The Toll of the Seven Bells
Mid-July, I remember the dismal display
The pinnacle of our emotional array
Was in that dismal display that I found a sanctuary of sorts
A distant calling from some distant port
Deviant of lost wonder and hope
Left to dangle by the hangman's rope
I remember the dismal Mid-July noon
Ignorant and naive a sleeping buffoon
"To what misfortune do I owe this recollection?"
"This painful loss of suicidal perfection."
The words come as illusion or dream
Decadently gloomy and vaguely obscene
Can I help this mind locked within the tomb?
Helpless as a child perched in a mothers' womb
I remember the redness of that pagan sky
On that most dismal night of Mid July
We became one with the dangler on the rope
A memory of the one dangling from the rope
A lighted fire and ominous song
As we dragged the soul from what was strong
We watched the sky, singed with tainted fear
Cry out the skies; ashed with the sear
I walked from a shadow into the night
Shaken from the omniscient light
Burdened with the songs of dying life
Unforgiven of sins long tormented in strife
I caressed the pinnacle of emotional array
I longed to live; I longed to love; I longed to stay
"Taste of the wicked intervention dejected soul."
"And be gone by the seventh bells' toll."
I felt to inhale prolific vanity from the night
My shadow wept in that early morn light
A distant voice carried the din of the cathedral bell
"You must be gone; returned to the brimstone of hell"
"Where all things are seared by the eves' sun"
I would never again lay witness to that horizon
Again it rises and I have held firm by the gallows pole
Prey of the vultures I hear the seventh toll
![church-3058372_640.jpg]() Image: Pixabay.com