Take a Deep Breath

This is a poem I wrote in the style of the great Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven." I used the same rhyme scheme that he used in that masterpiece. In case, you're wondering (including internal rhyming)...AA, B, CC, CB, B, B.

Take a Deep Breath

“Will you take these and shoot the breeze?”

He said with a sense of urgent need

I gazed with my sockets and placed it in my pocket

I took it with shock, “What is it that I see?”

“Put it deep away and away from me”

“I need to know what I took,” I sadly plea.

“Do not fret friend, it is not the end.

You will take these cards upon which I drew

the very same date you will meet your fate.”

“One moment I cannot wait, to see when I am through!”

Into and out of my pocket my hand rapidly flew

Was everything this man had just said true?

The time before me, “We shall surely see,”

I added to his eyes attempting to abandon post.

He barely muttered, “Be not afraid and do not shudder,

You will soon udder your last words to boast.”

“Do not leave me now when I need you the most.”

He silently vanished as if he were always a ghost.

I stormed across the cards, flying up my guard.

These pointless shards read nothing of importance.

The back of my mind began prying, was he even lying?

Embrace the act of dying, or just a crazy mind’s dance?

I took a deep breath and what could be my last glance

“Midnight tonight,” I repeated in trance.

“Will you take these and shoot the breeze?”

The man had said with a sense of urgent need

If I had cried, “step aside,” and only kept my lonely stride

I would have barely tried to make myself unread.

I spent twelve months holding the cards tense and worried.

On the anniversary, at midnight, my body was buried.