A One Eyed Horse

Over lanes I tread
Neath a black sky, a dead moon overhead
Aye, naught but the dead
Naught but rocks and runes instead

Out by yon farmer’s field
Walketh one apart from the rest
From it the others peeled
A horse, an unholy crest

On a rocky road by the wall
Where the cattle oft do graze
Cometh a horse black and tall
And meeteth my nervous gaze

Lo, struck am I with the smell of rot
And the visage of blighted skin
This thing from Hell begot
Decaying deep within

It whispereth through dread lips
And seeth with a decayed eye
A corpse, it speaketh of Charon’s ships
And demons that roam the skies

By the wall it keepeth my pace
Its face a deadened smile
With a voice like coffin lace
It reeketh of death and bile

“This day I follow from yonder side
But on the morrow, I draw thee close
There is no place to run or hide
I seek thy deathly pose.”

Its whispers are stark and dread
Following for a minute or an hour
Would that I flee from this haunted tread
And return to daylight’s holy power

Upon the lane’s next fork
I hurrieth down a diverting path
“Thy kin’s flesh doth taste of copper and pork
Soon thou shalt feel mine hunger and wrath.”

 I run, my heart in flight
To escape this specter foul
This thing skeletal, shorn of light
This ghoul whose hunger prowls

Then, at last, the dawn’s sun was born
And the whispers ceased to be
Gone was the dread forlorn
But was I from this curse made free?

I saw the farmer off to the mart
Toward him I didst approach
Eagerly haling his rickety cart
Though finer than any king’s coach

“What was yon one-eyed beast
That lingered by the lane and grass?”
He turned pale, his gaze to the East
"Nay, naught from a coven’s black mass.”

“It appeared one dark, Cimmerian night
Stalking steed and lowly fowl
This thing, a harbinger of fright
Its rotted mane like the grave’s cowl.”

“I know not from which of Hades’ pits it came
But ‘tis a thing that should not tread this Earth.
For even evil feareth its name
In terror and blood it findeth mirth.”

With that, the farmer spake no more
I bade him farewell and went my way
But my heart sank to the floor
To the cities now I’ll flee and stay

Know not what thing mine eyes hath seen
Pagan god or demon fell
Yet its one eye and rotted mien
Shall haunt me past this black night’s spell