Sombre shadows clawed the wall,

And swallowed each leaf the fell in fall;

With each step, his mind did wander;

Wrapping on the wooden door,

He stood upon the tiled floor,


This man was always gentle,

Not insensitive, not mental;

The shadow flickered on the wall;

Adoring and amiable,

This man was always capable;


A family, a wife and child,

Who loved him, not mild;

The shadow was a shroud;

Forever enclosed by art,

This choice wasn’t exactly smart;


He knew he had begun to fall,

A fall which left his shadow tall;

His mind, a suspended cloud;

His action, he couldn’t forgive

Himself, a life he shouldn’t live;


And with every painting hanging there,

He was reminded to beware;

Of ever present shapes on walls;

Of demons dead, and in the past,

However, this sighting was not the last;


A classic face, immersed in colour,

A detailed portrait of a brother;

The silhouette pictured on walls;

Painted eyes filled with sorrow,

Those eyes will never see a morrow;


What is written in that grave face?

Emotions bottled inside a case;

The shadow, trailed the walls,

A frightened brother, a dark shade

That truly the man had made;


His brother had seared in his mind,

This man was greatly far from kind;

A constant companion always near;

He paced the room, that gloomy room

Where that sinister face did loom;


A memory from a dream,

A flash, an overhead beam;

The brother murdered on walls;

The brother, was was the friend

The heart he truly did bend;


From behind an opened book,

He had spied his brother’s look;

Why is it that brother haunts me?

His friend’s wife, that divine girl,

Her dress spun in a whirl;


His love for the girl, shone like stars,

That man’s heart, shook against iron bars;

                      Does that ghost on walls, know I loved her?

The man couldn’t stand that sight no more,

The sight that shook him to the core;


“My brother, may I have a word?”

Leading him, to where they would not be heard;

On walls, hatred was behind that shadow;

             Inside that man, a cold heart, beat,

His heart pounding as he took his seat;


A glass poppy was soon thrown,

                  And so the horrid seed was sown;

Cries of fright, bounced off the walls;

            ‘the fearsome madman’, was his name,

‘******’, ‘Villain’, it was all the same;


Before he slid a knife, through

that brother’s centre of heart;

***********

Cursed anger! That took a friend,

A ceased heart he could not mend;

The shadow, spilling silent tears;

That horrible, hard-hearted heart,

This was how his nightmares start;


The thoughtless, unruly rage,

His anger became his just cage;

That ghost, that lingering shade;

His face now weary and lined,

His life a thread, he didn’t mind;


‘What should become of me?’ he said,

His voice said, deep inside his head;

Again, a brother on the walls;

There seemed nowhere else to turn,

A lesson, far too late to learn.