Esther Racah Writer & Literary Blogger

Tag: Gothic Poetry

  • Twilight Shadows

    Twilight Shadows

    Twilight shadows have haunted me since ages past,
    granting me no peace, clutching at my heart,
    seeking to offer it to their jagged, divine limbs.
    Born free, I became a slave—
    In a prison whose bars and chains
    were unbreakable and unseen,
    visible only to me,
    As I perished day by day,
    destroying every single one of my dreams.

    Their song had hypnotised and enchanted me, initially.
    Then it became a funeral symphony, a mournful song,
    which followed me everywhere and gave me no peace.
    Although I sought refuge, tried to seek refuge,
    in the most hidden hiding places of my imagination,
    these spirits of the realm of shadows and torments pursued me everywhere.

    In enchantment and in fright, I found myself in a labyrinth of confusion and madness,
    where reality was hallucination and illusions were reality.
    I could no longer discern what my will truly desired.
    I could no longer understand whether my madness was my salvation
    or my wisdom was a source of death and oblivion.

    Fear and anguish had pierced my heart, which was now torn apart and could no longer hold any hope, any pleasure;
    And so my body was covered with marks and symbols carved into my skin like arcane and profane signs,
    sometimes mystic and sometimes sacred.

    And suddenly I found myself in a dark room of mirrors and shards that wounded me everywhere and tore my garment.
    So battered, I went on, trying to find a way out. Still, in fact, the more I proceeded, the deeper I ventured into the labyrinth of a world that did not belong to me,
    but demanded me and wanted my soul and my heart, even my remains as a deceased.

    Twilight shadows had become my only destiny, imperishable, unyielding and cruel,
    from which it was impossible to escape.
    I belonged to them like a helpless and powerless creature,
    without hope of ever having a future of light and beauty.
    Lisa

  • The Mirror Of Memories And Secrets

    The Mirror Of Memories And Secrets

    The mirror of memories and secrets appeared before me, in one of my many dreams that wandered through my long, sleepless and tormented nights. In the darkness of night, in my chamber of solitude and desolation.

    My nocturnal refuge had become my prison,
    from which I could no longer escape. The tall windows, adorned with Gothic ornament and stained glass depicting scenes from a bygone age, stood like walls of glass between me and the outer world—a world I could no longer touch, no longer reach.

    The ancient piano gazed at me in astonishment as I sat absorbed in my thoughts, completely lost in the labyrinth of my visions. I could no longer recognise my own reflection in that great mirror of exquisite and delicate craftsmanship—yet its reflection seemed cast beneath a spell, the origin of which I could not fathom.

    Dressed in a majestic, cumbersome gown of purest white, I could no longer see my reflection in that mirror. It was as though it longed to reveal to me my true image—not the one to which I had grown accustomed. Silence carved deep furrows in my heart, making me understand that utter solitude was my destiny and my dwelling place.

    Engaging in a soliloquy, I hoped to summon spirits that might assist me in my transformation—into a new, intangible entity, ethereal, no longer made of matter. So I searched, with my gaze, for references, for remnants of the past that might help me find direction, but in the end I understood: I stood within a dark and unfamiliar realm, a place that filled me with fear and awe.

    If I had been granted the privilege of a common and ordinary existence—the kind that most mortals, or nearly all, are given with ease—with all its hopes, its chances, and the facilitations that I have never known, perhaps I would not have found myself in that realm of unwholesome madness and aberrant hallucinations that followed me through the shadowed corridors of that castle of illusions and decay, whose walls were soaked in tears, piercing sighs, and the dust of lives long gone.

    The mirror of memories and secrets in truth, was not there to keep me company, but to reveal to me my true essence—my soul, and the image of my heart, defaced and torn apart by pain, torment, disappointment, and betrayal. It was no ordinary mirror; it was a portal to another realm—the world of souls lost in oblivion and in the torpor of death. A world that seemed a deep, infinite abyss, where despair and sorrow, regret and the memory of the dead shone like stars—but stars of a darkened light.

    And in that very world I remained—no longer a prisoner, but a part of that abyss, of that darkness and dimmed light, for my heart had not ceased to beat, yet my soul had ceased to shine.
    Lisa

  • On The Verge Of The Abyss

    On The Verge Of The Abyss

    On the verge of the abyss
    Having waited for the night to come and take me
    My heart had beat for the last time
    In vain I tried to exhume my dead memories
    Nothing could have been done to save them
    I was destined to doom and decay
    Despair tore my clothes and left my body covered in bruises

    On the verge of my death
    I was not capable of changing my fate
    Everything had been planned by a mischievous fate
    My heart collapsed under the spell of wicked deceptions
    I had fallen captive to the dungeon of my desires
    I was at the mercy of my instincts, and I surrendered to them

    Summoned by the silent force of the wind
    I followed the call without hesitation or fear
    My steps left no imprint on the ground
    After the night had erased them completely
    Shadows guided me on my path to darkness and defeat
    So slow was my journey that I had no remembrances anymore

    I was no longer a slave of others’ deception
    I wasn’t available any longer to lend my heart to mortals
    I became the wind and the night
    I was transformed into darkness and solitude
    An invisible creature of the twilight

    And there, on the edge of the forsaken realm of the void
    I dissolved like morning haze into the eternity of forbidden dreams
    I had no shape, no name and no sorrow to bear in my heart
    There was only absolute silence bearing my crown of shadows
    I was no longer a perishable mortal
    I had become the abyss itself.
    Lisa

  • Waiting For An Omen

    Waiting For An Omen

    Waiting for an omen
    Disillusioned by my fate
    Seeking magic numbers
    With no outcome
    Forgetting to have faith in mortals
    I was resolute in carving my book of ignominious names

    Not forgetting luck
    Not forgiving
    I remembered one by one their shameful name
    The puppet theatre had ended
    Without drapes
    Without pretense
    Their game was over

    Surrounded by a deserted and sombre landscape
    I contemplated the sense of life and death
    In the attendance of shadows and memories
    Silver and dark clouds arrived suddenly
    As unexpected guests

    Having forgotten me
    The stars hovered over the darkness of the night
    I cried in desolation and meditated on my own misery
    At that very particular moment, I knew I was born to perish

    I was just an ephemeral creature deprived of those fate gifts granted to everyone but me
    Softly, the enchanting spell of a midnight hymn hypnotised me
    Falling into a deep slumber from which I never again awoke

    Indeed, I became the property of the Hades
    The realm of eternal torment
    And there, I didn’t need any waiting
    I didn’t wait for anything

    Waiting for an omen was just a faded memory
    In a kingdom where no expectation was allowed to exist.
    Lisa

  • Devoured By My Own Dismay

    Devoured By My Own Dismay

    Devoured by my own dismay
    Crying in the middle of the night
    Feeling the sharp points of the daggers impaling my heart
    Fainted behind my shadow
    Forced to live
    Devoted to death
    Striving for darkness and the underworld

    Devoured by my own regrets
    Chains of anguish that bond me to my death chamber
    Where I hid behind the veil of sorrow and blood
    Like a magnificent statue of sorrow veiling her countenance

    I melt in the haze of the night to become invisible
    I become the night and the solitude
    Just a creature of the underworld
    The realm of destruction and death
    Transformation mutes me in infinite shapes and entities

    Devoured by my own dismay
    I linger in my own fantasies
    Sometimes they are my nightmares and they want to obliterate me
    Sometimes they are my fears and anxieties
    Chaining me to my dungeon of anguish

    Slowly the rain falls over me
    Stroking my face as to accompany me in my garden of loneness
    I surrender to my madness and turmoil
    I have no power anymore
    I lost everything to be left with dust and decay

    My heart is stitched and bleeding
    Buried inside a coffin in the graveyard of memories
    In the cemetery of those I lost permanently

    And time seemed to stop at the very moment my grief began to be alive
    Interrupting my life and slicing me into fragments and pieces of flesh and blood
    To be relegated to a poky fate
    Tucked behind time’s dusty drapes.
    Lisa

  • Mirrors And Dreams

    Mirrors And Dreams

    Mirrors and dreams appeared to me as I drank from the inception of the stormy night, where silence curdled into ink, and every word I swallowed appeared as a curse in my blood.

    The moon kissed my shadow, not with clemency but with remembrance. What I lost I buried in decay. What I loved I burned in darkness. Mirrors and dreams were just mere illusions.

    Silent visions visited me in my eternal nightmares as I never awakened from that realm of madness and phantasmagoria. In loneliness and unconsciousness, I wandered into the garden of desires.

    Untruthful chimaeras were my chaperones as I delighted myself in ethereal merriments and beauty. I lived in delusional fantasies as I forgot the feeling of fear.

    I only existed in poems and hymns to share my love and obsessions. Softly, the nocturnal breeze stroked my face, and I could hear a solemn and funereal melody.

    I felt invisible and ethereal, as if no mortal could have been able to perceive my presence. Indeed, I had become a spirit of the darkness; I was the shadow of my soul.

    Although my everlasting passion for the sublime and beauty never left my heart, I felt the aches and pangs of a withered flowered. Seeking stability in my rooted insanity, I had renounced the world of reality forever.

    The heartless fate had decided its decree to condemn me to the underworld and abandon every vestige of my past existence. Surrounded by mirrors and dreams, I surrendered to my hallucinations.

    The wraiths that chased me were the evocations of my terrible memories. They strived to cast a spell on me to constrain me in the dungeon of death and blood. Where no tree and no flower ever saw life.

    No mirror could recall me, no dream dared claim me.
    Elisabetta

  • Crimson Tears

    Crimson Tears

    Crimson tears came from my deep distress
    As I was wandering infinitely until the edges of time
    Despair became my safe dwelling
    And solitude was just a necessity
    For I was unloved and lonely

    In dungeons of grief and sorrow, I found myself
    Depriving myself of solace was my favourite forte
    I soaked in depression until I drowned deep in the abyss of self-destruction
    I chose to live in chaos because I had lost my sanity
    Madness had become my guide and my wisdom

    I nullified my expectations and I indulged in destructive memories
    I drank from the toxic goblet of oblivion
    With the specific purpose to erase my heart
    Was that feasible?
    I knew not

    Unlearning all my knowledge and forgetting who I was
    I had become nothingness
    I had become a shadow of the underworld
    My soul had dissolved in the infinite void
    I could only feel the darkness take possess of my body

    Crimson tears hushed into rivers of blood
    While the incessant storm of the night locked me up
    In the total gloominess and in the most deafening silence
    I had found consolation in obliteration
    A funeral fanfare came to be my hymn of love and my final requiem

    I embraced death, and I faded away
    I was finally the queen of the realm of arcane shadows
    A kingdom where I ruled over the dead and wraiths
    Surrounded by hollow trees and sharp daggers
    And dressed with spider webs and fragments of vestiges

    I wandered through a mist filled with decay and ashes
    Where nothing changed not even the slow crawl of time
    No praises were to be found but only the pang of endings
    I lay beneath the deformed tree branches
    Among roots slick with damp and grave moss
    And the night closed over me like a tombstone.
    Elisabetta

  • Midnight Thorns

    Midnight Thorns

    Midnight thorns grew for each teardrop that stroked my face
    With a heart full of stitches and pins
    And for each memory, a mask of remembrance grew like a flower of death
    In a golden cage of betrayal and deception, I dwelled in utter solitude
    Faraway from the vulnerable and wicked sight of mortals

    At each instant, my expectations arose under the shape of lifeless trees
    No season and no hour differentiated the realm of midnight thorns
    A persistent aura of doom distinguished this gilded dungeon
    No sun was rising on the horizon
    Only the several moons dared to appear in all their splendour and dark emotionlessness

    My dwelling was a castle made of pure gold and decadence
    Amid an enchanted forest of malicious spirits and magic spells
    From each mirror, an unknown countenance emerged
    As if my reflection shifted with every passing instant

    Mystical fanfares and funeral laments wavered like otherworldly fragments of sorrow
    Echoing within the hollow walls of my golden dungeon
    Elegies without words hovered as mourning tributes to obliterated dreams
    The chandeliers wept waxen tears made of gold
    And all the chambers and hallways trembled beneath imperceptible footsteps

    I strolled in mourning robes, carrying secrets and grief
    I followed the trail of dark shadows, finding no merriment
    I had lost myself and all my hopes were obliterated
    Everything was buried beneath the ashes of my forsaken dreams
    And the shadows had become friends of my own melancholy

    The glooms were the reflection of my own melancholy
    And all the mirrors were portraits watching quietly with their empty eyes
    No sound beckoned my name, and no aid came from the darkness
    There I was surrounded by the heady perfume of ancient roses and antiquity dust
    I ceded to midnight thorns, the venom of demise and drama.
    Elisabetta

  • Beneath The Hollow Moon

    Beneath The Hollow Moon

    Beneath the hollow moon, I wandered behind shadows
    It seemed like a dream but it felt very tangible
    It was an ethereal feeling mixed with physical perceptions
    In a secret garden made of dead trees and withered blossoms

    The ephemeral veil of the night enveloped me
    I was an invisible creature of the night
    Hiding from mortal sight and dreaming with open eyes
    My visions and hallucinations had become reality

    The haze of darkness cast a spell on me
    Odd spirits offered me to drink from a goblet of poison
    It was a magic potion of oblivion and poison
    Whilst I sipped it, I fell into a deep slumber

    I had forgotten my name and the place where I dwelled
    I had become a ghost and a shadow of the night
    Imperceptible even to the stars and the moon
    I was lost in the labyrinth of my own nightmares

    I waited not for my death because I was no longer a mortal
    The sorrow and distress of the human world didn’t touch me anymore
    I was the darkness and the night
    Empowered but still a captive of this arcane underworld

    Every part of my incorporeal body belonged to this dungeon of royal decadence
    A victim of haunting eerie dreams, I had no other place where to go
    It didn’t matter how long I could have screamed my memories
    Nothing changed, and my fate stayed unaffected

    I had traded my freedom for a kingdom of death and ethereal phantasmagoria
    Beneath the hollow moon, I wandered endlessly
    Seeking my lost heart in the maze of resentment and silver coffrets full of secrets
    And each sigh of mine transformed into a raven rose.

    A heart full of sorrow and a crown of black roses on my head
    Nothing else.
    Elisabetta

  • Teardrops Of Expectation

    Teardrops Of Expectation

    Teardrops of expectation accompanied me on my silent nights
    When my solitude was a phantom visiting me during my feverish slumber
    I left the real world because I knew I couldn’t belong to it
    In the end, I was a creature of the darkness
    Craving for mystery and arcane revelations

    I knew not what was expecting me
    The unknown was my gloomy path made of unstable cobblestones and thorns
    I may have desired that my dreams could become true
    Nevertheless, I was the silent muse of sadness and the embodiment of grief
    I stood in the middle of my dark chamber, waiting for a sign

    My mind was full of hallucinations and demise
    I couldn’t find myself and the meaning of my existence
    I was there still like a marble sculpture and my heart was a cold stone
    Nothing could ever break my bones anymore
    I embraced my fears and my doomed fate

    Drops of gold and dust descended from the ancient walls
    It was like even the walls were weeping my anguish
    I became dizzy and weaker like a small petal falling from its flower
    I was not like other mortals because I was an ethereal spirit
    Living in a castle of decay and forsaken vestiges

    Death was part of my being as long as the eternal void surrounded me
    The soft melodies of the past had departed from my reality
    Where I was, the reality was obliterated as well as time
    Despair transformed into a surreal garden of oblivion and madness
    Full of dead spirits and shrieking ghouls

    Teardrops of expectation softly caressed my heart
    As if my waiting were the apex of broken moons dripping onto vacant meadows
    While silent masks bloomed from the soil
    And I dissolved as a nameless ghost into the shadows of forgotten kingdoms
    Beyond every imagination.
    Elisabetta

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