Song for the Raven Queen - Prose Poem by Greg Patrick

Song for the Raven Queen

In memory of the late Charly of Hollywood

 

““You have witchcraft in your lips”-William Shakespeare

 

You were night to me...starless darkness in its gothic majesty...in all its sacred mystery...ruling hearts like a princess of legend and history. Night by which one counts on crushing brink of sea as ever Poe wrote of Annabelle Lee.

You were darkness crowned in midnight, so it was your face suspended in magic moment and night... so effortlessly did you mingle with night itself so as to haunt each dream after and all to the fate’s laughter.

Mirage before me like the desert stars to a nomad’s eyes that shone me on…smile like a song one could not get out of one’s head. Smile that was silence set to nocturne, too magical to be magic and to be anything but a work of possession to a composer not of inspiration and at the touch all the night’s sensations brought like a dark bard to a dark prince enthroned to sing ballads unsung of Guinevere’s incarnation.

Poetry in the flourish of raven waves like tidings borne to the stars and it was all crossed out in the stars as if by the cards, surrounded by magic, as many roles in triumph and tragic...haunted as if by the conspiring fates taunted, cast spell of night so long that it was my own shadow before me.

The nightmare that passed the dreamcatcher’s net for all the hauntings of midnight-crowned regret like something too wild to be held by a snare. Dream to banish nightmare. Nightmare to banish dream and for every promise of a new start, every smile behind Endorian eyes an illusionist art, like a procession of carts, bearing each warrior fallen...till the carriage to the night castle awaited.

The palace with night-blossoming roses in every vine, and nights of candles and wine have vanished with the dawn, and only ruins appear…even abandoned by ghosts to be haunted by the living and it seemed a toast to Poe’s grave was all that was left to be giving.

I had dared dream it was to be a duet to the muse, but it was merely a slow-burning fuse, sung by one in a cowl and by its song the fates answered smile with vindictive scowl.

Turned away by the one I was told not to see again, so that when I dared look back with Orphean yearning after one gone with no trace, truth stood in awkward contrast to an illusionist’s deceptive grace. It was to face as many dawns with only a shadow haunting my step, as I walk to the midnight train, and if I was stabbed on the way…at least I would have slept.

Like Banquo’s ghost he appears, as if hailed by falling raven feathers like midnight tears...stranger at his own wake…His step falters as if from dark eye’s spell and intoxication begins to stagger...the cold tangible as a dagger, disoriented by shock of words...lion trampled by the herds.

Words lost like a message in a bottle on dark waves tossed. Doppelganger of a soul lost. Lost soul, somnambulant to the bell’s toll. Jostled by the herds, just another face to the passerby, like a hungry beast after all that glitters in a world deaf to a thousand heartbeats, ventriloquised in a soloist song to be heard? In a dying ruin of a world, that would barter the heart in fool’s gold, as if love could be sold...but gone as if banished like children of gaudy displays before the red lances of the sun’s rays.

The streets silent now, as silent as when we had to ourselves...that night under the Tinseltown lights and the night never felt so cold.

What streets then are these? Galway? Derry? Baltimore…? Does it matter anymore...? Awkward truth had stood before the graceful art of deception. Left only with the programme of the night. The man of honour...Poe.

His eyes seemed to delve into the soul...eyes envision scenes of his stories...of vengeance and Haunting glories.

Our eyes meet with startling recognition in the street...Those unmistakable eyes. streaked dark over a stone angel’s face...that into eternity cries…

Ghosts you see are the more haunted by mortals and there we stood framed in mirrors like ghosts silhouetted by magic portals.

Pale face like a ghostly witness to unredressed wrong, who is anyone to think themselves strong?

In spirit I lift him from the snow where has fallen...like a toast of cognac to the night and a black rose to the grave of my own dream.

Like Asrael I appear...dark suit like broken wings...like a ghost dance brave’s shroud to dream fated to die...because I had no true place as myself, a guardian of the old ways, and I must leave or die and forsake the dark rose. And where in that shell is the great master of prose? toasted by cognac and rose to a grave before a dark shrine to a dark prince’s ghost that fell and rose.

Where in the beggar turned away from the door and a chair’s place was the dark prince of poetry that ruled fear in stories told through the centuries by the charmed flames of the hearthplace, aloof from new and the mad race?

In spirit I lift him from the snow and bear him away...to a safe house he knows. And then I realise at the shrill of the midnight trains that I had really picked myself up as if raised on dark wings...one left by the Valkyrie to rise for another night and battle for it is not the lot of the lion to be trampled by cattle. A gambler’s queen of hearts, to a king of hearts last gamble, dealing hearts one could never win back. Was it in the cards all along...?

After the bewitchment of song, lips like reopening wounds. But the heart will not be lulled to an elusive repose and wounds will not close…the spell has taken hold...haunted by the song of the black rose. No, it was not a Hollywood ending, but if there is finally a warrior worth killing than there is a heart worth rending.

The deceptive painted desert of tinsel town carried on obliviously in its endless rush, its sound and its fury.... You paid homage to one outcast poet, Poe. And what I wished of him I wish of you...that I could have found you where you were left broken and lifted you up from the cold street, as your song and words uplifted a heart that was downtrodden on an avenue of stars. And I'd like to think you are there now above the rush and roar, the hatred, illness and fear, where we cannot see the stars anymore above the starless veil of the city lights.

No paper would offer you homage yet for all that there were nights, I wish I could have renamed every constellation in the sky after you, every vision of goddesses testing the heart of mortals, every dragon and wild thing unleashed at mortals to test the sharpness of their wit and blade, those constellations enshrined in symmetries of eternal fire, gleaming in the uncertain eyes of sleepless warriors on eve of battle, inspiring and rallying hearts with their distant light and legend, all but Orion, eternal castaway for that shared story and moment under city-obscured stars...remembered above statues and red carpets, even as the world under them changed and changed again, till their names were called mythology and humanity itself became a myth and still dared wield the muse and power of the old goddesses it seemed, casting that dark spell over any who stopped to listen. 

I think of the black rose I once gave you and its whispered caveat, don't hold on then too tightly. Let go, the blood is showing through your fingers, Keep to the pen instead, when I go into the night, you can't follow this time...There was a mercy in that warning that I didn't understand then and maybe I don't now. I remember when we left the theartre together the streets were quiet as if a dark stage was set.

We talked and laughed and said goodnight. I lingered then as your car drove away in the darkness closed my eyes, immersed in that darkness as if enfolded in a dark angel's swings, dreaded by some, revered by a few, there is a solace to that majestic darkness where rebels are allowed the heresy of tears and the defiance of dreams and I dared to look back with Orphean valediction.... not wanting it to be true.

A dual citizen of Ireland and the states, Greg Patrick is an Irish/Armenian traveller poet and the son of a Navy enlisted man.  He is also a former Humanitarian aid worker who worked with great horses for years and loves the wilds of Connemara and Galway in the rain where he's written many stories. Greg spent his youth in the South Pacific and Europe and currently resides in Galway, Ireland and sometimes the states.