photo by: Oleg Oprisco
Lake mistress sees
the guilty knot
of sinew’d evil
that brutally slays
by she, called forth…
vengeance — fang and claw
to ravage at nights
and hunt by days
young witch of wile
with will of steel
perched encloaked
in innocence sorrows
repays the sins
of the vilest few
who in blackest deed
stained pure tomorrows
photo by: Christian Houge
piercing molten
through wolf’n eyes
in steady gaze
stalks with the beast
vain trembling
is the villain’s fear
when set upon
by this blood moon priest
there is a truth
in that circled moon
that empowers this
righteous ambuscade
it wades in shadows
reaping the wickedest
‘til midnight’s debt
is fully paid
image from: Verbena
when seeking justice
all restraints are shed
wolf and lady prowl
in fur and leather
procuring retribution
across the realm
they avenge the holy
with edge and tether
they both are gifted
with unmatched strength
and superb cunning
and there’s another
the special gift
to become just one
to meld at will
one with the other
in brute unified rage
and redoubled fury
they rip the cowards
in moonlight’s wild
‘til never an innocent
be again found to fear
nor precious purity
be again defiled
and all that died
less blame or fault
will on this night
be requited raw
and guilted hearts
will hide away
to deny at dawn
the truth they saw
*
rob kistner © 2023
More Poetry at: The Sunday Muse
Amazing poem Rob. Some wild savage emotions narrated.
Happy Sunday
Much?love
Thank you Gillena… 🙂
Gillena is right, Rob ~~~ your poem is truly amazing. I had to google ambuscade .. love how you used it here.
Thank yoj Helen… 🙂
Interesting in both the calling forth and the denial of sight that occurs. If you turn away from one form of violence, do you have to turn away from all?
I am not at all a violent man Carissa, though I can be jealous or frustrated which begets a level of meanness — but not usually. But biolencd it is a sad part of the fabric of life — and perhaps there is righteous violence when it preserves something of innocence and purity. But my heart of heart years for a world where we have elevated above our nature above it. I like positive SciFi for this reason..
Wild emotions displayed here Rob – great writing 🙂
Thank uou so much AJ… 🙂
Wow, this poem feels as wild as it reads. Awesome, Rob! I always love a poem with wolves in it.
Yes Sherry, I love wolves, forests, and moons — in an atmosphere of melancholy. Also love beautiful SciFi, and gothic terror. I’m a strange bird. I can’t sleep well, just collapse at time from exhaustion. But I don’t mind. Given CHF I know my time is getting shorter. I don’t want to spend it sleeping, so I sleep just enough to get by. Now that my Kathy has cancer, sleeping has slipped lower on my hierarchy of importance. Not to br macabre, but I aspire to the fact that I can sleep when I am dead. I have lived my life to stay awake.
I read this again this afternoon, Rob. It’s busy but all is working together for a happy ending. We need more “young witch of wile” like to make our Earth a better place to live.
..
I agree Jim, the world needs to move towards a better ending. Jim I also recognized in the writing of this piece that the white witch was my wife Kathy, that the wolfbeast is me, and that the evil we were fighting is cancer. I did not realize that when I first began writing, but given that we are in the throes of Kathy’s cancer — looking back, I see it.
My goodness!
Had you thought of expanding this into a short story, or even novella?
I never seem to be able to sustain a story thread for that long Rosemary. Something in me loses the focus/interest. I have had ADD my entire life, and a glitch in my reading concentration, which seems to carry over into my writing. I also have been visited bt depression most of my adult life, the result of a combination of difficult childhood, and chemistry. I can be effective, sometimes really effective, in bursts, but I can’t seem to be able to sustain the level — and the older I get the more elusive that probability becomes. I have tried more than once to start a novel/novella — but… I have wanted for years to collect my poems, lyrics, and writings into a compiled volume, but I get overwhelmed — so I just resign myself to witting, and then setting them free.
The wolf-woman howls deep into the night in this!
I appreciate that you could hear it JR… 🙂
This could be a magnificent story to continue on with Rob! A wild and mysteriously wonderful poetic tale my friend!
Thank you Carrie, very much. You are always most kind. With my increasing personal health complications, physical and emotional, and now my growing focus and determination, with my wife, to strike down her cancer — I think the the concentration and endurance to write focused longer form has ebbed with the passing time. I love to write, but find I do it now as a driven obsession, and not as an organized profession — which has always been a lingering mental achilles heal for me in general in life. I have done work on it, more than once over the decades — but it is quite strongly rooted. The last time I disembarked from the train to do the work, is now fading far back down the line. Now I leave the train only at stations marked “sustain health here”. I am an infirm 76 next week. Don’t know how many more stops I get until the end of the line.
This is absolutely bewitching, Rob!
Thank you Sara I am glad you liked it… 🙂