I.
Daybreak prowled through my frayed jalousies
in cadaverous hues of ashen grey,
whilst every fiber of my frame
braved the trial of a further day
Deal-boarding complained underfoot,
casement chattered in the squall,
And each flagging breath I respired
stirred ancestral pall
My digits quivered like a bird caught in a fist,
My hinges creaked with every pace,
And in the looking-glass o’er the grate
A hollowed wraith bore my face
The hoarfrost suffusing through my tresses,
Like winter’s breath upon a windowpane
Death deals not swift and fatal blows
Only the cruel, slow erosion of the living vein
Alas, how grim the pillaging of age
That plodding brigand of ghostly sighs
Who filches a mortal by fractions at first
Till he is but a walking ghost, ‘neath fading skies
Yet more uncanny the lesion I bore
A torn vestige upon my forearm
Near-thirty suns have gone since first
I earned that black, contused charm
Ambient flesh took on a dusky shade
Pallid rivers ramified the skin;
Though void of genuine dolour
Perturbed the delirium deep within
It did but undulate within the sinew
Whispering on the marrow when dusk set in
Ofttimes when the wax did gutter
Methought the wound conscious kin
II.
Yonder the sanctuary sprawled the moors
A foundering domain engulfed by sedge
Where somber depths mirrored heathen stars
Nary a sacred Eden could descry their edge
Nary a feathered choir sang o’er that fen
Nary a vulpine predator did course the heath
E’en the gale that fanned the bog
Fled weeping o’er the dark beneath
As the celestial spheres turned about
And a ghostly vapor unfurled o’er reeds
Whilst silver-haired beldams chambered the iron latches
Ere the pallid vapors smothered ancient creeds
Deep in the dark storied remnants reposed
Venerable basilicas, ere the dust of first man
Whispers of barrens unbegotten
Whose festering lesions cursed the maker’s plan
Callow in my youth, I made jest of such lore
Turning a mocking eye to such misjudged human fright
Yet merriment perishes where the charred stalks bend
When sovereign shadows drift into one’s sight
When dusk fell, I trod the desolate marish
The weeping vault above laden with heavy torrents,
Every laborious pace through muck and rush
Stirred vintage fears of grim, primitive abhorrence
Thick exhalations hugged my boots in a damp embrace
Brackish deeps played false; distorted phantoms
Aye, the timorous glow of my flame wavering with dread
A bloodless phosphorescence, afraid of the dark’s antrum
Piercing the silence, a deep, incisive bellow
Not clear
Not near
A dull, unearthly resonance stirred o’er the fen
As if the ancient clay encased within
Some strangled utterance of cosmic desire
The flags recoiled in swift unity
Dormant tarns seized with ghostly ripples
And enshrouded with the dark murk, amber disks burned
Gleaming like deathly lanterns, where reality itself cripples
III.
Upon first beholding I perceived naught but a formless contour
No entity vested in pelt or hide
Merely those steadfast, prodigious spheres
Poised within the brume divide
Anon thereafter the gloom did slowly part
Tremendous boughs unfurled from within the dun
Its withers ascended beyond nature’s limit
Vertebrae grotesquely malformed, subservient to none
Exhalations billowed from the damned beast’s lungs
Redolent of the noxious remnants of flesh decayed
And where its predatory scythes bore down
Marsh-grass withered ‘neath the blade
I sought a hasty retreat
Too slow
Too old
My once-vital spark now but a dim glow
The phantasmagoric wolf-fiend sprang with a swiftness unmatched
Its howl akin to the shrieks of sailors entombed within vehement waves
Swept under oceans imbued with the hue of the raven’s wing
A savage, starved madness—a beast from a blind hollow cave
An unheralded rending of my arm’s flesh
As its savage curving irons assailed
Fevered canines thereafter found purchase, crushing the marrow vault
Its frenzied palpitation resonated within mine, as my wits grew veiled.
A gelid degree of doom took hold, my soul upon the precipice to leave
And a fevered malice incited my blood to begin to seethe—
Within my tremulous frame, barren of all faculty and blind
A singular hollow refrain suffused my bleeding mind:
“Breathe.“
“BREATHE.”
“BREATHE!”
A primal reflex impelled my faltering digits to reach into, blind,
My shrouded sanctuary of garment, thick-lined
Whereupon my gnarled roots did but anchor
Unto the curious-carapace haft of the pocket-knife—
A final chance to espy the spark of life,
With which to slay this bestial canker
I drew forth the terminal bequest of my dearly departed,
The sterling silver shining where the moonlight darted
And within its fiendish gaze the blade I plunged
Growing white with heat as smoke billowed from the wound
With an inhuman howl back into the reeds the creature lunged
A battle barely won, my mind undone, wand’ring home as my senses swooned
IV.
Dawn’s light greeted me, awakening on the floor near to the door left ajar
Ascending from the planks, with trembling circumspection,
My perpetual mocking agonies had abated,
The midnight ravage now but a mere, exsanguinated scar
Beyond the reach of sane reflection
As each sun acceded, uncannier alchemies did proceed
Sharp lucidity so fiercely vivid, like peering through field-glass
Hearing so acute, I could sense worms deep ‘neath the grass
Smelling freshly butchered meat borne upon the air—from vast leagues
My earthly frame ceased its daily song of decay
My vitality renewed, as in verdant days
Unrivaled strength akin to that of a small brigade
And an insatiable hunger that would not be allayed
Nearly six lunar phases since that nocturnal desolation
A persistent-unnatural-hunger broke a fitful slumber;
I came to stand before the opened ice-box,
my teeth ferally grinding raw meat asunder
Metallic
Sweet
Vitallic
Treat
Once more I awoke upon the cold, hard wooden floor in confounded distress,
Light illuminated the entombment of decaying flesh surrounding me;
Profoundly bewildered I arose to rid my house of the visceral mess,
Unthinkingly I grasped the once-cherished heirloom of forgotten-pedigree;
Upon clasping the silver handle, my skin burned—touched by a fiery caress
A primal, animalistic fury flooded my veins
Spitting and cursing at the gods o’er my torments they’ve ordained
My arm began to pulse and throb, the scar turning black, opening anew
My newfound vigor scorched away, once more old and drained
Though dawn was yet in its tender youth
Scarcely could I contain this macabre truth
Unto my bed, away I crept
To surrender to sleep and avoid the heavy shadow closely kept
V.
The silver disc of night beamed full in the darkened heavens
The old man was oblivious of the hours passed, whilst shrouded in dreams
Agonizing misery stole him from the void that sheltered him from despair
A relic, tortured to silent screams
A dark, crimson tide filled his maw
One by one his teeth loosened and detached as blood-flecked ruins
While ‘neath the flesh, bone-piercing gleams took root
As his humanity altered with the full moon brewing
His eyes bulged outwards, as if inflated from within
Rupturing and leaking like overripe eggs gone aburst
Orbs like molten sulfur emerging forth
Untamed eyes ever hunting with gluttonous thirst
Cartilage snaps and twists,
His nose breaking and distending
A newly formed wet snout imbibing heavy mists
Catching sweet-heavy scents, the blood of townsfolk descending
His ears wither and riven like gelatinous leaves in autumn
Twin jagged-sepulchral voids bled from his temples
Ere two needle-furred burst forth, inhuman-forgotten
Detecting the all-pervading beating of prey’s hearts, as the man trembles
A symphony of cracks echoes, as his bones bend and break
Piercing through his stretched skin, shedding what once-had-been
Before realigning as new-long limbs, as his old-form forsakes
To bound the lands in search of flesh, the feast of blood begins
A once-venerable soul dissolved into a being of pure-dread
Human-semblance cast aside, a fiendish dawn begins
A blood-curdling howl bursts forth from the throat where feral hunger fed
Pouncing through glass on a ruinous path, the creature of darkness wins
VI.
A township weeps; youth shrieks, sensing unseen terror in the street
A mortal-wrecker sweeping through a town of quiet dreams
Beast unbound in pursuit of hearts that wildly beat
A maddening specter of sheerest fright, tearing sanity at the seams
A pallid dawn breaks, pale inhabitants awaken
A mother wails in sorrow at a gore-stained broken bed
A grieving wife shrilly laments, her fragile heart forsaken
Espying the scattered flesh of her husband, from which his soul has fled
A burning wrath erupted thence,
Consuming the heavy shroud of sorrow
Once a tranquil town, now seeking a wrathful recompense
Ready to slay the aberration; ere the morrow
Men take up arms and gather ‘round, ready to avenge the night
Once a man, now lurking where dark rivers ran, hiding from the light
Eyes ablaze in wicked glee, reveling in spite,
The old man’s story concludes; no merciful end in sight—
Entombed evermore within a grim, unholy might
Youthful eternally
