Poems Primarily Narrative (or not)

Perfidy

His watery eyes, heavy as lead, sought

the pallid moonlight sneaking

past the heavy drapes and spreading

'cross the bed while beside him

stood his weary wife of twenty years,

impatient and disgusted

with her adopted role, in which he trusted

She spoke his name and forced a smile

and in the candlelight held out the vial

of evil medicine meant to ease his pain

and all the while urged sleep

so she could gain her time away to see another,

her ailing husband's younger brother

Through half closed eyes he watched

her leave, the kiss upon his cheek a token

No words of love or sympathy were

spoken and he clenched his teeth

against the pain that wracked his body

once again, knowing that his war for life

was realized by his perfidious wife

This charade of union had run its course

he would end her deception

without remorse and summoning strength from

from a body stressed he arose from bed

and planned his course, for in her haste

to quick depart she'd erred and

left forgotten on the desk directions to

their duplicitous nest

Pain assaulted with violence unbearable

legs stumbled on the cobbled street

Grappling his way along the rough brick walls

the journey driving his booted feet and

from his jacket came the small glass bottle

uncorked and raised with shaking hands

he downed another gulp of laudanum

releasing the pain in fiery strands

A horse drawn carriage rattled noisily past

and to the wall he turned his tormented face

the sound of the snapping whip

alerting him sharply back to time and place,

and so through drugged and wispy vision

he moved ahead his vengeful mission

with night's ledger recording each clumsy footfall

until by the gaslight on the corner, he saw

the plated number that matched his paper's scrawl

Blundering through the door into the dingy hall

and up the stairs another jolt, too much to bear,

of horrific pain followed and

he clutched the bottle, aware it was his last,

raised it high and swallowed

Pushing on he climbed in fear to

beckoning phantasms from the landing floor;

purchase sought from rough plaster walls

as the wraith-like fingers drew him to the door

A nervous wipe across his mouth again

o'er the prospect of what lay behind;

restraint unable to sustain,

he steeled his anguished mind

Her sight sprawled across the brass bed

in lustful abandon, tore from his lips her name,

reviling her with words of shame

then he turned to face his brother

By a chair in the corner, face coloured with dread,

turning in panic, pleas left unsaid as he spied the drawn knife

too late for reprieve - and surrendered his life

The deed scarcely performed, for a tortured mind,

provided no clarity nor was there charity for a wife

slain in kind

Overwhelmed by pain he viewed the act of

his betrayers attacked well removed from pity, and

suddenly soothed by the devil's breath as

functioning cells torn asunder, no longer

entailing the torment of wonder, succumbed

himself, to a welcomed death

A/N: My second venture into narrative poetry from once again a book idea that was left unfinished.