I

She comes in the form of new light
A stubborn fact not a dream of the light
Her hair full of cinders and gristle
Flies as the buzzards take flight
Like Baba Yaga with mortar and pestle
Her canine teeth gnaw my skin in delight
She grinds and rubs out my twilight desire
Draining my dry lips, eclipsing my fire


II

My sombre bard of morgue dust hope
Puts me to bed with a shovel
In a field of love bereft of blood
She builds me a tottering hovel
My sledgehammer bride, undoer of pride
Stones and dethrones as I grovel
Yearning to stay with my shadowy maid
I peek behind her veil beyond the grave


III

I inhale the scent of sweet wine and lies
The tainted mead of saccharine lives
I see widowed lovers dance in her eyes
Stone deaf and stunned I hear their shrill cries
A phonograph plays a song of demise
The clatter of bones, the clutter of bribes
Tinsel on dead trees in a holiday blaze
Mocks the memory of their better days


IV

My musty python of perfumed death
Heals with a kiss, resurrects with her breath
My sibylline suitor hums inaudible prayers
Wakes sleeping hearts with cackling and jeers
In the burning skies where bombs boom and roar
My ominous augur offers her lore
My fanged belladonna goads with a cure
Rivers beneath rivers are what she has in store
For the orphaned and famished on catacomb floors

Written by © Nevada Kerr
16th December 2002.