Poem: Ghoul’s Curse

What dread and foul a thing it is to die,
to gasp then choke, to loose a final sigh,
to lay there helpless as they leave the room
—by kin abandoned to eternal gloom—
to feel no life nor warmth of beating heart,
to know that in this life, no further part
is writ for you. O bitter fate of man:
befalls the great and mean this evil plan,
that all should rise only to fall to dust.
So why should not for life this dead man lust?

I saw the shadow flicker on the wall,
I heard a voice, the reaper’s fatal call,
but I would not arise nor follow him.
I clung to corpse, and heard his laughter grim,
“Then stay, O wicked thing, and be a curse;  
now learn the life you keep is something worse.”
My belly growled with hollow emptiness;
I moaned upon my bed in restlessness.
I felt a hunger born inside me then,
to feast upon the flesh of living men.