Three Deaths and Honey, Please

In the darkness, all birds and bees and all angels here lie asleep. The twinkling stars look down bemoaning my plight, they frown Over the Panther that crawls above As black as night, upon the wall she prowls. Just above my grip, on the sewage pipe, The viper, the villains twisting my plight. Into the list adds the third, My anxieties, awake and absurd, Growl from behind, the only exit to exist, yet cut off by a mind toxic. All three in stance, ready to pounce, A hard grip, hives shake and bounce. As it oozes down, my hand I withdraw, Untimely pleasure, eating honey raw. Notes: 1. For the contest Dead End Poetry 2. I was thinking of a way to approach this poem, and a local folklore/idiom came to my mind. It goes “Marana thunak ethi minisek peni keya”, meaning a man with three deaths ate honey. So the story goes like, a man who was chased by a wild beast tumbled and fell into a massive pit. Before he fell in entirely he grabbed hold of a branch/ root that was growing on the side. Since the animal was still waiting on top to attack him, he couldn’t really crawl out. He was hanging off of the side of an empty well, in which there was a cobra, who was ready to sting him. The root / vine that he was holding also had another extremely venomous serpent (I think the most venomous in Sri Lanka), resting on it. When he had pulled on the vine a beehive that was on it was crushed, and some of the honey trickled off onto the man’s hand. And with death facing him in three different directions, he ate the honey and thought how good it tasted. I twisted this story to fit the theme of the contest, and I didn’t remember the entire story when I wrote this, so there isn’t much left of the original story. But I hope you enjoyed it. Note2: the story differs according to several sources. I’m not that competent in deciphering the old Sinhala texts that could give me the original meaning, so bear with me as I refer to a simplified version which I’m not 100% sure is credible.