As I look out from within the eves,
The sun held high by flexing trees.
Mine eyes do catch upon a rook,
that upon second glance I did bestook.
For crow or nightingale, nay proud raven,
this nerubian flyer perched within the yard.

Unflinching it spied me from my perch,
Sinking into stonework I did recoil.
Two beady eyes un-relenting,
Assessing my right to walk the earth.

'In whose name do you lay siege unto my mind?'

Said I, in whispers over the rampart wall.
The bird still sitting starring, waiting,
Had no retort for my muttered call.

Fuming I turned and scorched back into the keep,
not returning for three more days.
Stately matters and a maidens pineing,
could not keep my mind at rest.
At ease from an enemy the watch still did see,
on the forth morning I would sally forth.
Meet this foe within my verdent ground,
Meet this bird and strike it down.

To a flittering sunlight, bleak and uninspired, did I awake.
Regal in my lordly robes into the Gardens a coal poker I did take.
Encroaching upon the wild beast,
Poker still glowing with my hearts vehemance.
Naught four feet before the trellis,
It's form I glanced and readied attack.

Lunging with the form of a fencing master, such had my childhood taught me well,
I struck the beast below the breast.
A mortal blow, I saw it fall.

Yet... Something peculiar in the way it fell,
Lacking weight of the bird I saw from out of the eves.
...
Something lacking it it's substance,
It's shape was made of twigs and leaves.

Cursing into the morning air,
I cried laughter at my madness,
For four days my mind had been hostage,
Four days of self-reflecting dread.

A victim of the human condition,
it turns out our demons are in our heads.