The Banshee's Crescendo

He caught her cry between two bars

of manuscript left in rain—

ink bleeding into stave-scarred scars,

a wail distilled to blackened stain.

___________________________

They say he dipped his pen in dew

collected from a suicide's stone,

that no true artist ever knew

which notes were his and which were loaned.

___________________________

She came at first as patrons do—

a whisper at the gallery's edge,

her fingers tapping out the cue

where his stolen measures pled:

___________________________

"You've made it sharp where it should ache,

this grief wants flats and falling thirds—

the dead don't weep for music's sake,

but tremble in unsung words."

___________________________

He changed the score, but still she stayed,

her breath like rosin on his bow,

correcting every choice he made

with colder lips and closer glow—

___________________________

Until the night his masterpiece

premiered to silenced halls,

and every guest felt Death's release

when her true cry broke through walls.

___________________________

Now empty chairs sway in the breeze

where audiences once sat entranced,

and players take their final ease

with silver notes still in their hands.

From the Silent Archives of: The Lost Books - "Libri Perditi" - where stolen songs always return to their singers.