The Curse of the Faceless Woman

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The Curse of the Faceless Woman is a poem from my book Melodious Verse.

The Curse of the Faceless Woman was a ghost story we would tell each other as children on fogy summer nights on the shores of Lake Ontario. I decided to take this ghost story and make a poem of it. 11 rhyming couplets of mixed meter, written in 299 words centered for aesthetic symmetry.

Image by me, silhouette of The Curse of the Faceless Woman

The Curse of the Faceless Woman

Lost in time, this story is told, about a woman, dark and bold. 
She walks the streets on a foggy night, with a hood on her head to hide from sight.

Her story starts one summer’s eve, beside the lake an evil deed. 
A thief stole her daughter’s life, and filled her soul with pain and strife.

On a moonlit night along the shore, two young lovers walked and more. 
In each other’s arms that night, they talked of love and held on tight.

In the morning they were found, their hands and feet with rope were bound. 
Eyes wide open a vacant stare, their souls are gone and no one’s there.

The police did search for the one, an evil deed to be undone. 
In vain, they search to no avail, their efforts weak, lost, and pale.

A mother’s heart broken and splayed, a debt to justice went unpaid. 
She walked the streets at night alone, to make the sinners pay and atone.

She searched the shores by day and night, a vain attempt to make things right. 
And then one early morning dawn, she was found her spirit gone.

On foggy night’s times untold, she walks the streets dark and bold. 
She only walks the streets at night, within the fog to hide her flight.

All clad in black she walks alone, an evil soul she’ll make atone. 
She walks among the star-less night, sometimes seen beneath the bright streetlight.

All children know to be aware, least they see her standing there. 
They hurry home at the approach of night, sure that they would die at her sight.

So in the night if you should see, a woman in black, listen to me. 
Look not at her face I say, or with your soul you shall pay.

By
Josehf Lloyd Murchison

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