Upon a chair of solemn wood,
She sat – as only madness could –
In garments torn by Time’s decree,
Betwixt the womb and mockery.
A scarlet tie – a wound undone –
Hung heavy ‘neath no morning sun.
Her breast laid bare, her gaze unknown,
A Queen of Flesh, yet cold as stone.
Her visage lost to clouded shroud,
A mind enwrapped in whispered cloud,
Where thoughts, like bats in tombs, take flight,
And reason fades into the night.
And lo! Beside her, cruelly fair,
A cage – white-wrought – held ghostly stare.
A doll within, with flaxen hair,
Did watch with eyes too wide, too bare.
“O mother, mother,” spake the face,
“Why keep me here in iron grace?
Hast thou no heart, nor keys to give
That I, thy thought, might too dare live?”
She answered not, save with a moan,
A mother’s sigh, a monarch’s throne.
For what she bore was not but pain,
But Time unborn – and not yet slain.
And still she sits – her tale unspoke –
The sky in chains, the soul in smoke.
Her child a dream, her mind a vow –
And cloud eternal on her brow.
—–
Homage to Edgar Alan Poe
