Demon's Siege Poem by James Walter Orr

My sweetheart gave her soul and heart;
Her total self and looked for more.
She gave her whole, or any part:
The skin, the flesh, the bone, the core.
She offered all, with her beseech
That I should help myself to each.

A demon saw my promised’s face
And fell in love with what he saw.
He was full smitten by her grace;
Her form, her charm, without one flaw.
To take her, of her own free will,
Her love for me, he’d have to kill.

He brought a voodoo woman in,
Whom owed to him her every skill.
He’d have her use her wiles to win
My love, so Mary’s love would chill,
For in the past, he’d made good use
On other girls, of this same ruse.

This voodoo woman sat a trap,
My soul to try to take away.
My path she charted on a map,
Assuring that I would not stray.
She served herself up as the bait,
And thought she only had to wait.

The potions that she used were strong;
Most powerful the spells she cast.
Far stronger than a siren’s song,
Developed over ages past.
Her beauty masked her evil heart,
And soon had torn my world apart.

I sought the love within her soul,
But oh, how well she’d hidden it.
I searched each part, to find the whole,
But never once she gave one whit.
She held her soul without a breach,
Safely secure, beyond my reach.

Then came the sun, whose warming light,
Reached not where those dark spirits dwelt,
Nor could it stop the raven’s flight
That bore aloft an evil, felt
To be cut from the devil’s cloth,
Snuffing life’s candle, like a moth.

As though it had resigned to die,
In ways one never would surmise,
The sun fell slowly from the sky,
And then, before the moon could rise,
Demands, came from some demon’s realm;
The prince of darkness at the helm.

I did my best to push aside
Those evil thoughts and get some rest.
I got the less, the more I tried,
And passed a night like I detest,
For as I passed each sleepless night,
The weaker grew my reason’s light.

Two weeks of this, my body bore.
Two weeks that cracked my very mind;
That brought my love life to the fore:
Infatuation left behind.
At last my mind began to see,
What really meant the most to me.

The fortnight dwindled to a close;
So too, the embers of my soul.
A stupor did my heart enclose.
I had no wish to play life’s role.
Then faintly from some distant slope,
I got the faintest ray of hope.

The evil voices I had heard;
That preyed upon my mind and ear,
Were penetrated by the word
Of one I once again held dear.
The thing that demons can’t abide,
Is love that comes from deep inside.

The voodoo woman quailed in fear,
When love’s strong bonds, her spell did crack.
She knew the demon soon would hear,
And come around to pay her back.
Years had passed since it was fashion:
Demons should display compassion.

I laughed to see the demon rave,
And see the voodoo woman rant,
They back to me my sweetheart gave.
Oh how they yowled to make the grant.
How nice to know I've no more spell:
The nicest thing that I can tell.