October 3, 2015

Three Poems By Adam Sedia: "All Hallows' Eve", "Autumn Leaves", "Vespers"



Adam Sedia was born in 1984 in Lake County, Indiana, where he currently lives and practices law. His practice primary focuses on civil and appellate litigation, and he has argued numerous cases before Indiana and federal appellate courts. In addition to his legal career, he self-published a volume of poetry in 2013 titled The Spring’s Autumn. Adam lives with his wife, Ivana.














All Hallows’ Eve


The moon is full,
The trees are bare,
Dead leaves glide through
The cool, dry air.
The night is silent as a grave,
Or some deep, dark, unfathomed cave
Beneath the stars’ cold stare.


The silence breaks
With hollow moans
And beastly snarls
And clacking bones:
The God-forsaken, restless dead
Awaken from their earthen bed
Beneath cold, carven stones.


Their din grows loud
And twice more dread
Than piercing screams
Or blood fresh-shed.
Out from the very depths of Hell
They slink, too terrible to tell:
The cursed and restless dead.


Their summoners
Shriek shrill with joy
As they behold
That grim convoy.
By potions, charms, and arcane verse
They placed this night beneath a curse
And bade the dead deploy.


Assembled now,
That fiendish crowd
Swarms dizzily
And hails aloud
The thousand execrable names
Of him who reigns in acrid flames,
In doom’s eternal shroud.
The chaos of
The hellish throng
Soon dies away,
But not for long:
More fearsome than the din before,
Their voices join as one and roar
A wild, infernal song:


“Praise the one
Once bright as sun,
Who dared defy
The Three-in-One.


“And so he fell
Too far to tell,
To reign as king,
Our king, in Hell.


“He dared to bring
Death’s dreadful sting
To Earth, to gain
His following.


“He first laid eye
On man, and by
His sweetened tongue
He made man die!


“Alas! Our wrong
Prevailed not long,
Soon overcome
By One more strong.


“Still, bubbling from
Hell’s fires, we come
Up to this sphere
In massive sum.


“Behold our sheer,
Brute strength and hear
Our battle-cry
And quake with fear!


“We venture out
To thrash about
This world of men
And win our rout,


“For thus we can
Complete the plan
Our master spun
When time began.


“Now, to our feet –
To prowl the street
And visit doom
On all we greet!”


Then off they fly
With roars and shrieks,
A putrid mass
Of loathsome freaks.
In frenzied swarms, they pierce and tear
Throughout the land; they fill the air
And choke it with their reeks.


No soul is safe,
No home secure,
No heart so strong
It could endure
That mob, accursed from Above,
Bereft of life, devoid of love,
Whose doom is swift and sure!


With sharpened claws
And bloodstained sneer,
They plunge the world
In abject fear,
Let loose for what they most enjoy:
To slay, burn, terrorize, destroy,
And raise Hell’s horrors here.


Their rampage, though,
Must cease at last,
For in the east
The day comes fast.
Though theirs was cold and shadowed night,
They now must yield to breaking light
That fells them with a blast.


With that first ray,
A piercing cry
From all the ghouls
Cuts through the sky.
Dawn breaks! At last the Day of Saints,
Expels them back to their restraints
In flames that never die.


       


Autumn Leaves


Flecks of yellow gold in bright cascades,
Less like the hurried rain than lazy snow,
Twirl downward, throwing out their warming glow
As sunbeams pass between their altered shades.


Calm and stately treetops blankly stare
Until a playful zephyr frolics through,
And scatters streaming light and golden hue
Into a graceful dance amid the air.


Precious golden showers like this fell,
No doubt, from clouds which some deity’s hand
Caressed in some far, dreamy, long-dead land.
This shimmer, far-removed, casts such a spell.


Though aglow, this gold-besprinkled wave
Masks well the throes of agonizing death –
The summer gasping out his dying breath,
Dares yet to blush before the icy grave.


      

 


Vespers


Glowing, golden beams
Streaming from the west
Slowly die away
Like dissolving dreams.
Shadows have caressed
Earth in liquid grey.


Sparkling like cut gems,
Stars now dot the blue
Of the crepuscule.
Gentle requiems
Whisper, carried through
Air, which zephyrs cool.


Daylight’s cloying glare
Has dissolved at last;
Nightly shades assuage
Weighty loads of care.
Lights dimmed, we, the cast,
Exit from the stage.


Now far distant, fled
From those garish scenes –
Feel the breezes’ stroke,
Rest the weary head,
Let the thoughts careen
Into Night’s black cloak.

 ~Adam Sedia    

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