After the Battle

 Sardonic laughter from the lips

Of the great flatterer

Brings acidic tears to the gaunt cheeks

Of the raven-clad widow.

She stands on the ledge of the steeple

As the breath of the dark angel

Compels her to dive into the abyss below.

 

A maiden in her porcelain gown flees the chapel at midnight,

Soaked in a pestilent rain

As the calls of the plague-stricken owls

Reveal half-truths between the hacking coughs

Of thunder and the cries of fallen soldiers,

Lost in the fields of mud, calling for their beloveds.

 

Saturn’s hand pushes corpses, dead and alive,

Through the river of time

As the poet sits on a smoldering stump,

Stroking his lyre,

Reciting verses to the scene that lay before him.

***

(Cuenca, Ecuador -- October, 2017)

This was another horror film inspired attempt to be a bit more bold with my word choice and imagery.