The death of a moon cowboy

I am a somewhat-youth with ideas and thoughts and too many dreams that sometimes overflow as these little dribblings from my fingertips. I guess you can try to collect and capture them.


Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The spectre

One night a ghost came between the door's crack,
brushed eerily against the threads at my back.
In each of her steps black orchids bloomed
as she crept and creaked round the entire room.
That darkened room.

She spoke in a whisper, but not from her mouth,
and a chilling wind rose up from the south.
From beneath the house this voice had slipped
where the shadows had accompanied it.

And my sight pierced into her body whole,
to the transparent air that sang to my soul.
In a manner from which I could not fall
it gripped and held me close to the wall.
The darkened wall.

"Oh never you mind or attend to the way
my feet, they hover, my hips, they sway.
A place in the past, this home once was mine.
I vowed to return, and now is the time."

I froze and my arms and legs became stone,
seized by the power she wielded from her throne.
In a sickly fashion she did float,
trailing the netherworld's undead cloak.
Such a darkened cloak.

I steadied my unblinking eyes to the floor
and wordlessly bid my strength restored.
Hands at the wall, the wood they clutched,
and I drew my gasping breath so hushed.

Then suspended high, she rushed to the roof,
and against its beams she perched aloof.
My skin spat and pricked with icy feeling
while above her black mold overtook the ceiling,
and darkened that ceiling.

Again her shrill voice emanated forth,
cracked the stained glass framed overtop the door.
It hurried about in a spectral gale,
smelled of mortuary, bitter and stale.

From her wailing shriek my ears became pained,
and my lobes trickled an imprisoning stain,
A crimson path of mind-numbing fare,
buried deep within to hold her stare.
Her darkened stare.

"Here here, join me in the underworld,
and the fruits of eternity shall be yours!
And now you must lower your head and agree,
that you shall be banished by a banshee!"

My neck, it deadened, head nodded forward
to face the orchids and rotting floorboards.
A binding sign for a ghastly contract.
The spirits below would never retract
such a darkened contract.

And into a sinkhole hurricane
the ground receded in a murky drain.
We rose in the air and through it we leaped
and I joined the earthen minions to reap,
and harvest that dreadfully dreary and darkened harvest.

4 comments:

Reluctant Conquistador said...

matty,

so what happens to the protagonist? does he ever come back? is that how we hear his ghastly tale? i like the imagry a lot... it is almost inferno-esque (dante) in a weird modern way. let me know if this an epic or just a one time thing.

-migg

mattbeatty said...

Well, my friend, this was intended to be a one-time shot. Yeah, it was just one of those creepy feelings that came to me and I wanted to put into words - but I like your idea of extending it into an epic, or at least with additional material. Hmmm.... now you've got me thinking. And that is not good news.

moonshinejunkyard said...

don't even tell me you wrote this the night you saw corpse bride....i really liked reading it. have you ever read "rime of the ancient mariner" by coleridge? very creepy deathly mind-haunting imagery, a psychodrama, he called it. and i think that applies to this poem of yours as well. fits into the dark dreary realms of poe.

mattbeatty said...

Actually, I wrote this and then saw Corpse Bride the next nite! It was totally unintentional (but maybe not subconsciuosly). I didn't intend for it to be so similar. But still, mine is a bit darker, without the happy ending. Anyway...

You know -so- many good books! I don't even know who Coleridge is. His book sounds intriguing. And I do know Poe, and love good old E.A.