Daaskmere Monk

William of Meadowsford

Book Cover

Fiction
arrowShawn Postoff

Copyright © 1997 - 2009
arrowInfinitive Ink Limited

Design
arrowstudio-plume.org


IX ill title William Falls

The darkness of Death did descend all around.
His cloak was a shadow that without a sound
Enveloped the horror and terror-filled room,
And garbed in a silence that newly made tomb.
My sword became heavy and dropped to the floor,
Its clang on the stonework effectively tore
The Reaper’s black cloth of eternal decay.
To rats turned my anger and scurried away.

“O God,” came my whisper of grievous despair
That carved into mem’ry the sight that was there.
“O Lord,” went my words of repentance and fright
That gnawed through my bones and left scars with their bite.
“O spite!” yelled my voice down the twisting, grey halls
Whose once happy rooms had become graveyard walls.
“O Hell!” shrieked my soul to the world that had paused
To turn and observe the injustice I’d caused.
“Unholy, unnat’ral and wretched, foul deed
Was birthed through my hand and now look at him bleed!
My soul is now damned and eternally faced
With infinite terror and virtue disgraced!
I’ll burn in the fires of Hell full diseased,
This act I performed to have Satan appeased!”
The voice of delirium entered my head,
And vision went spinning in panic and dread.
I crumpled me down to collapse in the pool
Of blood that did leak from the wound I’d made cruel.
Sir Robert commanded me carried to bed
Until the hot fever had drained from my head.
A restless and turbulent sleep then set in,
With iron-cold chains sickly draped ‘cross my skin,
And torturous spikes turning hot in my bones:
The illness possessed me with painful, dull moans.
Yet all through the time that my blood was in flames,
My mind was still active and dreaming up games
To torment and tease my remorseful, sad soul,
And take on my health a most terrible toll.

I saw in my visions a bottomless pit,
And I at its edge did uneasily sit,
A babe in my arms I held clothed, warm and tight,
I guarded it dearly all day and through night.
But soon from the dark of the endless abyss,
Did slither the voices of vapours to kiss
The baby who squealed with a devilish glee.
I looked down with horror, and this did I see:
The infant was laughing with eyes full affixed
Upon my emotions all many and mixed.
Its face became wicked and worms then emerged
From baby’s vile mouth where they slowly converged
Across the soft cheeks, to the nose and the ears.
Then eating their way to its eyes with their shears
They gorged them up fully the innocent whites,
With treacherous tearing and passionate bites.
In terror and shock I unthinkingly cast
The maggot-chewed child to the pit sure and fast.
But time has no meaning in dreams and in sleep,
And slowly sunk baby away from my keep.
I watched as lethargic its figure then fell,
Sank down through the mists to the darkness of Hell.
I gazed as the blankets and clothing were shed,
Revealing the body of Thomas now dead.
But then in a flash all was flipped full around:
‘Twas I who was falling away from the ground.
The circle of daylight ‘came smaller and closed,
Above me the figure of Thomas reposed.
He sat on the ledge where he watched without eyes,
And laughed at my desperate and fear-ridden cries.

I’d wake then and there with a throat dry and coarse
From shrieking until my strained voice had gone hoarse.
A cool cloth attended my wet-beaded brow,
And soft words implored me then not to allow
Those demons that haunted my blood and my brain
To rule o’er my body and spirit in pain.

With time I was drained of the poisoned disease,
And slowly my health did return to appease
Ambition desiring to once again find
Pursuits of the knightly and chivalrous kind.
But actions as mine are not quickly forgot,
And I was much troubled in words and in thought.
Admitting I ne’er could the deed right deny,
I searched for a way to at least sanctify
My purgative heart that in limbo was hung,
Unheeding the hymns of forgiveness then sung.

God help me as each line is written and told.
Sustain me and give me mine eyes vision bold.
I find myself struggling through each passing word
To keep the constructions of madness deterred.
Such anger and sadness do swell in me now,
As I full recapture what mem’ries allow.
These scenes of my youth still today I do grieve,
That even the distance of years can’t relieve.
My health now forbids me to travel this way,
And begs me abandon these writings today.
Each moment that I upon Thomas do dwell
Upraises my stomach and makes me unwell.
So now I’ll move on to more colourful lands,
And tell brighter mem’ries with steadier hands.