Fantasy Poem "When Wizards Dream at Night"

Another poem of mine that's been around the block and then some... 

Fantasy poem "When Wizards Dream at Night" originally published Spring 2009 in Vol. IV Issue 4 of Tales of the Talisman and also published March 2010 in the online version of Abandoned Towers, April 2012 in Issue 8 of Shelter of Daylight, and August 2023 in the now out-of-print speculative poetry collection Cosmic Journeys and Gothic Visions.

Background illustration a reworking of an illustration originally published July 2010 in the online version of Abandoned Towers. 

When Wizards Dream at Night

While aged heads full of magic rest
Gently upon soft feather pillows,
Magely imaginations run wild.
Released from the bounds of consciousness,
Dreams and notions wander the ether
As shadows of spirit and power.

Adrift across the vast firmament
Like dark tendrils of deeper blackness,
Nightmarish thoughts slowly coalesce
Into fanciful monstrosities.
Imbued with an ephemeral life,
Eldritch beasts battle amongst the stars.

Ebon ranks clash with silent fury.
Tentacled fiends grapple winged harpies.
A dragon’s talons rip asunder
Wispy spectres and amorphous wraiths.
Cyclopean giants wield great clubs
Against hordes of heaving, squirming things.

The savage tides of war ebb and flow
Until an apocalyptic dawn
Disperses the fell menagerie
And the soundless spectacle subsides.
Waking minds rein in the wayward dreams
And call them home for another day.