BlackQuill

Eating flesh from points of knives,

Demons stalk and seek our lives.

Seeming love to maidens fair,

Til there are no maidens there.

Fair of hair and eye and form,

Triple lightning in a storm.

Here. the gods of wood and stone,

prayed to with a crack of bone,

wake and answer.

Soon arrive.

Finding no one here alive,

take the sword out once again,

in the labyrinth of the glen.

Cackles sizzle up my spine,

Moon now clouded will not shine.

Footsteps running, running fast.

Looking at the shadows cast,

flying over, pushing down.

No, I will not make the town.

Teeth now puncture.

Sharp nails tear.

Graveyard smells lace floral air.

In the garden, I grow still,

Cold and stiff, no life, no will.

Red blood, gelid, cold, and hard.

Torn apart, a living shard.

Now death whispers, Now you’re mine.

 Once again, the pale moon shine

takes the cloud mask off to see

broken spirit, finally free.

 

 

 

 

Chained,

I wander.

The pain has become a part of me.

The agony has seeped into me.

The hopelessness engulfs me.

And Death grins and goads

from every side.

I see the vultures circle,

and land,

and hop ever closer

to their eventual meal.

The rain pelts my skin,

beats the dirt from my flesh,

washes the scabs of my scars clean,

and dribbles the blood from my wounds.

Time has lost meaning.

Life never found his.

I abandon it here,

and lift my eyes to Heaven,

to whatever gods exist,

and ask mercy of a slate-colored sky.

Closing my eyes,

my heart shuts with them.

There is a peace,

as a piece of me goes away.

I hear the vulture

chew and swallow.

Death laughs,

and goads no more.

Black and red,

a checkerboard of marbled tiles

in this dark temple,

I feel the night breeze

in the rafters of my soul.

The chant is soothing,

minor keyed and meditative,

but it conjures

thoughts of magic.

Am I blessed or cursed with a gift

of science so ancient it has no name,

subject to different laws, wider boundaries?

Does it reside in me,

or am I but a tool of its crafty rendering?

I call out in the darkness,

and bid the specters rise…

 

What seek you here tonight, my dear?

This is no place to be.

The moon is low, the mist aglow

with ancient mystery.

 

The wolf, the bat, and owl

are hunting prey tonight, you know.

But you won’t see or hear them, dear.

You really ought to go.

 

They sent me out to warn you, dear.

Don’t walk among the trees.

There’s things that grip you by the throat,

and drive you to your knees.

 

I’m glad you’re coming back with me.

The woods are cold and dark.

Whatever where you doing here

among the winter bark?

 

Your eyes are glowing. Don’t know why.

And now you’re snarling, too.

I’m bleeding as I find, too late,

the hunter here was

you.

 

 

Gaia grins from underground,

her beautiful smile, fanged and feral.

She gazes at me through reptilian eyes of icy blue,

and parts her dark and fertile skirts one last time.

Have you no magic, wizard? 

Are you spent?

Are we done?

Have you paid me for my services…?

Her laughter echoes at my back,

as I walk between the trees and the grave,

mocked by the Queen of Witches,

the Goddess of Nature,

the Essence of Life,

Eve in Her Wretchedness,

wanton and sensuous,

hopelessly damned, her blessed hands

moving beneath the shaming leaf

she shares with her husband.

The spells lie coiled about my soul,

nascent, sleeping,

they still hold my scent in their nostrils,

they still flick at my mind with their tongues.

They hiss music,

and wake to look on me with entreating love.

My steps begin to falter,

but I see the mountains in the distance,

where the bonds are broken, and the air

is free of tainted sweetness.

I move toward an unknown fate.

Gaia’s hand reaches for me,

to pull me back, or cast me out,

I dare not ask.

Her fingers wrap around me,

but whether to seize the priceless, timeless soul,

snatch away the precious, shining magic,

or peel the worthless wizard’s flesh,

I do not know.

But know this, if you would follow:

there is always a toll,

and Gaia

will make you pay it.

In all,

you have been too polite

in the enduring of

your chains.

 

Your fiery soul

is now but an ember,

and he, slimy and bloated

with your life’s blood,

grins and swells

over the wound of your

exsanguinating heart.

 

No longer, dear sister,

can I stand beside you

in the tortured, screaming

silence that echoes

from your sobbing

throat in the

wee hours.

 

You will not lay claim

to who you are,

will not become

who you were meant

to be.

 

And so, dear sister, dearest self,

I leave this pristine statue

of your existence

in its cold and marbled hall,

its very stillness reflecting

the ebbing life

within you.

 

Not for me.

I will bathe in blood,

and sing lilting harmony to

the screaming souls

that dance around

my pagan fire.

 

I love them all,

but kill them always.

 

And when you decide

to step down from

the frozen pedestal on

which he lashes

the layers of your flesh, opens you to the flies

that feast on his corpulent manhood

and withered lust,

 

just take my hand.