By Ashok Jahagirdar
I. The Invocation
Beneath the pallid moon’s unblinking stare,
Where shadows coil like serpents in the air,
I dip my quill in ink of midnight hue,
And summon verse as Poe himself once knew.
Oh, Muse of Murmurs, wraith of woeful song,
Who guides lost poets through the dark too long,
Lend me your ear, this chant of woe and wit,
A thousand words where spectral meanings sit.
II. The Descent
The cellar door creaks on its rusted hinge,
A sound that lingers like a whispered cringe.
Down, down I step, where candlelight is weak,
And every sigh becomes a phantom’s shriek.
The walls are lined with books of tattered skin,
Their leather cracked, their secrets locked within.
Each title glows in gilt, now worn with age,
The Ghoul’s Lament, The Madman’s Rage.
A raven perches on a bust of yore,
Its beak agape as though it craves one more
Dark stanza spun from nightmares half-remembered,
Or sins too foul for daylight to surrender.
III. The Workshop
Here, spectres gather in a ghastly throng,
Their hollow eyes demanding a mournful song.
A woman wreathed in mist recites her verse,
Her voice a knell, her cadence like a curse.
“The clock struck twelve, yet time stood still,
Upon the hill where blood did spill.
The dead arose in lace and bone,
To claim the hearts they once had known.”
A gentleman in rot-stitched velvet bows,
Then reads his lines with a voice like scraping ploughs.
"The mirror shows not what is there,
But vacant eyes and matted hair.
A face not mine, yet oh, too true,
It grins and mouths, ‘I remember you."
IV. The Craft
The Raven croaks, “Nevermore the lie,
That poetry must soothe or beautify.
True verse should haunt, should twist, should cling,
Like Ivy slow-throttling a king.”
I take my pen, its nib a dagger’s edge,
And carve my soul upon the parchment’s ledge.
Each metaphor a razor’s kiss,
Each rhyme a footfall in the abyss.
“The lover’s touch was cold as snow,
Her lips the shade of mistletoe.
Yet when she spoke, her breath was flame,
And thus I learned to love the pain.”
The spectres nod; the air grows thick.
The Raven’s eyes are candlewick.
Two burning coals that sear my sight,
As shadows coil in verse and bite.
V. The Revelation
A thousand words? A paltry sum,
When weighed against the deafening hum,
Of voices lost, of souls undone,
Who trade their peace for parlous pun.
Yet as I write, the walls dissolve,
The workshop fades, the ghosts absolve
Their debts to time and one by one,
They vanish where the moon has shone.
The Raven spreads his wings so wide,
They blot the stars, then subside.
“The poem’s done,” he bids me now,
“Yet still its echoes fester… go.”
VI The Farewell
I close the book. The cellar’s cold.
The candle’s dead. The tale is told.
Yet in my ears, the whispers play,
The workshop’s chant won’t fade away.
And so I leave this crypt of thought,
With every line in shadow wrought.
A thousand words? Perhaps. But more,
For poetry knocks at Death’s dark door.