29

What spell is cast around these slumb'ring walls
That the swishing snip of thicket can't break?
The bravest hearts are skewered on its thorns.
None so fortuitous to reach its doors...
Centurion Autumn gathers dead leaves,
Brings not Spring's life-kiss or Winter's release.

And who has come to wake the maiden fair?
Punished by the prick of a sharp needle,
So like the lethal point of the rose stalk.
The deceptive faerie nature spared, whilst;
Rubbled bodies tangle in its brambles
And Aurora's lips grow ever colder--


© Florence Challender 2011

25

No death bed convert shall I make,
The heretic soul in me would only baulk at the prospect
These eyes have swallowed too much truth and the twinkling of faith has long expired.

No, I shall shirk no shame of my last ill-spent moments
Nor shall I deplore my trespasses,
For my neighbours are as Godless as I.
I shall quell all thoughts foreboding to wander to a place “hereafter”,
Pray, what could it offer?

This life’s a false promise-
A world where rich feasts on poor,
woman treads in the shadow of man,
And love shrivels in the hands of fate.

No, I shall abandon him before he abandons me
I know I am expendable, but He?

I shall butcher my heart and serve it up on the altar-
A mere returning of the favour,
For all the last breaths snatched by his avaricious grasp.
I’ll beg him for his worst, for one of Gabriel’s own to smite me down with a blow that could bring the castles of heaven crashing...

This is my exodus from a world in tatters;
Evil shall no more pluck the ripest fruits of Good’s labour,
As the lamb heart coils up with the dragons.

© Florence Challender 2010

22

Death in its complexity will wage war and rage
and whilst Eros persists, it's Thanatos who prevails
can't silence the skeptic that plagues the mind
life and its longevity stretched before my eyes.

"The casket calls, put this demon to rest!
A heavy-hearted sigh heaved from my chest
the poison that tricks my vision, the cynic that shrieks
all hope remains hidden while desolation creeps.
My mouth is stitched shut to stop stupid words leaking
reduced to nothing but a willow weeping...
too much love carelessly discarded, too many fantasies entertained
I crumble into depravity and my soul is stained."

Death whispers to me in his dulcet tones
of a world underground for those whose life has left their bones,
a place where the restless sleep.
His cold breath on my neck causes a shiver to slither.
I long to reach out in a sombre embrace
his icy hands relieve me of life's lingering trace,
I breathe in his cloth of cobwebs and he closes my eyes,
no longer a spectator to life's horrors and lies,
as he lies me down on his soil-lined bed.

Death in its finery and splendour is all I could ask for
as I crush velvet between my fingertips and examine the well-polished wood.
So much time laid aside to honour my end,
for in this my eternity I shall spend.


© 2010 Florence Challender