An homage to Gothic Poetry

Evening thickened black.

As if powdered flour was being poured

into the air from heaven’s stitched sack.

As if night’s vessel was being moored

above the muddied, meandering track

which led to the cemetery.

 

For the woman who had carried him safe in womb

the boy wished to shower

her newly pressed tomb

with family favourite flowers

fully abloom.

 

The boy’s boots squelched deep.

Hastily he travelled…

until a stop. Through moonlight he peeped,

then stepped closer still and marvelled;

an irregular patch of Chrysanthemums; clustered.

 

The flowers glowed white

as molten iron blade,

stems fine and slight, petals pure as midday light.

The boy delighted as into sight

appeared a spindle of green along the chiselled wall.

 

Ivy caressed the cracks of granite stone.

Outstretched tips spiralled majestically,

like intricate carvings on a god-forsaken throne;

a strand peeled, in the spreading wind, curiously.

Unaware that he was not alone

the boy clambered on, absent minded.

 

Rhododendron bush loomed

over one side of the gate;

a purple growth fully in bloom.

The silent stalker waited,

his breath leaving silver traces in the light of the moon,

invisible behind unscanned shades; swung the gate open onto the cemetery.

 

Poppy thickets bedded the thinning path

like inversed clouds of the sky.

Picked, white and red halves;

the boy gripped his bouquet tight,

lovingly tight, as a traveller might his trusted staff;

then entered into the graveyard.

 

One visit to his mother’s tomb,

was all the boy desired.

One memorable trip. Winter gloom.

The dark wired

with star strips, illuminated the mystical doom

of the night sky.

 

“Money,

whatever you’ve got.”

Steely knife

thrust into

innocent chest.

 

White petal head

splattered with criss-cross

of spurting red,

imitated St. George’s cross.

Folded figure. Sunk.

Struck the ground.

 

Rhododendron forced past.

Thief left

Running, running fast

as a spinning revolution,

at a galleon’s pace.

Away from the cemetery.

 

Each step grew light,

Guilt melting away

through foot, calf, thigh…

body began to sway.

The thief swirled once more. Drew in the very sky

with each lung’s intake of air.

 

Air thick with howls of the phantom host,

the murderer glanced up sharp, afraid, thrilled, spooked, mad;

before him, outstretched, the silhouette of a mother’s ghost.

She grasped at the flesh of the man within her sight,

gripped hold of the flowers, picked by her son.

A final claw to the face; two lay dead.

Each marked by a memorial.

For the boy, Chrysanthemums white,

For the murderer, Poppies red.