, my hate, my passions and fears,
All whispered by voices that I never hear.

Do I still sit darkness? No, only a wind
Had flickered the candle; the light it had hid.
But now I see more, the wax that is burned
It is not alone, to be by the gods turned.

*White Bread Yeast, that is. Who is actually a character in a story I am working on. The real person who wrote it is me. While subbing in health class. The kids were watching a video.