Terpsickore: An Experiment in Rhyme

Terpsickore:
An Experiment in Rhyme

By FlatDaddy

She’s not the girl he wanted,
    she who haunted him and stalked
    him and talked him into dance.
Their romance, sparked by music,
    He, too sick to see danger.
    This dark stranger smiled abright,
came each night as some old friend.

She shunned all other suitors,
    none would suit her sole mad plan;
    O, no man but him would do.
No one who was there could know
    she would sow a deadly seed:
    burning need that would not heal.
No appeal could make her bend!

She hounded him for each dance,
    no slight chance to call retreat —
    with the beat, she pulled him in.
Promised sin in every glance;
    with each dance she offered more!
    Satan’s whore soon planted seeds
of black needs within his brain.

Lights spun flashing like bright stars
    or fast cars that dashed along
    blaring song in 4/4 time,
lending rhyme to join the din:
    Her mad grin and flying gown
    pinned him down to her dead breast,
stealing rest and leaving pain.

When the band packed up and left,
    now bereft of music, then
    ‘rose a din: “lies, demon witch!”
But the bitch loosed hungry crows
    that arose within her hair
    leaving there the foulest smell,
Acrid Hell: her true perfume.

Oh, dead she was and knew it.
    Laughing through it, his soul tired,
    near expired, his knees grew weak.
O a shriek and wail of joy:
    just a ploy to reel him in
    and again force him to dance:
A romance writ on a tomb.

Soon, he stumbled as if blind,
    couldn’t find his tongue to speak;
    Now, each cheek, and toe and thumb
Grew quite numb; but oh, his head,
    almost dead, still felt the fire
    that rose high’r in his brain!
‘til, insane, he sadly died.

Alas, when all had ended
    she pretended all was well,
     bid farewell and danced away.
Who can say where she calls home?
    Some dark tome may list her place,
    Show her face, perhaps her name.
End of game. I hope she cried.