In the Shadows
by Michael Doyle

The beginning was an image of all
A modern miracle held in mystified awe
Until life's illusion lost its intensity
And the desire for death grew in complexity

The face of horror pulls at mankind
As though in this darkness we would find
The shadows necessary for man's story
And in the blood, mankind's rotting glory

Death is found between the audience's gasps
Often times we have found it plays for laughs
The angst felt as we seek to somehow persevere
Is the substance that makes us come to fear

This is the big bang that perverts the universe
Into the world's horror at the charmingly perverse
We too often seek the mirrored twin of salvation
As we have become somehow fascinated with our damnation

Diabolical forces are just around the corner of night
And are only kept from us by the power of light
From the leaves of the Book of Satan we learn to read 
Of all those things that life tears from us but we need

The crucifix becomes the talisman that provides protection
Interestingly wrapped in the eternal punishment of imagination
Good and evil seem forever limitlessly bound together
Creation and destruction are joined in making life better

The spirit of darkness is invoked to show itself
As we draw literary greatness from life's shelf
If only we might finally know what it truly means
Why the children of the night come to life each Halloween

Mephisto himself creeps up to rise each passing year
And tread darkly on mankind's worst, bringing us tears
Each metropolis holds evil at good's close proximity
As our desires claw at us drawing us to immorality

(c) October 31, 2024   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved