Shadows

[serai]

This came to me a while back, during one of my on-again, off-again bouts with...well, you guys read it. I'm curious to know whether the subject comes through clearly or not. I'll come clean if nobody can pick up what it's about.

---

Shadows
by Serai


Tonight the Prince is sad
soul-sick and weary of hauntings
all a-tremble he stands listening
hands and straining ear
pressed flat against the wall
as if to ferret out within the timbers
the whispers that
(like rat steps slyly skittering)
rob him of his sanity and sleep

Now and now and now and then forever
trapped in a slowly tightening
ghostly net
an embrace once hot now cold
as cold as death
hell and madness pull at him like dybbuks
grinning as they call him
by his name

His eyes two chasms yawning
deep as oceans
aflood with tears dammed up
like thunderous rain
by walls of silence built through all his years

Guilt behind him
Pain above him
Hell below him
Death before him

No escape

---

Even though most of the poem is in pentameter, I'm having a bit of trouble trying to wrestle the first stanza completely into that meter. I'm not sure if it sounds awkward or not (I think I've read it too many times now to tell). Does it work rhythmically as it is, or should I keep picking at it? Even though it says what I want it to say, rhythm and flow are important to me, so please let me know your thoughts.




Oh, and before I forget: GIP!! I figured it was about time I had an icon for my scribblings. Thanks to the lovely mucun for her inspiring picture.