Happy Birthday Edgar - Mortal Fears and Open Wounds

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, and if you are familiar with this blog or me as a person, you would already understand the meaning. In honor of Poe, I decided to write a pastiche of Spirits of the Dead, to commemorate this important day. Poe has always been one of the major influences in my life, and without him, I probably would not write, and without writing, I would definitely be insane.

I

Through darkened days and unknown specters
Mysteries shadow truths inside spiraling emotions-
Empty thoughts, and even stranger dreams, give way
For my mind, realities fade.

II

Stillness overwhelms the vile depths,
   Reverie smothers the calm-but still

The forgotten rise and roam the abyss
   Their hunger stronger than their will
Dreams overthrow the tyrants-solitude unbound
Calmness swallows thy heart: judgments unwound.

III

The gate, sacred seals, horses rise-
And the dead walk with souls despised
Foretold by scripture and desires once lost,
Mortal fears and open wounds survive the crossed-
Blessed implements stained by blood, opened doors,
For the path to salvation rose upon unseen shores
The chasm burns and the pure follow
Forsaken by seraphim set adrift in the shallows.

IV

Words are but verses that shall be composed,
Verses are but visions that must be transposed,
Revelations feed doubts; emptiness breeds fright
Choices wither- and reservations survive, at least for a night.

V

The truths- and the tainted flesh-cannot hide-
The souls of the damned drowned by pride,
Ancient riddles difficult to perceive,
An unfamiliar destiny left for me to conceive-
How this grew-an opportunity or prediction left for naught,
Or worse, a loathsome plague-the white horse forgot.