The axeman's verdict

Like a bludgeoned accordion or a pulsating harmonium
Snippets of raring sound pranced in the damp expanse to create raving pandemonium
Was it the jarring strikes of the clock face,
that coalesced with the tumult of rain come from god’s grace?
Was it the trills of the willow that mocked my bated breath,
or foraged for something below the depth?
Was it that standstill between night and day,
when dawn had not fully consumed us,
when dusk had not fully deserted us,
when the ethereal disillusions seemed to nurse us,
that bought solace seeming identical to havoc?

The pristine duvets and feeble cushions that supported my body seemed tardy now,
almost bloody,
as I teetered on the edge of the mahogany berth
The scents of the forests still raw on it, bred from the earth
My haggard hand convulsed as it strained under the weight of my tireless head,
that latched onto remote reckonings, its form seemingly limp, impersonating the dead

But two glistening amulets with flares of consciousness bristling beneath the voracity of the world outside,
were the only lullabies that made some dejection subside

They hung from polished leaves
A hundred branched origins across the black sky to weave
Like the swell of a silk fabric, a gushing ocean across the earth,
they too traipsed leisurely across the tree’s girth with departing mirth

The act fell short,
Its dialogues and flourishes thwart
as she rumbled
The tree of depleting age but eternal grace

The pinnacle of her gleam attained
The creases and ridges of the bark bloodstained
The dances commenced on her tethered roots
All that was remaining were thirteen stars in the sky, hers to loot

Like all the effervescent blaze that through survival are seen
But alas fall like the heedless fools,
with only death upon whom to lean
The conjoined beings of the sky within the caged foliage shuddered,
as their intensity dwindled to the star crossed path of murder
Their sterling shapes dissipated,
and only the decayed leaves were left suspended
Their annihilation was the treacherous event that in my mind was now cemented

Tears fell as at last the curtain fell
The exuberant spectacle had come to an end,
but what within me could I never mend?

Night perished and day arose with not a single blemish
The flooded and degenerated mind lifted the moist body and the fatigued hands to a weary finish
The land was rampant with chant,
and the dull beating of a discordant band

With stutter and delay, I arose
I caressed the pulsating heart
I consoled the tremulous legs
I healed the plunging eyes
I stitched the hair onto my scalp
I strived forward once again
And so as all that rise, I fell

I know now that all must bow
For hung from her were two madmen
Their golden axes to the ground fell
What sin had been grazed upon, all could tell
What the verdict had been enforced, I knew too well

And the departed souls she had stolen,
to deposit at hell