Oh Raven,  you may tap,tap,tap,

incessant in your endeavors to ever trap

me in your tangled lies ten feet deep.

I be not such a fool to fall sway to your unearthly rules

of tortuous maladies you delight in inflicting on ever passerby

you do seek to see that lies in your line of darkest sight.

Your taunts as you perch and preen on pedestal high

do naught a thing to one such as I.

Your guile lies transparent as a ghost.

A thrown token. shiny and bright to fall at my feet.

Yet, as I do bend down to pick it up,

you no sooner pilfer my pockets of my weeks hard earned

fortune as you seek to simply

call it black luck where I would be none the wise.

Nevermore you say!

Bah, I say . Be gone this night before the morn

brings the dawn and turns your cheeky words

to flotsam to be carried away on the shore’s

of my discontent.

You may know the depth of many souls

as you may know mine,

but there is no barter to be had, no wager to be paid.

MY soul is my own.

No matter how dark and cold.

By Philip Wardlow