runes

The ditties I write are but eulogies
Of things I once loved now long gone
Engraved by hardened men's hands Upon cold jagged granite,
Runes strewn across perfect green manicured lawns.

Marigold daisies like your eyes pushed to sight
As corpses of dreams regenerate the soilIn their tectonic right.

I suppose this to be the thing
You always understood,
So as Orpheus I'll trek
Through fire- and ice-wood,
Valleys of shadow-sea-
To bring you back with me
Where the light beings frolic
In the wide-spectrum-band -
For mustn't Death and Tragedy
Walk always hand-in-hand?

I heard a story you might like,
It goes as such:

My fiddle player fell [to his death] into a well.
To retrieve him I sought to speak with Lucifer,
And thus traversed again the rings of hell -

The Goblins bade me turn away, laughed in my face
At my plight and did my fate foretell-
And Jareth, so cocky and keen once he was seen,
Gave me a task when pledged I my soul to sell;
He spake, "Travel the depths to the Hall of Mirrors,
And bring back only the perfect shard."
And I suppose his jealousy now arose,
Thusly towards me his heart grew quite hard.
Then, when he saw all I'd done to retrieve the glass,
He scoffed at my completed task, and asked,
"Haven't you figured out yet, dear,
What you've truly chosen to sell?
See the True Love that you seek in that mirror-piece."
And, of course, all I could see was myself.
"Little time," quoth he, "on that green earth have you now,
So if you'd like to hear the fiddle played,You'd better soon learn how."

He then gave me my heart's violin and bow,
And I returned to the light burdened to know
That never would I behold again
My handsome holy grail of men.

My lovely Mademoiselle de Mort,
You know I love you dearly,
But must you kill all mortal men I love
To help me see myself more clearly?