The Haunted Halls Within

Torment, torment, anxiety brings such sweet sorrow,
The dim grinding of gears within a mind left dark and hollow,
I have waxed lyrical on my fears, on my oldest friend named Death,
Who lingers at my threshold, patient, cold, awaiting my final breath,
His presence is an icy murmur threaded deep through marrow’s ache,
A keeper of forgotten names and vows I failed to make,
Yet still I pace these haunted halls where fractured thoughts convene,
Among the rust and ruin of all that might have been,
For ignorance bears honeyed lips while poison stains her tongue,
And grief hums ancient hymns where youth once brightly sung,
While somewhere in the blackened hush beyond this mortal veil,
A deathly silence waits for me, with open arms forever pale.

Knight of Sorrow

A sullen knight battles the grisly spectre of death,
Armour and silvered sword shine in desperate combat,
Death’s cape of plague and sorrow flows in the icy breeze,
The scythe of reaping clutched within hands of cold bone,
The brave knight battles through sunlight and starshine,
But death is always one step ahead, cunning and sure,
At the knight’s feet, ebony serpents rise from the earth,
Beasts of childhood dreams encircle and entangle feet,
Fangs bared and biting they savage the knight,
Death adders with scales of shining blackened silk,
Invade the knight through necrotic flesh, burrowing,
Coiling within his gut to create a liquifying den of snakes,
Death claims his prize and the fallen knight is laid waste,
A once brave soul, left to putrefy within his armoured shell.

When I die

I will die before my time,
At 3am my heart will fail,
It will read, I died in my sleep,
But I can assure you,
I will be wide awake.

The Persistence of Time

Why does part of me always seek the harshest of feelings,
Why am I not content when I’m at rest, the peace never visits for long,
It is though my mind actively seeks out negative pathways,
Rather than remain quiet, stay at rest, be calm and content,
Instead, a pursuit haunts my sleep, and affects my waking day,
I don’t like it, I don’t want it, but it’s there,
I seek comfort in the hunt for objects that bring me pleasure,
An obscure part of my mind knows I’ll soon be unable to attain them,
So, I collect, I stockpile, I obsess, I spend, I hunt further,
Everything is recorded, everything is placed in correct order, all but me,
I foresee darkness on my horizon, and I fear the grey days that it will place me in,
I’m unsure I have the strength left to again walk that long hard road back to the light,
I don’t want that feeling, but it is inevitable.
I resent the persistence of time, and the silent murders that it commits,
Time is never held accountable, it has no day in court to answer for its crimes,
Lifespan, not death itself, that is the real ticking time-bomb of the mind,
There is no going back, just a subtle pushing forward from unseen hands,
Dark days are coming, I don’t want them, but they are inevitable.

Wreckage

A morning sun packs early heat, high in the sky,

After a dark night of wreckage and ruin,

Another mother mourns the loss of a son,

As crows cry for carrion on the green roadside.

A Whisper in the Dark

You can hear me in the depths of Winter,

You can hear me in the home of elders,

You can hear me by a baby’s cradle,

You will hear me when you are unable –

To take your final breath.

I am ever present, ever whispering,

For my name is death.

The Poisoner’s Bride

For too long now you have fed me lies,
You told me that you’d be only mine,
The one whose hand you’d forever hold,
Happily married until the end of time,
But like sniffing dogs, other men arrive,
And my intimacies you did decline,
and greeted me with derision so cold,
So, I laced all your meals with strychnine.

I no longer cared when you did decide,
To fill your deceitful mouth with lies,
I just made sure your dose was double,
And was serenaded by your painful cries,
When I saw the regret in your lifeless eyes,
My cruel heart was filled with vengeful pride,
Silenced by poison, and buried by shovel,
Now you rest by a tree in the countryside.

How do we get past broken?

How do we get past broken?

When we can’t quite locate the injury,

Sadly, it’s not the heart, that’s for poetry,

It’s hidden in a secret place,

Somewhere so deep we cannot trace,

We cannot get passed broken,

Because we were never fixed.