BLUE

Richard H. Fay Artist and Illustrator

@richardhfay-artist.bsky.social

Published sci-fi, fantasy, and horror artist and illustrator Multi-genre print-on-demand artist, designer, and photographer www.zazzle.com/mbr/238607540283613365

27 followers52 following88 posts

RHrichardhfay-artist.bsky.socialOct 17, 2024 3:57pm

Halloween Poem "Gathering of the Dead". Background digital manipulation of Fort in Knocknagranshy by Walkergw obtained from Wikimedia Commons. Background Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-...#poem #poetry

Gathering of the Dead

by Richard H. Fay

Never gaze upon the rath
On a cool November's Eve,
For there wandering souls meet
Beneath a bright Hunter's Moon.
Grey wraiths gather amongst stones
Marking ancient pagan graves
While wan spirits dart about
Glimmering a corpse-light glow.
Murmured voices chant strange words
Forgotten by living men.

Never set foot upon grass
Barely bent by ghostly feet,
For fey gasts hate intrusions
Into their phantasmal fete.
Free from prying mortal eyes,
Tattered lads reel hand-in-hand
With filmy spectral lasses
While impish harpers play tunes
Sweet as lost love remembered,
Soft as a doomed man's last breath.

Never enter that fell dance,
Though seduced by glamour’s charms,
For embittered shades steal life
Deftly drawn into their midst.
Ice cold hands bruise naked flesh,
Spreading fatal corruption.
Dusty kiss chokes plaintive cry
As soul parts from withered corpse
And gathers with fellow dead
On a chill All Hallows’ Eve.

(Originally published in Tales from the Moonlit Path, Halloween Issue, October 2009)

Richard H. Fay Artist and Illustrator

@richardhfay-artist.bsky.social

Published sci-fi, fantasy, and horror artist and illustrator Multi-genre print-on-demand artist, designer, and photographer www.zazzle.com/mbr/238607540283613365

27 followers52 following88 posts