BlackQuill

I walk among preserves,

not people.

A world-weary wanderer

weary of his travels,

but restless in his soul.

 

These stone and ivy ruins,

these empty, rain-slicked city streets,

these brown, bare, and dying forests,

these deserts, almost empty of their sands

as if the old gods turned a

cosmic hourglass

all turn to ash beneath a

merciless sun.

 

I see them, these presences.

They hail me in greeting, waving as I pass,

weep in their newly refreshed grief,

and chase and curse me

in their superstitions.

 

Their children run up to me,

and sing to me,

tugging at my clothes and hair,

encircling me in their games

that light up their young, ancient faces,

their silent laughter fully formed in echoes of time.

 

They all linger just outside the senses

like lights flickering on the sea,

instantaneous glimpses

of what was,

and what will be again.

 

“Wait for us,” they say. “We will return.”

 

I long to sit, and eat, and rest,

but over it all,

the emptiness and solitude

goad me ever onward,

my own essence

lingering still among them.

 

I hope it brings them comfort.

 

They bring the dead musicians here

inside the Bardic Gates.

There’s always music playing when

another grave awaits.

Another bard to fill it,

or perhaps a troubadour…

It doesn’t really matter.

If you’re resting here, you’re poor.

Beware of passing late at night.

The music pulls you in,

and once inside there’s no escape.

You can’t outrun your skin.

The music slowly changes you

to something that you’re not.

And spirits wander restlessly

as bodies slowly rot.

The spectral dancers waltz across

the brittle, frozen grass.

But here, there’s no nobility,

nor wretched underclass.

For music is a thread of life

that stitches trouble’s tolls,

so ever will eternal Death

fill earth with Bardic souls.

 

Your eyes, aglow.

Your blade, it shines.

And with my blood

you draw the lines

of happenstance

across my life,

my scarlet bride,

my loving wife.

We mourned him as the rain poured down

and mingled with our tears.

We watched him shrink in on himself

through dark and lonely years,

a bitter man whose bitter soul

was conquered by his fears.

He faces an eternal judge,

no jury of his peers.

No counselors or comfort now,

no riotous crowds with jeers.

He’d seen death coming for us,

but his cries fell on deaf ears.

He begged and begged us for their lives,

but still we killed the seers.

So now we wait here for the end,

surrounded by our biers.

And through the silent, empty hall

we hear the demon voices call.

We run, and run and fall, and fall.

Fate’s laughter washes over all.

We killed the heralds of our hell,

and did not hear the killing knell,

the minor notes of broken bell.

And me, the one who’s left to tell,

was once a man, but now a shell.

 

The spells ignite.

The runes writhe and undulate to

make strong the binding spells that

keep me here among

the ivory skulls

and black candles.

The innocent blood

in the ink jar

smells like copper roses.

A scarlet droplet

poised on a silver nib

shines in the firelight,

an unholy star

chained to hell.

It desires to spread

and seep into the vellum,

recording for all time

the gibbering words and thoughts

of madmen,

and the noble speeches of

martyrs and kings.

More often than not,

blood writes them

the very same.