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 him 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 dried

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 dried

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