Once upon an evening eerie, when the sky was bleak and bleary
and I sipped some cheap and cheery comfort from the bottom shelf
Taking a toke of tobacco, suddenly I saw a shadow
cast there over the piano and my silhouetted self
“It’s the maplewood,” I muttered, glancing out to where it dwelled
“only that, and nothing else”
In such detail I recall it – it was past the prime of fall and
every tree that lined my lawn had lost its lustrous leafy shell
I sat alone then, grim and grieving, drinking well into the evening
drinking deep to cease the screaming, screaming in my head for Elle
For that sorry, sultry siren that I thought I’d loved so well
A conviction now dispelled
And the weight of what had happened in my burning, brainless passion
killed me – filled me with a sort of sadness I had never felt
So that now this outlined figure on my wall that faintly flickered
seeming only to grow bigger fanned the fires of my hell
“it’s the maplewood,” I echoed, drawing shades to break its spell
… and yet still the shadow fell
Feeling now my heart beat faster, I stood searching for the master
of this spectre on my plaster born of shade that I beheld
And on noticing its placement, I turned hastily, impatient
to the room that stood adjacent where I’d hung a head of elk
“just the antlers,” I sighed, then closed the door to break their spell
… but yet still the shadow fell
Finding neither rhyme nor reason, my assuredness did weaken
and the silence seemed to deepen as the fear within me swelled
For the foul, fantastic monster my imagination conjured
looming larger, fiercer, stronger, grew impossible to quell
And the phantom’s form felt foreign as of from another realm
yet… familiar as well
“Is it you?” I whispered softly, fearing something there ungodly
like some spirit sent to haunt me from the deepest depths of hell
But the shade seemed not to hear me, though I voiced again my query
so, succinctly and sincerely, I then simply asked it - “… Elle?”
This I asked, and heard my voice repeating back the name of “Elle!”
Only echoes, nothing else
Now I lost all my composure, - struck the wall, and shrieked for closure
Struck it over and then over with what strength I could compel
Fists so frenzied and ferocious, in the grip of a psychosis
and the beat of every blow was like the sounding of a knell
… like the beat of bloody blows with which I’d beat the life from Elle
Faithless bitch. I’d loved her well
And the shadow, so incessant, still is present,
still is present
like a token of the essence that malevolence befell
And so far beyond redeeming, there my soul continues screaming
‘neath that shadow with its meaning as to mark me as its whelp
As the vile, abhorrent monster that no mortal man can help
This I am, and nothing else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raven