Poetry

Below the Cellar

By Wallace - 21 February 08

Rushing water pours into cloth, then slowly trickles
Down it drops--plop, plop into the opening below
Ruddy, dank with foul odors to depths without fathom
Falling, spiraling globular sprinkles, one by one
Finally reach the bottom where they puddle luminous
In this deepest, darkest recess beneath the cellar

A shaft of light appears above, up in the cellar
When a door opens with a heavy clang--sound trickles,
Awakening the creature whose eyes, luminous,
Open in the chilled and forsaken space here below
Small pearls of sound beyond herself from any other one
Welcomed; cries of anguish stifle thoughts she can't fathom

Her delicate visage holds beauty with no fathom
Most would gasp in shock to see her below the cellar
Cowering on the floor, shivering, ravenous one
Denied food for so long, the hunger in waves trickles,
Flitting through her brain pushing everything else below
Transformed from strong to weak, yet still cruel and luminous

Long, red hair spills along her pale body, luminous
Even in dread night, no soul could resist nor fathom
Keeping her here, imprisoned, cageless yet caged below
She feels anger swell within her under this cellar
No thirst for any of these brackish, curdled trickles
This liquid that barely sustains or keeps alive one

Her fingers dig into damp soil, earth, the very one
Where she was buried long ago, so pure, luminous
Before her fall from grace from that wound where blood trickles,
Coagulates and stops the heart, yet springs forth fathoms
Desire to live again; now stuck beneath this cellar,
While this craving won't go--never can she rest below

She howls and writhes, pounds her fists into the ground below
Her hands evince numerous cuts, which heal one by one
She would crawl along these walls up into the cellar:
Drink blood; decapitate her captors, while luminous,
Cold eyes take in mute cries, deeply savor, fathomless;
Watch them slowly die, while on her mouth their blood trickles

Each day she plots revenge
When church organ music
Wafts down into her lair