The Haunted Bride

In the night's chilling air a phantom figure, drags itself from The watery edge of the river bank, emerging, rising upward From beneath the moonlight's illumination, she is free, to walk The earth's spiritual plain of existence once more. In soaked layers shifts, of tatters whiten lace, the corporeal Image moves across the old chapel's courtyard. Slowly this deaden heart of the betrayed, shuffles through The fallen autumn leaves, crunching them under the weight, of Her drenched wedding gown. The haunted bride, carries a wilted bouquet of for-get-me-nots, As she weeps, walking down the aisle of past regrets. This virgin maiden, sounds a low mournful sobbing, that echoes Against the marble ruins, of a dilapidated church steeple. Lifting skeletal limbs, step by step, this bride of Desolation climbs unto the threshold of condemnation. Her wailing screams grow louder, and louder with each Movements, begging, pleading for salvation's penitence. But in the Lord's realm, the haunted bride has violated the sacred Laws of God, so is she doomed for all eternity, to repeat her final, Moments of life. Wearing the veiled shroud of death, beauty's once fare, Is nothing more than illusion's shadow vision of the forsaken. A victim of abandonment's fall from grace, for consumed by Sorrows pain, did she take her own life, in limbo she is the accursed. Slowly descending in sheer remorse, her tears cascade Downwards, staining the holy soil therein, her unkempt train Trails behind this ivory phantom, with muddy green Seaweed woven amongst the antique lace. Cold watery waves crash against the murky shore, A foreboding eerie mist lingers up top the rippling lake, One last air's stale breathe she does inhale, as again life's Essence leaves, become just exploding bubbles, Popping at the water’s surface. Here the haunted bride so does rest, in a fathom's aquatic crypt, Beneath the dark abyss of no return. BY: CHERYL ANNA DUNN