The Black Castle Poem by John Lars Zwerenz

THE BLACK CASTLE

The wind swept with violence against the dreary panes,
In my castle perched high among the mountains,
Overlooking the square devoid of all fountains,
Surrounded by woods bereft of paths or lanes.

From my cryptic chamber of incessant gloom
I gazed down the candlelit corridor;
(My blood it turned from hot to cold.)
For leaving my dour, barely lit room,
I heard creaking in a threshold,
Lacking any door.

For once, quite very long ago,
As I remember vividly so,
My lover met death kneeling in despondency
Where she placed a bouquet by her father's tomb.
I reached into my coat, and raised a silver knife,
And stabbed her in the back where no one did see,
As her evil soul met eternal doom.
(Such was the end of her malevolent life.)

Now four year hence I wander our estate,
And on February nights when the halls echo death
And the ominous sycamores clash in the breeze
I hear her heart beating with a mortal hate
And there, near the curtains I loose my bated breath
As I behold her ghost, down below beneath the
trees
Clutching the knife I used that day.
My nerves they fail, and I try to run away,
Out through the window on the castle's other end.
But before I could leap
She appeared in a dreadful wise,
With hatred in her heart, and demons in her eyes.

And she plunged that knife
Within me deep;
And so ended my life
As I forevermore keep
The company of Satan
As I groan and weep.

JOHN LARS ZWERENZ