Published on 12:00 AM, November 26, 2022

Poetry

Rendezvous with the Devil

Carving mysterious runes with bones

A pentagram etched in my soul

Pulling on the blistered sinews

Of Desperately unrestrained sins

With the malady of pestilent mists

And lace of midnight moonbeams

In the suffocation of crimson depths

The reflections of waning and pale,

I am cloudy and defiled as I drown.

Wormwood wind with a funeral hymn

Lulls me to the sublime dead

To join in the pool of blood-red

Near is littered with Vanda's last breath,

Lilac orchid joyless and empty

Grieving a liturgy of intense woe!

On this autumn and nondescript night,

This dark guest that dawned on me

And drenched with his stygian nectar,

He chucked the seal of Solomon inside me

My body shuddered in a saintly ravishment

As the elixir of my essence gushes out.

And perfervid predacious embraces entwined,

Like grave's evil conjuration,

To sweeten the horror of seclusion.

The Devil devouring my body and soul

Once taken there is no escape from eternal perdition

I crave you, I long for you, and I mourn on my Tirtha

The purgatorial and the bewitching death!

Hasan Maruf teaches English at DPS STS School, Dhaka. His interest lies in diverse genres of literature.