Swansong For A Raven

Forgive the day's

Last serenades

Her skies they bruise like Nordic women

Deep crimson stains

That Death would claim

His robes of office swim in

As would I

For his dark eye

Has fixed, a basilisk, a scythe

On charred remains

With shared disdain

For those I chose to mortify

Their cries have paralysed

And the smoke has choked these vistas

But still I lie, though tears have died

On the grave of my Clarissa

A verse for her whispered to the earth

A lover's curse is a see-through coffin

Praises her curves so oft concurred

Though she was

No Snow White on the night she died

Her shadower's boon when the moon glazed over

Lipped with blood and secrets pried

For on and in they spread her wide

That seraph bride

The Devil's pride

Shalt soon avenge with swift reprise

But they would writhe

For my dark eye

Bewitched, was fixed like Mordecai's

On Esther's reign

And in this vein

I saw their lust still stain her thighs

Their cries have paralysed

And the smoke has choked these vistas

But still I lie, though tears have died

On the grave of my Clarissa

Beneath these trees where the mist enwreathes

Her spirit flees, seeing chains of torches

A fleeting kiss stirring leaves of poetry

I was no dark knight, breaking men like ice

I was like a lycanthrope until the moon glazed over

Lipped with blood and last goodbyes

Now I dream

Enwrapt in pure clouds of the sweetest oblivion

Where beauty streams

Freed from the teeth of those beasts that had come

To tear out her spells

In red lettered cells

Wherein even the crown Prince of Hell

Come out of his arrogant shell

Would falter to better

But her face soon dispels

And as black feathers fell

From heaven's smoke

So I woke to insanity

Her exquisite corpse

Found fit for their sport

Of course

Would burn on the morrow with me

And there on this night

Strung up in my sight

Naked she sways

Displayed for their vulgar delight

I scream through my bars at the stars

That for these crimes of mine solace me

I will fear not the flames

That to passion are tame

Not nearly the same searing pain

I pray

As held sway upon losing her

Nor the mettle of roars

That will settle like ashes and scores

As with our ghosts in the fog

When we both turn no more