Your Poetry Dot Com - Grimoire III: Foul Passion Reprieve

Canto 3
Foul Passion Reprieve: Unholy Lust Inflamed

A wood of shadowed pathways far beyond the eye could see
Like fields of endless passions though no passion was to be.
The trees we saw were dying, as the soil lingered charred,
Bereft of kindred spirits whilst the torments left them scarred.

A cry would peak my interest where our current path would lead
To where we met the first of many souls on which they feed.
T was here the worldly poet shared the reasons of this place
Where sinful, lustrous persons gathered anguish from their face.

They hung upon the branches by the chains of mortal vice
Where hounds two thirds of Cerberus rent flesh for their device.
Whilst one head tore to pieces with a fierce and rabid howl
The other waited calmly for the re-growth, twice as foul.

For all the sinful winters driven mad by mortal flesh
Eternity would yield a pain forever new and fresh.
The organs that they worshiped, now the cause for their defeat
Were ripped apart by gnawing teeth and re-grown to repeat.

A ways within the forest and amidst the violent pain
I spied a man of recognition, sovereign of disdain.
T was the eerie Duke of Devonshire, fifth of twelve in line
Who spared no thoughts for kindness to his women or divine.

Along our walk I seen a many other souls who share
A lust too strong for slating and a passion all too fair.
But as I walked I spied a woman whom I'd known in youth
To which we strayed to lend an ear for inference and truth.

She did not recognize me for we'd severed long ago
Due in part to foolish reason and for reasons never shown.
She told me of her downfall and why anguish lingered here
adrift a dying willow tree and forced to persevere.

In life her mind was split in two though either claimed her prize
The hidden one revealed at most when lust inflamed her eyes.
Her loyalty was ever there to friends so closely held
But when it came to lovers they were violently dispelled.

Many a time far more than once she pleaded with her lies
And claimed they stole her forcefully, for which she was despised.
So when the wings of fate were drawn to rend her thread apart
Ironic tongues of damning men lay anguish in her heart.

No skill to be desired, nor the patience to be tried
Her end brought scarce a tear to gleam amongst the funeral eyes.
So from the land of living to the torments of the lost
Her lechery divided bore munitions for the cost.

Upon the fading whispers whilst her tale be shown its close
We sought no further questions lest malignancy repose.
And so by heed of anguish and the lifeless willowed vines
The two of us in silence bore results for our design.

The roadway through the forest fell to crumbled stone debris
Whilst the measures of the arbor forge a waning in degree.
We passed a many phantoms in the course that we beheld
Until we reached the stairway and their writhing was dispelled.

Atop the winding stairway leading down to tortures heard
With perfect poise there stood a fiend with origins in third.
Lycia’s plague who mothered twice the beasts Alcaeus slew.
Whose fall begot more trails Bellerophontes pursued.

Though angered by our presence or the fate her death derived
A furor bloomed inside her as our company arrived.
And though she rose to thwart our trail with fervor of deceit
When light revealed the poet’s face her instinct caused retreat.

This poem is Copyright ยฉ gravehorn