BlackQuill

They flicker

in your periphery,

touch you with inquisitive,

ephemeral fingers,

caressing your face

as you sleep.

Their fangs gleam

in the glow

of  your night light.

Their blades flash

in the light of your

scented candles.

Their laughter echoes in your dreams

and renders it a landscape of nightmares.

Your senses are shuffled

like cards.

Your reality turns to sand,

infirm, unstable, and capable of killing.

It is here they caper in the wind,

howling at the silent stars.

And when you are finally asleep,

they will tickle you

with the

points of their scythes

before they cull you

into the darkness,

making sport of your damnation

forever.

Lost,

the Moon is the only one who

sees me,

but in its muted beauty, it cannot

guide me.

It shows many paths,

but can’t walk with me

hand in hand,

its gray and freezing craters

a poor excuse

for gazing into eyes that never fail

to hold me rapt,

determined to plunge

their unfathomable depths,

understand the inscrutable beauty

they possess.

I want to greet her like a friend,

kiss her in the amber candlelight

and fruited incense.

Yet if i do, on the instant I will know she is no fantasy,

and I will feel her wrath at a perceived slight

I meant as no such thing.

So I will keep my illusion

by keeping my distance,

content to watch

the dance of flame and shadow

on her dimpled cheeks,

and halo her shimmering hair.

To close my eyes

and imagine the scent of honeysuckle

laced with myrrh.

Imagine the worn, ancient contours of these

cold unyielding pillars to be the

warm and hilly curves of her young, yielding form.

Believe her enchanting incantation

is but a serenade

declaring her love for me.

It is a love of great and terrible distance,

felt all the more keenly for being so near.

 

The willow trees are prophets.

They weep for what’s to come

The watchers of the ages

They’ve seen the earth succumb

 

The profit for imbalance

For greed and blood and fate

Half-hearted conservation

Too little and too late

 

The willows grow by water

A fresh supply of tears

With no surcease of sorrow

To mark the passing years

 

They see no change of fortune

that turns out for the good.

They’ve no power to change it,

and wouldn’t if they could.

 

The willows tell the story

of man upon the earth,

the smart and strong and stupid,

of death and of rebirth.

 

The tender souls of willows

So given o’er to care

Do not deserve this duty

Unbroken and unfair

 

I weep now for the willows

As they have wept for me.

We’ll perish here together,

and finally be free.

We’ll perish by the river,

and drift out to the sea.

 

 

She came to see the DragonSwan,

a creature strange and new.

Could fire and water co-exist?

The legends spoke it true?

 

And so she wandered through the woods,

the rising sun aglow,

soft filtered through the forest leaves,

her breath an errant flow.

 

Off to the side she saw the ripples

circling away.

The ivory DragonSwan  departing,

having caught its prey.

 

Within the verdant, dewy dawn,

her soul was stolen fast.

A gift, a vision, legend true,

a memory to last.

 

She drew her bow.

The DragonSwan looked deep into her eyes.

At length she lowered the lethal bow,

and sobbed between her sighs.

 

When next she looked the DragonSwan

was nowhere to be found.

And at her feet a feathered scale,

in tribute on the ground.

 

She held it in her lethal fist,

and praised the brightening dawn.

And with her still, the memory of

majestic DragonSwan.

 

*art by Edli Akolli

In the hollow, ancient voices start to whisper, cry, and call,

In the forest deep, primeval, at the equinox of Fall.

Dark the evening in the hollow, misty tendrils in the trees.

In the center of the hollow is a young man on his knees.

 

Prayers to heaven, fervent, pleading,

as the sunlight starts to fade.

Heavy heart, and weeping, needing,

like a tender village maid.

 

Shines the knife in whitened moonlight.

Stars are watching, pale and dread.

Soon the blood runs rich and steaming,

black by moonlight, thick and red.

 

Gleaming fangs snatch souls now fleeing

earthly bondage, pain, and strife.

Spirits in the dark, all-seeing,

take a lover, whore, or wife.

 

Somewhere in a darkened throne room

candles’ preternatural gleam,

vanquish demons dancing dervish.

Wake to find it all a dream.

 

 

 

The ancient witness of the stones:

the blood and oaths of ancient fears.

They mark the graves of dead men’s bones

and mark the grief of cries and tears.

 

The ancient secrets of the stones:

the whisper of dark lovers’ sighs,

the music played in minor tones,

the afterglow of lovers’ lies.

 

The sacred knowledge of the stones:

By moonlight, bloody rituals done.

Etched deep, the geometric runes

glow bright in rays of radiant sun.

 

The mournful silence of the stones:

Forever troth to silent dread,

mark time and season, screams and moans,

the deep, sad silence of the dead.

 

Til then my lady, utmost care:

The unschooled tongue and violin drones

shall bring the judgment and the wrath

of spirits captured in the stones.

 

*Art by Victoria Francis

 

Where does the darkness go to hide?

It isn’t in the light.

Perhaps in greater darkness still,

but that doesn’t seem right.

It watches from the corner

and it shivers as it cries.

Its heartbeat is erratic

and it breathes in heavy sighs.

Its eyes are large and terror-filled

by what waits in its gloom.

It quails in frightened silence

when the knock becomes a boom.

Where does the darkness go to hide?

It isn’t in the light.

Perhaps the living shadows there

will come for us tonight.

Oh yes, the silent shadows there

will reach for us tonight.

I see what it sees when it takes me over.

I don’t like what I see; it frightens me.

There are fires, and creatures holding people over them.

The screaming and the bells make me cover my ears, but I can still hear it all, just a little less.

A thing with horns and a silver crown, naked and furry beneath its robe, calls me to come to it.

I don’t want to, but my legs make me go, even when I try to fight it.

He tells me his name, but I can’t pronounce it.

He wants me to serve him, but I don’t know how, and I don’t want to.

I tell him so, and that I want to go home.

Smiling, he tells me that I am home, and he goes inside my mind to take my eyes from me.

Where there were creatures, screams, and fires, there are now flowers and trees.

The grass is green beneath my bare feet.

I run through the grass, my face to the sun, happy again.

I can hear the birds, and feel the wind.

Run to the end of the meadow, child. I am waiting for you there. I’m hiding, and you’ll have to find me.

I run until the sun sets, then the moon, then the sun again, and I can’t stop. He won’t let me.

You’re so close, now. So close to the end.

And I kept running, bleeding from my nose and mouth, my heart about to shatter my chest, but I can’t stop.

The flowers die, the grass turns brown, the trees lose their leaves, and the wind grows colder.

I keep running.

The sun no longer rises, nor the moon. There is only blackness and silence.

Are you still there?  I call to him, stumbling as I run, getting back up, gasping for air.

Are you still there?  I no longer feel the wind against my skin. I no longer feel pain.

I no longer see the end of the meadow, but it is marked by a fire, so I run toward it, even as it spreads, and grows, and comes to meet me.

I no longer have to run.

My eyes lose their sight; they pop, and sizzle, and drip, and I feel the heat on the squirming muscles that are left, and a powerful surge of heat.

I would weep, but he has taken my eyes.

 

In the distance, the call to prayer.

On the horizon, the sun’s excited fire

cools itself in the calm ocean,

and the stars come out to frolic

across the ebony sky.

Closer to me, the stream runs

and bubbles and swirls,

its creatures calling to mate and replenish

while the warmth of the twilight breeze

still brings the smell of blossoms that open

to the night like lovers’ hearts.

This Summoner has a plaintive cry,

a bitter rind to a sweet surrounding.

But I am leaving.

The gods hear our prayers,

our songs,

receive our sacrifices,

command our obedience,

and prove themselves no higher

in nobility and purpose.

My soul has emptied itself of spirit

as an hourglass unturned.

I look back and see the torches on the walls,

the candles in the sanctuary, candles that

do not outshine or hold the power of the stars.

The Summoner’s cry seems more plaintive the further I go.

I wonder if a solitary god has seen me walking, and calls me

to his purpose.

If he has, he will meet me where I am going.

By the brightening lunar light, I press on, my footsteps

soft on fertile soil, where night things track and hunt,

but there is no fear.

The call of the night is as sweet as the Summoner’s is bitter,

and I am merely trading one temple for another that existed

before the dawn of time.

I turn away from the sanctuary,

the Summoner’s cry goes silent,

and the prayers that surrounded and sustained me

fall away like the coils of a dead serpent.

My soul is naked to the night, and if the gods do smile,

they will blanket it before the sun rises,

and claim it as their own.

 

The sound of many genuflecting in fear

fills the temple

as the altar glows

to reveal Hasina,

the ancient one.

Beautiful in robes of indigo

trimmed in lavender,

drafty exclamations at her beauty

echo in the high ceiling.

Tears of joy and excited wonder

spatter the stone floor.

The flock stares in adoration.

She pulls her black dagger

with the silver hilt

set with a glowing sapphire

to catch the departing souls.

Heads bow, and there is only silence

as she descends and walks the aisle,

calling those she deems worthy.

She slaughters them and lets them fall

as they may.

They weep at the honor

of dying at her hand.

Their families and harvests

will be blessed,

even as their souls

are damned.

The glow consumes her

as she leaves,

and the spirits follow

in chains of light.

I yet remain

unworthy of her knife.

Feast well.