One morning I went for a stroll
Just a walk, with no place to go.
While on this outing, I heard some shouting
“Hurry up, man, you’ll miss the show!”

The tone was mocking almost squawking
And I felt it cool and chill my spine.
I hesitated while my response was debated,
“How should I reply to such an insolent whine?”

When I turned reeling with a feeling
From surprise, I saw his cold hard eyes.
Peering almost leering, they were a black night sky,
And in those flies I beheld my demise.

“What”! I yelled “is the meaning of this greeting?”
All the while I was caught in his eyes.
Not blinking, hardly breathing he slowly replied.
“I am here, have no fear, to be your demise.”

Now you must understand my surprise.
There I am walking, not with talking, by
This man, whom, on seemingly a whim has cried;
Whose eyes have prophesied to be my demise.

“Good sir” I asked with an attempt to pacify.
“What have I done to receive such a look and cry?”
His hard finger, like a long skeleton’s bone
Stabbed at my chest, at my heart it pressed.

Coldly said he “I your demise will be.”
Still standing, I was staring like a herring
Who is sadly peering down a clearing
At the gun that flashes life before the eyes.

It was at this time, that I realized, my demise.
His eyes did not lie, but prophesied right
To my mind, exactly what he wanted to sigh.
And this sigh my courage it did buy.

My fear now started to appear, but slowly
Like a slow killing disease it first took my knees.
My knees now knocking, I now felt my chest locking
And I knew surely now I cannot really flee.

Filled with a fear that frees the mind,
I, for a time lost control of that mind,
Which now danced with dreams of death, and lies,
Sorrowed by my own demise, and those flies.

Laughing, now I would try him to pacify.
Mingled with a cry my words did fly.
“Good sir, I implore you, patient with me be,
But I couldn’t ignore the first statement you explored.”

Trying now, so desperate to free my eyes
From those flies which prophesied my demise.
I though I could distract the one
Who would or could possibly bring my demise to me.

“At the first of our meet on this street,
Your warned me with a shout to watch out,
Or I would have passed by without so much a cry,
A show from which I don’t even know.”

“My good man said he,” with a grin and a gloat
“I only said that to catch your poor goat.”
“And now it is caught and forever will rot
For from me your soul cannot be wrought.”

Shrieking almost slinking, I wished to run away
Not with him or his whim did I want to play.
But he only repeated that I was defeated,
And now I could not help but to believe it.

It consumed me, and struck down my tyranny,
For now, from him, I could not want to flee.
My eyes did change dark like the night skies,
Like those accursed filthy flies of demise.

It was at this dark time, my entrapped mind,
Heard a word, or three, it heard something speaking to me.
Was it my thought, or from the ill man wrought?
These words that were speaking while peaking in me.

“It was me” was the words that were tearing,
Tearing almost wearing my soul for me.
But what could it mean for my sea,
These three who would now not let me be.

Repeating, they were beating all his gleaming
And all the while preventing me from dreaming.
My eyes lost his flies and at once saw the sky,
It was starry gleaming, and full of meaning.

Now looking here and there turning everywhere,
I found that the man in black was nowhere.
He had disappeared and left me somewhere,
It was near my home, where I started my stroll.

As I went in I paused along with a tear,
At my parlor’s dark wood and glass mirror,
The one in which my reflection never ceased to appear,
It was here and there where we would long stare.

As I look up to see my old friend again,
In the mirror that tells me no lies,
I saw my demise, looking at me with a grin.
And his eyes burned dark to flies.

Dreams of night skies and pitiful lies took
My mind and for that time I say the sky.
All reasoning did flee and with heart beating,
My mind was repeating, “My demise, my demise.”

Before I could cry I did realize that in one eye,
His flies followed mine perfectly by and by,
And it was at that moment, at that time,
I realized that his flies were mine.

And now forever I walk with myself and me;
That cold dark man will never from me leave.

by Ryan Wormald