The scythe blade edge gleams silver
as it glides along the skin,
skimming sordid deeds away
you did in darkest sin.
Now the reaper smiles at you
a bloody, soulless grin,
and laughs at what a fool you were
to think that you could
win.
The scythe blade edge gleams silver
as it glides along the skin,
skimming sordid deeds away
you did in darkest sin.
Now the reaper smiles at you
a bloody, soulless grin,
and laughs at what a fool you were
to think that you could
win.
By candlelight I write
late into the night
as the wax weeps
molten tears into the
hollowed skull
watching me
with hollowed sockets,
jet black in an ivory face.
Chimes toll the witching hour,
though it is no spell I craft.
My eyes grow heavy with sleep,
but the characters dance
a noble duet
even as the darkness
envelops us all.
They spin, and fall,
and fade
until the coming of a new day,
full of promise
to begin the pas-de-deux
anew.
I hear the children crying
at the bottom of the well.
In hot and chafing chains they march,
and journey into hell.
And on the misty hilltop starts
the ringing of the bell.
The children slowly change to creatures
of a wicked spell.
They snarl and growl and claw and bite
with every tolling knell.
A cloud of death surrounds them
with a rotten carrion smell.
To a pagan god they’re praying
to be free but they’re all staying.
Yes, I hear the children baying
at the bottom of the well.
“There’s no more time for poetry”
the ragged poet said.
His eyelids had gone heavy.
It was way past time for bed.
But every time he stopped the words
from flowing through the pen,
they’d cry, cajole, and threaten
til he picked it up again.
He needed water, food, and sleep,
but they’d not let him be.
His sleepy eyes began to cry.
They would not set him free.
His candles burned to pools of wax
throughout the quiet night.
The poetry was piled in stacks
of neat, prodigious height.
And as the sky was paling o’er,
the last word penned had dried.
And when the sun was at his door,
the ragged poet died.
The poem had not been finished though,
the words had more to say.
They’d help to make his writing flow,
and work throughout the day.
The ragged poet’s fingers twitched
with necromantic life,
and with his writing hand bewitched,
the pen gripped like a knife,
He wrote unceasing,
running out of paper, and of ink.
The paper curled and blackened,
and his flesh began to stink.
The nib keeps dipping, dipping,
in the inkwell long run dry,
The maggots keep on dripping
from his long unseeing eye.
And should you pass his humble home
alone there on the hill,
you’ll hear, beneath the starry dome,
the scratching of his quill.
They’re all gone now, every one.
Nothing has been redeemed, and no one spared.
The darkness is consummate, ultimate, and victorious.
All that remains are the wisps of wishes,
the wraiths of dreams,
aimlessly wandering a desolate land
that holds no one to birth them
into a desperate world.
They float, adrift on a sea of abandoned hope.
With despairing cries, they dissolve.
Even Death, who claims all Life,
comes to loathe his task,
and snuffs
the last candle
that forever extinguishes
all the stars.
My arms are open.
My heart is full.
The fire is warm.
The night is young.
The moon is rising.
The stars are silver-white.
The wine, as dark as my intentions.
You look at me and know
that in the end
it’s you
who makes me feel
alive.
*************
My arms are folded.
My heart is still.
The fire is out.
The night is ending.
The moon is setting.
The silver-white stars blend with the clouds.
The wine, as cold as my flesh.
I look at you and know
that in the end
it’s me who
dies.
Tonight, she’s the widow
who married at noon.
The family said he was much too cruel,
too worldly, to wealthy.
The chains around her were invisible,
but no less firmly locked.
With the first dance,
his lips against her ear.
“On this, our wedding day,” he began,
and whispered of blood, and blood, and blood.
She trembled in his arms, and shook her head
against his shoulders of stone.
Her whispered pleas for gentleness
unheeded.
The clueless guests were clapping hands, clinking glasses,
and clanging spoons against goblets.
He made good on his promise,
and she closed her eyes,
and let him tire himself on her flesh.
Sleep and bourbon claimed his consciousness.
She wrapped the bloody rags of her cleansing
around his neck, and removed her hairpin,
her hair now the widows veil over the weeping eyes
that hours before had sparkled under the bridal one.
“On this, our wedding day,” she said.
The virgin white gown was spattered with blood,
and as she cut, and cut, and cut
he gasped and gargled
on his own blood,
his dying breaths in counterpoint
to her sobs and pounding heart.
In the quiet of the manor,
in the peace of the evening,
they say she walks the grounds.
Smiling, she carries the filthy, worn,
and tattered veil at her side,
singing to the rising moon,
“On this, our wedding day….”
The sweet ecstacy
of
my lover’s bite
renders me something new,
immortal,
immoral,
wanton and miraculous.
Unclean,
yet never to die.
A nocturnal parasite,
I prey upon the unsuspecting,
and pray for the innocent,
and harvest them both
with alacrity.
I have embraced my damnation
with all my dead heart,
and revel in my fall with heightened senses.
Come, let me fill my cup,
and raise my glass to the
depths of the generous, glorious gift
you so unwillingly provide.
To my side, my love,
and
let me
partake of all that is
in you.
Do you hear them, too?
The unseen are angry.
In the hours between the moon’s zenith
and its setting,
they fail once more to seize the gates
that separate our world from magic,
dark and light.
Their fires grow dim,
their eyes dimmer,
and their hopes are but
a fleeting spark.
They work far into the night
on keys, on enchantments, on weapons,
on wards.
They spend days fasting,
in prayer, in sacrifice,
before the thrones of their royalty,
and the temples of their gods.
They peek through our dreams,
and attack in our nightmares,
and scream in raging whispers
within the minds of those
who can hear them.
This child,
singing by starlight,
sitting by the river
in night’s embrace,
cannot be seen.
And yet,
he leads me,
his voice a shepherd’s staff
of sweetness,
longing,
purity.
The night hunters
watch in stillness,
amusement,
pity.
In the moonlit meadow,
the trap is sprung.
The song a summoning
of wolves,
long past life,
long past hunger.
The sweet-voiced boy
appears among them,
feral-fanged, and amber-eyed.
And so they sing again,
but not for me to wander.
This is a spell of mournful howling,
binding the legs,
draining the will,
and I am an offering, a blood sacrifice
to the verdant, loamy, pagan lore of the
forest primeval.
As my soul flees the husk of my ravaged, icy flesh,
the song of river, wolf, and tree
now blend,
and guide me anew
to take my place
among the stars.
*art by Victoria Frances