The Black Crow

Three wholesome troubling years before, a thousand cursed days back I lay, most stiff within my bed, my house of death did reek And all my nightmares, all my slumbers, they were deep and black But for the worst, came memory I’m frightened of to speak A memory, which left me in the bounds of fear’s chains, weak I shall confess, I shall tell you, with my past I’m distraught For long ago before this dark and creeping, ghastly night I hewn my wife’s thick neck with forty axe-cleaves, and I sought Help from the nameless bearer of the skulls of mortal plight And drank the blood of her tight veins, and even though I tried To bid such sinful practicing, I couldn’t do it though And ever since I hid my blade, and buried her, her dead I delved within the abyss of my rue and of my woe And nightmares kept on pounding through the chambers of my head And I had lived e’er in dark time, consumed half by such dread As all the hateful winds, they moaned and rocked trees, disarrayed And scathed all in its path, the biting, thorn-like, silver snow Most suddenly, my reddened eyes caught fast a passing shade And perchéd then upon the pane, a hideous black crow Who us, mere mortals, dread to see and dread to even know “Get off, get out,” I yelled, but it stood still, as if of stone Just eying me, its beak a lustrous sword, each eye a well And Dear Lord, then it uttered in a raspy, hissing tone Most low, “the eyes of Hell, the eyes of Hell, the eyes of Hell!” I staggered, then I tripped, and then upon the floor I fell And thunder roared and the winds moanéd louder, louder still “No, no,” I gaspéd, and for sweet mercy, then I had prayed But the crow, eying me, was readying for its first kill Foreboding’s wind had rustled silken curtains in a braid Whisp’ring to the heartbeats of my stricken heart, afraid It spread its hellish wings and like a ghastly phantom flew And grabbed, and tore my eyes. I shrieked in utter agony It shrieked, “They’re watching you, they’re watching you, they’re watching you.” I yelled back at it, “What do you want of a wretch as me? Ye crow, ye hell-winged messenger, what do you want of me?” “Your eye, your eye, your eye, your eye” the crow away then flew And left me in a state so puzzled and so pained and worn ‘Ah, G-d, what caused such torment, is it my illusion’s strew Or is it just the binding powers of my thoughts, forlorn?” But ever since, one-eyed, I lived, and lived in vile scorn And once upon a winter morrow, came upon my door A letter which had read They’re watching you...forevermore… I saw then thousands of black crows all fly round in a score They’re watching you...they’re watching you...forevermore and more… © 2014 Gleb Zavlanov