ravens – Jovis on a Journey…

raven and scythe 2

I wrote this to accompany a previous piece
‘The raven’s awful call’.

The old bell tolled its mournful chord
A six-foot box slid under ground
And as they shovelled the cold earth back
The tired old bell was the only sound.
And the raven called as the scythe fell
Another would join him soon
When once again the bell would toll
Its sad and terrible tune.

Presently to the graveyard came
A fog so thick of damp grey mist
And one more of the throng fell dead
Another sinner on the Devil’s list.
High above in clouds so dark
The raven flies and flies alone
The Devil’s unwitting accomplice
Whose list is long and carved in stone.

So dark his wings and sure his flight
He joins with others to wait
And gathered in their unkindness
They sense the Devil won’t sate.
Long the years the two were met
The Devil’s disciple is he
He’s used as a terrible tool of death
He knows he too is not free.

For as the scythe cuts through the air
Once more a scream is heard
The raven calls his baleful cry
Another sinner is interred.
Now he sits on the scythe of death
No hint of life ‘cept blinking eyes
Until again the scythe is raised
When once again the raven flies.

©Joe Wilson – The Devil’s accomplice…2016

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Still here I lie in Death’s dark shroud
Just more than dust beneath the ground
And even as they left this place
I heard the raven’s awful sound.
For those above had known me dead
And brought me here in six-foot box
Where even as I could not scream
I felt the dread from Death who mocks.

And as the bugs then through me roamed
As earthly bodies, mine did rot
My soul did not depart this husk
Such was the punishment I got.
And all the pain I still could feel
As rats gnawed at my hands and toes
There’s more to death than we may think
When blood through veins no longer flows.

Way up above the raven calls
The last call they will hear
He makes it as the scythe now falls
For soon they’ll come to join me here.

For if in life they’ve conscience clear
Their soul will soar on Heavenly peal
Though if like me a sinner they be
They’ll die in pain, a living meal.
They severed my head from my body
In years it’s never been found
I could never beg forgiveness
For who would have heard the sound.

Two hundred years in this dark Hell
The bugs and rats long gone
Just dried up skeletal bones remain
And the soul of a less than holy one.
Once, time stood still for just a while
For one short moment I waited
But then I saw the Devil’s smile
For in truth, he is never sated.

And yet once more the raven calls
As someone meets their doom
In six-foot holes beneath the earth
They’ll lie forever in this gloom.