From these shadows, a haunted path,

  a silver serpent

  slips through the darkness

  Cool wind and bitterness now stirs awake

  the soul that slumbers here before

  the whispering waters

  that dreams its name.

  Here the darkness has drunk a cerulean day:

  The goblin-shaped miasmas of the night

  And phantom griffins of the mist take flight

  along a poppy-flowered path

  Dark dreams of eidolons,

  The fitful and fevered

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  ghosts bearing the hate

  of the fallen,

  the pale desire

  whose eyes have looked on

  sorrow and have seen,

  Deep in the slithering ebon tide,

  Their own unavailing light inverted;

  the whispered secret of love and despair,

  the twisted hopes withering blind

  before the winter-blossoming flowers.

  The land lies darkling and forlorn,

  while falling stars flicker and fade,

  Their faltering amethyst flames light

  the river flowing into the endlessness,

  eternity itself

  dimmed and weathered by

  oblivion.