Perfect Murder

The Perfect Murder is a scary poem about a man who kills a woman in her sleep. It was inspired by a Robert E Howard poem called “The Fear that Follows”.

The Perfect Murder

The killer stole through the moonlit yard
and came to a window sill;
As he slipped into the darkened house
The night was silent and still.

The curtains rustled upon the walls,
as they billowed and they shook,
And he thought he saw strange shadows fly
from each cranny and each nook.

The girl lay sleeping in her bed,
Slumbering safe at rest.
His arm drew back and came stabbing down
as the dagger pierced her chest.

No scream or cry escaped from her lips
and the front of her gown turned red.
Fear gripped his soul as he turned to flee
from the wide eyes of the dead.

Tapestries swayed on the ghostly walls
as if in a wind that blew;
He ran from the house, through the dark woods
and his terror grew and grew.

The trees reached down and with phantom hands,
their branches clutched his hair,
Footsteps echoed in the twisted woods,
But never a soul was there.

As shadows loomed from the forest depths,
He stumbled with bated breath,
Followed by whispers of shapes unseen
and the fearful stench of death.

He came at last to a winding stream
bordered by silver sands;
A faint mist rose from the river’s depths
and he knelt to wash his hands.

The water reflected his pale face.
Down his cheeks the tears did creep,
And before his eyes, a grinning skull
leered up at him from the deep.

With a gibbering scream, he rose and fled
to a clearing in the trees.
The branches formed, in the blood-red moon,
A noose swinging in the breeze.

He turned to the great red stars above,
But his fear would not abate.
From the knotted rope fell drops of blood
and at last he knew his fate.

Then he slowly walked down the only path
that was left for him to choose,
The trail that led to the gallows tree
and the grip of the hangman’s noose.