Mallory

An attempt at emulating Poe, using my own format and scheme.

Twas one eve which followed mourning, while I sat scowling, sad and scorning

Contemplating how the morning could ever possess glee,

Seething sights that saw through toxic distortion, misanthropic

Godless thoughts, callous and caustic. Ready to rest, wrapped rope to tree.

To hang dangling, swaying, strangling, set to stay with she

She, the one who forever strayed from me

I was waiting in my study, picturing her cold and bloody

Under earth, moldered and muddy, offered to crawly

Pulchritude pillaged and plundered, o’er the days she had been under.

So I sat throughout the thunder, tempest tormenting me.

Could not the falling floods have eased and let her be?

The soaking, sopping onslaught set her free.

Candlelight lambency wavered for the gloam was hardly savored,

So I took in spite that taper, a dim duality.

Reflecting on a pleasance prior, before her presence had expired

What once we were, a love admired, the heavens could agree.

Living in love, like Adam and Eve without periphery,

Enraptured entities in ephemeral eternity.

Exploring the world around us, remote where nobody found us

A pure, curious freedom bound us; children of the woods and sea. 

Ignoring the world which wastes away, forever young together that way.

We had a bond old poets portray, the kind that gods envy.

O Merciless Maker, I bore my blight for Thee

In prayer Thine ears would hear my lurid plea.

As I tempered that condition, relinquished, severe contrition,

Ready to stoop to submission, something abrupt vexed me.

From off in some part of my manor arose an abrupt clashing clamor,

Blood lusting, in trance enamored, I stood, drunk in spree,

Belligerent to some insentient degree,

No hesitant timidity.

Taper in hand, I thrust to totter into the hall, windows washed water,

Set to seek, to spot and slaughter whomever I should see.

Wrath reacting, I was compelled to find the crook and conjure Hell

In that blackened, bleary spell I devised the way it would be:

To rush, rampage, and ravage viciously--

Yes, the devil encouraged my imbibed mentality.

Following on intuition through the way, reckless ambition

Carried me to the collision, there in the gallery

A vase was shattered on the tile, fragments scattered everywhere in piles

Imagination splattered vile, yearning battery.

Someone in my domicile was attempting robbery

I would end their life, and then end mine, probably.

Shouting loud, “Who’s there!? Come out! What’s this ruckus all about?!

I’ll find you and you’ll die! No doubt! Fool! You’d better flee!”

Without another second spared a second sound brazened the lair

Toward the next room, I stopped to stare, standing sullenly. 

Till off in stride, I went mannered savage, trampling madly

To engage and wage an enraged killing spree

Surprised to find no one was there, I heard only the sound of air.

Whomever it was--they didn’t dare gamble the mortician’s fee.

However, in the parlor I found, the source of that coercive sound, 

there fallen on the marble ground was an artifact ghostly.

Twas a token I bestowed upon my Mallory

A crown I’d buried, rest in the earthen sepulcher with she!

Tarnished and speckled with damp soil, the gems were dull and worth seemed spoiled, 

no longer valued as though royal… though loyal I would be.

Knowing what it meant, I shuddered, with one confounded fragment uttered,

Meekly my mouth moved to mutter, “Could it possibly…”

Vision blurry, sight unclearly bleary

I froze, petrified, perplexed, and weary.

Lowering the light to look, shriveled shape my semblance took,

For what I saw, I shrunk and shook, feeling weak and dizzy.

A mess of mud marked the way toward the entry hall. I said, “Good Lord!”

Seeing the spray coming inward, air cold and crispy.

It then was validated that I certainly had company

And whomever it was were there within, with me.

At first I thought, “Some grave raider…found the place where I once laid her, 

they scoured the surrounding acre, uncovered and exhumed the crown from she.”

Until it dawned, “But why was it here? No thief would leave this souvenir.

Then… how did it possibly appear?” Filled with tears, I fell to my knees.

Was it my most beloved, ever pined after Mallory

Who broke the vase that brought me to the gallery?

Rushing through the corridor and out into the dense downpour,

Intense, I went to stand before her covered cavity.

Taking to shovel, I dug the dirt and toiled till my hands had hurt

Expecting remains, remaining alert so I would not strike Mallory.

As far I went, there were not indications of a body

But on I quarried, exhausting till with grime my garbs were gaudy.

I knew at once the truth was sure, her crypt with depth was not secure,

My recollecting thought was pure, I could not mistake that memory.

Where once immured to shallow grave, she no longer remained the slave.

Unbound by earth, had she been saved? Does death have remedy?

Could her own legs have lead her back to me?

Had I been heard by He, Whom on I spat in blasphemy?

Terrorstruck, numb, and psychotic, stuck on various narcotics,

The moment had been so hypnotic, fathoming vitality.

She probably was inside waiting, her sweet beauty intoxicating,

The songs of seraphs orchestrating, singing miraculously!

Ah, how she seemed in my warmest memory

I was sure to find the very vibrancy!

Inside I sprinted, calling for her, maddening my damned disorder,

In instant, overmastered horror, I screamed, “Have you come back for me!?”

Only silence, as loud I listened, not a meek sound had arisen

So I stepped further, until vision ceased to tenebrosity

Wandering stygian realms, forlorn manically.

I was feeling the pressure of phantasmal gravity.

Hallucinations spawned of the sable, stalking shadows and fiends from fable

Which, however, I was unable to discern through ebony.

Feeling something pass me beside, bristling flesh, dismantling pride,

Convulsively trembling, terrified, I lit my lantern to see.

For a fast passing moment, I swear I saw somebody

Evanescing into the chamber my bride was taken from me.

Inching in to imbue the beam, the lair permeated with that gleam.

There on the bed, my most terrible dream vivified morbidly.

It was her. My darling lover, in sludge and slushy muck was covered!

We met eye contact with each other and just stared dormantly.

Her blond locks were soaked with slime and burgundy,

Complexion gray, expressing rotten apathy.

“Mallory?” I mustered the word, “Is that you who has me stirred?

Have you left your place interred, are you imaginary?”

Without emotion or conceit, she rose, lurched forward with drudging feet

Putrefied, frail and petite, a spectacle of casualty.

Arms, scratched and skeletal, stretching out to me.

White blinded sights that sought but could not see.

“How… How is this so?! You are not the love I know!

Fiend! Incarnate infernal foe! I’ll smite thy soul in she!”

Within feet, she shambled, staggered. Miserably, I drew my dagger,

Thrust to heart, I stabbed and stabbed her. She plummeted limply.

Startled by the crimson, spilling sanguine seas,

There was so much blood… at least two quarts or three.

She takes forsaken breaths, revived, and I watched as she went alive.

No dirt, the decay I’ve described had dissolved suddenly.

Her grayish hue turned apricot, I could not sense that stench of rot.

A skeleton, then, she was not, but once again Mallory…

“What have you done?” her eyes said, losing their limpidity,

submersed in blue, drifting off to infinite frigidity.

Casting the blade down at the floor, I leapt to her, disgorging gore,

And screamed as no man screamed before, howling agony.

Grabbing sheets to stop the bleeding, it was too late, her heart stopped beating,

Holding her propped up and pleading, repeating Othello’s plea.

For hours I enfolded her,  blood drying, till she withered coldly

and we followed my own foot prints out to that sopping spot unholy.

Author's Note

Some of these stories really take time to complete, but Mallory came to me in about 8 hours of writing time, whereas others like immortal amour took somewhere around 40-50. Freed (including parts 1, 2, and 3) have taken hundreds of hours, and I'm still writing it 4 years later.

Reviews

[Jennifer Patino]

Chilling. It's so rare to see this form anymore. Have to read Poe to get quality like this. Here you are doing it wonderfully. Keep up the excellent work. I'll be haunted by your imagery I'm sure.

[guy drori]

You have real talent Justin. There was a constant flow and I couldn;t take my eyes off the screen for a second. Great job! Looking forward to reading more stories by you :)

[ANTO]

I think the title is spot on (had to google it but its spot on I feel)
I was minded very much of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky - not the nonsense aspect but the chewy masticating aspect of it which I enjoyed after the first few bites, combined with Hamlet or Macbeth.

"Whomever it was--they didn’t dare gamble the mortician’s fee" - amazing !

This is brilliant - best I've read in a good while - I was going to bail as I have a short attention span (ergo i dont do stories in the main) but boy! am I glad i stayed in. Its epic and masterly. Bravo poet bravo!

[Justin Littlefield]

I'm glad you held in there ANTO, thank you for the motivational review!
I feel sometimes I lose readers because my pieces lately have been long and complicated, but it's just who I am as a writer; I invest many hours on these extended works and sometimes sacrifice social life for them. Your enjoyment makes all the time worth it.
-Justin

[ANTO]

Its a bad day when the writer feels they have to apologise to the reader for not serving their work into fast-food servings and its indicative of the fast-food world and 140 character tweet world we inhabit. I am strenthening my reading muscles and attention span muscles and your gave me a workout but like all workouts, when done properly the endorphine rush makes it all worth it. It was most enjoyable Justin - thanks again