Ode to a Raven's Call

Once upon a night of wonder,
Through the dismal fog and thunder,
There I fell into a slumber
And dreamt of time when I was younger.
 
Lost within the blustering rain,
Tangled and scared in a forest’s main,
There it stood, untouched in ane,
Red roses unleashed through a windowpane.
 
 Posing tall in a blur of grey,
Its walls were peeling with mold and decay,
Pulling the thorns from the windows way,
I gasped to see three children play.
 
The toys they used lay black and broken,
While eyes sat hollow in minds unspoken.
And there I stood with a heart now swollen,
In fear as three heads now twisting. Awoken.
 
Jumping back from the glass I fell with a thud,
On the icy ground, now covered in mud.
But when I gazed back through the thorns and the buds,
There in their place lay three pools of blood.
 
With the children now missing I ran to the door,
Its haunting creek sent a chill to my core,
But when I glanced down to the chalk slated floor,
The blood sat waiting, with nothing more.
 
Then suddenly there came a sound most shocking,
That turned the ravens above a flocking,
As from that room there came a rocking,
With a ghoulish presence as if it were mocking.
 
Scampering madly from out that room,
I fell back into the light of moon.
I called out to the darkness “What be this tomb?”
But the house fell silent once more in its gloom.
 
Picking myself from up the stone,
I spotted a figure, of dust and bone.
Gazing in fright at that man unknown,
There then came the terrifying and incubus moan.
 
I could feel the death and the terror within,
Beckon me further, as I dared to begin,
As I limped up the stairs, sweat dripped from my chin,
While the demons approached and hid under my skin.
 
 I found myself leaving the last fissured stair,
While my sanity loosened and began to ware,
But as I raised my head to face the air,
Alas. Darkness lay, still bleak and bare.
 
Just then my mind began to turn,
“What tricks are these, of that you earn?
If you be demon, then my thoughts you do churn,
But in hell let your masks merely wither and burn.”
 
But the moans quickly turned to a grievous sobbing,
There I shot to the door of the pain and the throbbing.
Twisting the handle with my heart now rotting,
That I could now feel lighten, I could now feel stopping.
 
Before me lay a rug now fading,
In the room too still as if it were waiting,
And the mirrors of silver and diamonds remaining,
Stretched far, to reveal from the darkness, a painting.
 
And from out that shadow came a face so sweetly,
Gazing with eyes of the violets quite deeply,
And as I gasped at the beauty I held to so weakly,
Her lips blushed roses and  she smiled uniquely.
 
But the strings of my heart had been plucked out of tune,
While the walls closed in from around that room.  
Pleading up at the painting I bowed to the moon,
But the strike of reality recalled my doom.
 
For on that wall hung young Emily Lee,
My flower of night a love belonging to me,
But now she remained as only ashes at sea,
And finally was forgotten lastly by me.
 
With the guilt and the sorrow boiling inside,
I gaped up at her face and swallowed my pride,
“I’m sorry, my love, forgive me!” I cried.
And from that a tear fell from my painted bride.
 
The sobbing grew louder as looked over my shoulder,
The mist grew thicker and air turned colder.
And there stood a corpse, like a ghost in a smoulder,
Her black tears leaking as she continued to moulder.
 
But this figure looked nothing of the girl hanging higher,
Her cheeks had caved in while hair dangled like wire,
Crows with a hunger left eyes empty and dire,
While the corpse bared her teeth, flesh burnt off from a fire.
 
And then I remembered, this wasn’t a dream,
That nothing I saw was of what it seemed.
And with my soul open to be soon unredeemed,
I closed my eyes to my love esteemed.
 
The chills of bones on the side of my cheek,
Left my thoughts half dead and my sanity weak,
Unveiling my eyes to see my little antique,
Not corpse, but rose whose tears fell down in a streak.
 
But before I could raise mine to her hand,
Her jet hair dissolved to a pile of sand.
The petal cheeks I watched slowly disband.
And then once again. Alone. I stand.
 
And from that ghost of love and bone,
My heart too cracked and turned to stone.

Falling back on my grave inscribed on the floor,
I called out to the ravens as I bid them adier.