Soul Thief

The stiff fingered warning
wasn't enough to keep you out,
he warned you away and still
you came, crawling

Through caked dirt and mud
to sordid little souls that shrieked
from inside dank tree graves
where he kept them, full

Of knots and thick bark
that curled them rightly into place
until they were ready
for the next, displacement

In the latitude of no time -
the vast space of choices
between living and dying,
this was not fate, but chance

Antler-headed guardian of stones,
ancient one with no name
and of every name
watched, and waited

For the young ones who called
out into the lonely cimmerian night
when no one else listened,
he heard

Soul Thief

You tried to find them in vain
their location changing nightly,
chasing phantom treelines to where
moonlight ceased

A lithe, bony finger was reaching
out to where the hurt was,
scraping it all out while carrying off
spirited remnants

Hung in clumps 'round tiny sleepers, only
time for his shameless steps, unnoticed
between waking nightmares
he crept

In, smoothed bone, quiet as blackest thought,
hushed into submission, hidden behind
eyelids of heaviest sorrow, too late...
a soul-eater comes again