image from artstation.com
Poem written for and submitted to “Count Strahd von Zarovich,” Poetry Contest, Robert James Liguori, sponsor, November 17, 2025.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Your black carriage moves through perpetual gloom~ Ravenloft’s castle sits, perched atop Barovia’s bone-white crags, its spine hunched over fog-choked valleys. You sit alone in Ravenloft, tracing chess moves on dusty marble, fingertips lingering where Tatyana’s pawn once stood~ writing names in your ledger, the ink brown as blood. You are a silhouette of despair, swirling brandy in your amber-hued snifter~ the moonlight bruising your study’s velvet drapery, the centuries calcifying the ache behind your ribs. Your shadow clings to the castle walls long after candles sputter~ haunting notes of an unseen organ drift through the night, calling lost souls to your eternal embrace. You stalk the hunt that cannot feed~immortal thirst, forever starved. Yet you smile and pour yourself another century.
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