ELEGY FOR
ARAWN
Sound like a long brocade of broken windows
Stitches
across the silence of the sky:
A thousand thousand watchers stand in mourning
And
watch remembered spirits drifting by:
Ghosts of relinquished pasts and hopeless
futures:
And all that can be done is wave goodbye.
"They say he cared." "That's
what they always say."
"He tried to lead us on." "And if that's so?"
"Word had it that
he wanted us united,
One law, one nation..." "And how do _you_ know?"
"All that is
left now are his words, his dreams..."
"That's nothing now." "Are you still
listening?" "No."
As the sky turns and bathes the world in colours,
The
red-garbed mourners drift through their waiting:
A word thrown back and forth: a snatch
of silence:
A pause, a gasp, a shuffled hurrying
To line the roads and streets, the
Ways and Houses,
All gathered for the burial of a King.
ARCADIA
: BALLAD
A queen ruled in Arcadia once,
Fair as the moonlight on the
frost:
She had no heart to melt her ice,
She had no soul that could be lost.
A
human walked within her lands:
A man as handsome as the earth,
Bearing a human soul
and heart:
Laughing seducer, killer's mirth.
He spilled his blood, he spoke his
name,
For pride and love and passion's sake:
She took his heart, she took his
love,
Took all of him that she could take.
Yet was his soul beyond her
reach,
She could not own him full and whole:
For while her ice could bind his
heart
Only a soul can bind a soul.
A human woman loved him
true,
Bound that cold queen in iron and fire:
The queen she loved him truer yet,
Let
him go free to his desire.
Freed once again, the queen she laid
Hands cold as death
against his heart:
Love gave to her a human soul:
Love broke her moonlit ice
apart.
Soul spoke to soul and heart to heart:
Cold moonlit night was turned to
day:
Arcadia's frozen Queen was gone -
Human the lovers went
away.
ARDEN RANGER THEME SONG
I am an
Arden Ranger, with pistol and with sword;
I use them very freely, to keep from getting
bored.
They also get me noticed when I use them in the bar --
Since I lack personality
I must resort to War!
They told me of diplomacy; I thought it was a blade --
Like
Werewindle or Greyswandir, a sword of Pattern made.
I found me a Chaosian, and stabbed
it in the back;
No flame arose, to my dismay, so I took another whack.
The morals
of a Ranger are taught to us at birth;
They cannot be interpreted by those of lesser worth.
Those who've tried have mostly found this fundamental fact:
We get away with anything
-- as long as we're in packs!
My skin is blue and mellow, my armour is bright green:
I need these gaudy colours, to make sure I get seen!
I flaunt the laws of Amber, of
nature and of man:
They say that I'm an idiot, I do the best I can!
I went back to
my homeland, my little Arden lair:
I found I was so popular they all followed me there!
They claimed that Amber ruled me, I told them they were fools:
Amber may pay my
wages, but Arden makes the rules!
We're Big Men from the Deep Woods, and we flaunt
our organs' size:
sufficient bare-faced-gall and cheek gain us our usual prize!
We stroke
our swords and fondle guns, and pout and pose and preen:
The only law of haut couture is
that one must wear green!
We lounge around the World's End Bar, and pick on Chaosian
guys:
The gals are fun as well, but then, it's gals that we despise!
If we can mutter
insults, or offend you to your face,
Or throw you off the balcony, our day was not a
waste!
AUTUMN'S POEMS
Sun-warmed granite,
So very still -
Without
warning
The earth shakes.
Crane's shadow
dances
In the moonlight:
Wings a bright edge
In the
darkness.
The soul of a lion
In a scrap of fur
so small?
Yet who is fool enough
To judge soul by body?
Any child
May touch a sword:
Yet unsheath it -
The wind
bleeds.
The sun burns brighter
Than a thousand
candles:
Golden eyes surpass
A thousand suns.
A dancer's feet,
An artist's hands:
But his eyes so hungry
When they see
beauty.
Wind blows the leaves
And shakes the
branches,
Drives the clouds
And spins the world:
Autumn winds
Are tinged with
memory,
Wine by the fire,
Tea touched with smoke.
BASSOR : COUPLETS FROM TAROT
I'll paint your face with
charming decadence,
And tint your eyes with shattered innocence.
A ghost that
dreams of drifting that debases,
And mirrored empty hearts and moonlit faces.
Hands
paler than the moonlight that delights them:
Eyes sheerer silver than the moon which lights
them.
Carved of a marble purer than cold glass,
Handsome enough to hold all eyes
that pass.
Drape me cool shadows round an angel's wings,
Frame me a mouth that
says a thousand things.
Colour me silent hours in blacks and whites,
Show me a
world that dreams through endless nights.
Limn me a mouth that breathes the sweetest
sighs,
Darken the shadows round the ghostly eyes.
Show me a face that hates his
own creation,
Clings like a drowning man to his damnation.
You swear there is no
heaven for such as you,
So you'll have hell - and drag me down there
too.
BASSOR : TO LLEWELLA
Of course it was my
fault: of course, of course...
You never really wanted me at all,
I never came in answer
to your call,
Of your sweet fall I was the only cause...
All of the years we spent were not
your choice:
You never loved my touch or were content,
You never clung to me in
passion
spent,
Never looked up and smiled to hear my voice...
When you are lying in your lonely
bed,
Silence your sole companion in the room,
Lying awake in shadowed bitter
gloom,
Hearing my voice reecho in your head,
Dreaming of love you've lost and days
gone by...
You'll know those words for what they are - a lie.
BELIAL
When I was formed, they forged me with a sword,
With bladed edges and close-chained fire hair,
With eyes of old dark stone and face as
edged
As any dawn that cut the rising air.
Desire is steel that matches mine own
forging,
A definition that I find my own:
My path beyond the functions of existence,
Beyond the Pattern, past the blood and stone.
Forged heart in flame, forged passion
and forged rage,
Cold steel, cold heart, cold eyes and colder hands,
A proof to hold, a
victory to conquer,
Self-definition found in chains and bands.
The Dawn surpassed,
the day now full before me,
Desire my understanding and my tool:
I mar the world to
match my meaning in it,
Hunger my definition and my rule.
CONSTANTINE, FOR TANITH
Here in the moonlight, raise your
sword and dance:
Edges strike notes as bright as any star,
Sweet crystal clarity no blood
could mar,
Meet me in war or love, and take this chance.
Closer we move until we almost
touch:
Closer the dance till two at last are one:
Fiercer the fight till both of us have
won:
Whether we would, or no, we have passed such:
You are my match, my mate, my
star, my heart,
My lover, my cool comfort, my delight,
Clear twilight to my dawn, day
to my night,
Where I begin you end, my close your start:
Joined souls, joined hands,
joined lives, no need for words:
Matched in the moonlight, soul to soul, paired swords.
DEL RIO : ACROSS THE BALLROOM
It is a vivid,
cold astonishment
The first time living hatred meets your eyes:
Observe, I know you well
- I'll have no lies
Between us as you start your long descent.
I would not think that you'd
remember me
Other than for my eyes: our glances cross
Like living swords that meet to
one heart's loss,
A declaration of the blood to be.
See how your hand curls round the
fragile glass -
A metaphor for fracture, as it breaks
And dark wine mingles with the blood
it takes
While you stand pure and distant as the stars.
I have no need for words, or blow,
or guise:
For all my hate for you was in my
eyes.
DESDINOVA
They are singularity, and all else is
noise..
that
was another statement, made between
the minute and the hour: light is thin
here between
seconds, eyes glittering
to honed points edged by years past memory,
or held in memory,
but past my understanding -
so quiet now, old weather-beaten stone,
wind-smoothed through thousand upon thousand years
till edges lie in silence and
untouched
and split the breeze that blows on them like ghosts
till the air bleeds, and
bleeding, holds as still -
anger was hammered down along the years
until it
blossomed in beaten
obsidian, carved bone and darkened steel
and blood all woven
through it like a net
of faith and justice and honour repaid -
still watching: eyes that
someone caught the void
of time and space in, now regarding me
and waiting for my
words to fill the gap
between us, speak and span three thousand years:
but how can I do
such a thing? My lord,
you are so very far from me, for all
I swore to you in blood and
iron, below
in the long darkness where the world's heart beats
and you are worlds I do
not understand...
FALLEN IN AVALON
Snow,
scattered on the rock, a pile of feathers,
Silk, drifted quietly on the evening air,
Should
not be cold as this.
Blood, one long stain of heat and life, like ink
Scrawled on the
empty snow in signature
Should not be beautiful.
Dark killing steel that kissed the
living heart
And drew the blood, and set the hot blood running,
Should not have been so
simple.
Slow twists of ice and rock, shaped bodies,
Coiling inside to heat and
bloodfire dance,
Should not have such keen eyes.
Hearts that are cold as snows that
formed and birthed them,
Hot as the blood that gave them life and soul,
Should never
have been born.
FLAWS
Stone splits and cracks in
lines and
flaws unguessed:
Reality, if present, no protection,
For each man's heart is flawed within
his breast.
In this brief world you're nothing but a guest:
Kin an adopted coat you
wear a moment,
Your little life a shadow-dance till rest.
A crack of burning falls
down through the night
To mark a path and shake the circling shadows,
Fracture the
world and shake you with the light.
Destruction is the path you tread upon:
Though
fire may light your path and warm your journey,
It burns too high, too fast - and you are
gone.
For each man's heart is flawed within his breast,
Your little life a
shadow-dance till rest:
Fractured your world and shaken by the light,
Life burns too high,
too fast - and you are gone.
GAVIN
The taste for
blood is a most natural thing:
Death is the end to which all life must fall,
A sharpened
blade the fate that greets us all,
Whatever lies may fill our brief living.
In knowing this,
I recognise the truth,
And forge myself from out my soul and mind
An edge to cleave all
weaknesses I find,
Tempered to strength and sharpness by my youth.
This is my truth,
my life: the hawk in flight,
The whetted edge, the sword, the frozen steel,
Bitterest ice
against the fire I feel,
Focused black fire against the gentle light,
Leashes that bind my
actions to my will,
Edges that wound, that draw the blood, that kill.
GAVIN AND JANIER : DANCE
"Silk over broken glass: that's
what you told me."
She turns away. "So why cause me this pain?
Why must you always
hurt me if you'd hold me?"
"I would not touch you for another cause."
He does not
move. "Then leave me, if you wish.
It is no thing of mine, this bond that
draws."
Her laugh is very bitter. "Even so,
You watch and smile as I attempt to flee
you,
Reach out your hand and will not let me go."
"I draw because I am, no wish
extended."
A step towards her. "You desire completion,
You will not leave this dance
till it is ended."
She turns again to face him. "You will break me:
I cannot turn
away: as you once told me,
You'll have it all: you'll know me, and you'll take
me."
"And if I should, is that not your desire?"
He's very close to her, his eyes reflect
her.
"The fragile moth consumed by focused fire..."
"There's nothing good in you
that I can see here."
She's caught within his gaze, trapped, barely breathing.
"If I could
only want to, I'd not be here."
"Desire is not a master I obey."
He smiles. "But you
shall come to learn what moves me,
My creature, little puppet, Janier..."
IDRAEL : TO MY BROTHER
Death can come in
strange shapes - our moving bodies
Turning beneath the silent, empty sun
Mark patterns
in the long expanse of snow
That were not here before: footprints that run
And track a
hopeless lonely desperation
Which mars the innocent white quiet grace,
End in a touch
of hands - such intimacy -
And empty eyes in an unmoving face.
It was a closeness
I had not expected -
Impossible, unthinkable, untrue:
Our minds and spirits were so
widely parted,
Yet for a moment I was held by you -
And as I fell, a broken doll cracked
open,
The two of us alone beneath cold skies,
I felt you gain a thing I cannot speak of
-
Saw a door open in my brother's eyes.
IMAGINOS : A
REPLY FOR A QUESTION
Whatever dreams a mirror may
contain
Must, by a mirror's classic definition
Be echoed on the dark side of the
pane
And catch the viewer's eye in recognition.
Though processes of vision and
cognition
Through clarity of power may bring you gain:
By equal means, reflection in
precision
Must work to your despite and wish your pain.
In shaping your perfections in
your dreamings
You open doors that are too wide to see:
Shapings may close those
portals in neat seemings,
But not the entryway your mind may be.
Creators trap
themselves in consumnation
And build their shadow in their heart's
creation.
JANIER : TO GAVIN
I'll
trade you fire for ice: I'll trade you light
To burn away the cold that sheathes your soul:
I'll trade you summer's day for winter's night:
I'll trade myself, entire, complete, and
whole,
For all you are: I'll trade you burning rage
For cold control and leashes that
restrain:
I'll trade you empty skies for prison cage:
I'll trade with you desire that's mixed
with pain.
You in return wound me each time we touch,
In trade for innocence I once
possessed:
For earlier calm and peace, a draw that's such
That I can neither sleep, nor
dream, nor rest:
Defiance for resistance, rose for knife,
And now the final trade: a life for
life.
JOHANN : HUNGER
Blood sings
where it runs beneath the skin,
Blue lines drawn warm beneath the surface:
I watch your
wrist as you are drinking,
I watch your throat as you are speaking:
If I should take a pen
to draw you,
You'd be those lines. And I'd adore you.
I'll dance and play across the
surface,
Trade words and image and music,
Smile at you like a younger brother,
Hold
you as warm as any lover,
Fool child who'd never try and harm you,
Sweet jester, only
here to charm you.
If you should know what drives your body,
The heat that stirs
beneath your pulsebeat:
Each time I take your hand or kiss you,
Each smile or word or
joke or silence,
Your heart it beats so very clear, now,
Your heartbeat all that I can hear,
now...
JONATHAN BARIMEN :
DOGGEREL
Gaudiness
And sweet excess
Are all I need
For
happiness
Here I'll take
My happy stand
Sole ruler
Of
Barimenland.
Here amid
My gothic dome
I'll watch the bats
And feel at
home
Thunder in
The rolling sky
As Potato people
Ride on by.
I
walked the Pattern
As a boy
It's really neat
My favourite toy
The Logrus is
A sin and snare
It scuffs the shoes
And wrecks the hair.
I lead a house
Of vampire brats
Who wreck all Thelbane
With their spats
The other Houses
They all state
We're prone to
Presdigitate.
MERCEDES
Calligraphy of winter reeds on ice:
Cold dagger strokes
in thin, dark-bladed lines:
Starlight to stroke a diamond till it shines:
Spare charcoal
strokes that limn a form precise:
Frost-falcon, angled, arched, movement of flight:
Elegant edges of black, bloodied glass:
Silk frills and ruffles on thin wrists that
pass
In delicate abstractions of half-light:
Eyes of deep sea, more bitter than a
sin:
Patterns in steel that run like silent flames:
A tongue that holds to truth, that keeps
its claims:
Taut flames that shudder, banked beneath the skin:
Light-filled as snow that
covers ancient wars:
And blood, that veins pale marble with old scars.
MERCEDES : LOVE
"There's too much here of blood and stone," he
said,
"Of ice and elegance and ghostly hair,
Scars carved on backs as if they're painted
there,
Souls trapped between the living and the dead:
Icons of old obsidian and brushed
bone,
Blood as the ink that's used to write the page,
Draw all the miniatures of pain and
rage,
Of bindings that still leave the heart alone."
"You see it as some story," came
reply,
"A tale of long ago not touching you,
That doesn't deal with what you think is
true,
With what you know of men who live and die:
But it was real: my blood stained his
pale glove:
And everything I did, I did for love."
MERCEDES :
WORDS
"..a wolf dreamed me," she said,
But that was only half the
story.
Snow was tangling in dark hair, melting to silver
And setting tears upon her
face
Which still was far too young.
"..diamonds and rust," she said,
The iron
beneath her hand old traceries.
She was all patterns, scars twisted across skin
And old
pain tangled deep in eyes
That were too tired to dream.
"..sleep comes with death,"
she said,
The bones of her face cut empty crystal.
She was still watching over someone
sleeping,
His face turned into the darkness
Her eyes not moving from him.
"..I
lost my honour," she said,
Hands straying like ice dancers on the lace.
Eyes harsh
intolerance of her own flawlines,
Dark emeralds that could not permit
Anything less than
her dreams.
"..He was so beautiful to my eyes,"
Or the fury, never known
before,
That leaves the lines in body and in spirit
Or simply the love that held her,
In
the end, the love.
NOVUS ORDO
I'm talking about
shadows.
Ghosts on the wall.
And the house's spirit, the world's
soul,
Lying like rotting silk on neck and back
And rubbing at old scars.
Fires do not warm:
Tiny eyes watching from the silent corners
See the small gaps
that litter memories
And mark where cracks begin.
Clocks are so
slow:
The hands are killing time till the last midnight
But idling when I turn my head to
watch,
Dragging my pulse to match their heavy tick
Till I am mired in moments.
It's wrong to say
That someone is watching me from out the
mirror-
The truth is that I am the one who's watching,
And wondering at the little jerking
puppet
Who dances through a shell.
A shell that's breathing.
All
of the windows are eyes staring inwards -
I'm talking about
shadows...
RHIAN : FROM
TAROT
Such a calm lady. Here in this still room
Where silent windows
view a thousand worlds
We drink our tea and talk: we are all beasts,
You say, the
predator contained, comprised,
Caught back behind the curtain of a face:
And he who
knows this is the wiser man.
Outside the wind puffs dust round tiny skulls,
Parts broken
lightning round a dragon's wings,
Maims moonlit skies above a shadowy beach.
I know
you. I don't know you. You're the mask
That's far too true to need a face behind it,
Voice
too exact for us to dare to listen,
Till even I, who call myself a seeker,
Only accept you
and inquire no further:
I'll sit beside the tiger and drink tea,
Madonna of fire-lilies and
cold blood.
SAMMAEL : LAST WORDS
You do not
understand - and never will -
Why we rebelled, raised hand against creator,
And marked
our brows with blood and burning fire.
You seem to think our only aim to kill,
To
mar the marks left on us by our maker,
To satisfy the hungers of desire.
I will not
turn and bend my knee again,
Nor yet submit to any lesser men:
It was not pride, nor
greed, nor lust, nor gall,
We saw what we must do - and that was all.
SOFIA, TO MANDOR
Shall we play at being lovers
While
we're talking and we're dancing?
For the light is very gentle,
And the music is
entrancing,
While we're watching other couples
Turning round and round in
circles,
And surely what they have from love
We two can have from art.
If our
bodies know each other
In the shadows and the silence,
If we find a place of
pausing
Past the emptiness and violence,
Surely we can have a knowledge
Of the
other who is touching,
And share the body and the mind,
And never share the
heart...
TAROT AND
MERCEDES
Two tall women sitting in the corner with long thin hands and
deep gem eyes
Studying the mirrors and the blood that lies behind them
Looking for the
shadows and the ghosts are out to find them..
We're mirroring imaginings and dreaming
of confusion
And we're looking on the inside at the blood that binds the thread
We're
watching in the shattered glass for dancers on the broken glass
And speaking of the living
souls..
And thinking of the dead.
Obsidian is mirroring the shadows of the watchers
And cuts the hands till bleeding as they grasp to halt the wheel
It's very simple for a
price, it's very keen and most precise
They cut out all that's real to you and all that you can
feel.
Cut in two
For that's division
By the sword
Or by the glass
Cold
partition
Bitter vision
Blood will bear
What comes to pass...
The mirrors
on the blood will show
The darkened face that lies below
And all the waiting wishes
there
That ring the edge of cold despair
And veil the smile beneath the eyes of someone
who is watching them
And waiting on the other side
For doors to swing and open
wide...
TAROT : BALLADE
If you
are trying to point out that I
Will die from this, then I will simply say
That any human
knows that they will die:
That knowledge lies within us: that some day
We'll wake
beneath an unfamiliar sky...
I do not think that you quite understand
The law locked in
our bodies: that demand
Which calls us from our joy or our despair,
And shatters this
construction we call life:
The glass will break, and I shall not be there.
And yes, I
know there are things worse than death:
Fracture of what I am: the mirror crazed
Till
I no longer know myself: each breath
A thing of pain: a puppet caught, amazed:
I know
I cannot flee these without scathe:
And yet I choose my solitary way,
In quiet solitude
I end each day,
Knowing there is a path beyond despair...
It's not so great a price that
I need pay:
The glass will break, and I shall not be there.
Why, yes, I am a coward:
bitter fear
Cuts to my heart, of what I may become:
Each day I touch this world, I
sojourn here,
Has some new stranger call to me to come
Away, to leave myself behind,
come near...
Can they not understand I am my chains?
What binds me is myself! Nothing
remains
Of anybody I once was: no care,
No grief, no joy, from spattered blood no
stains...
The glass will break, and I shall not be there.
They bid me loose myself, set
myself free,
Change my whole nature, break the bonds I wear
And take instead the
chains they offer me,
Fetter myself into new bondage, where
All of the pains life gives
me I must bear...
Clarity lost, and distance torn away,
Pain and desire immediate each
day,
Purity stained by passion and by care,
Till nothing that is me remains to
stay...
The glass will break, and I shall not be there.
I will not bend or break: I will
not fall:
I will not follow where desire may call:
Whether I find release, or find
despair,
An ornament of glass that strikes the wall...
The glass will break, and I shall
not be there.
TAROT : LULLABY, FROM LONG
AGO
What are you dreaming of, goldeneyes, goldeneyes,
What are the
shadows that wake you from sleep?
What is it grieves you, my sweet little
goldeneyes,
Why do you tremble, and why do you weep?
Mother, I dreamed of the
wind and the lightning,
Swore oaths forgotten that must be obeyed:
Heard voices calling
a name that was lost to me,
Anger and hatred and blood on the blade.
Hush now,
my goldeneyes, hush now, my little one,
These are but shadows that trouble you so:
Here in the candlelight nothing can harm you,
Darkness and malice must tremble and
go.
Mother, I dreamed of a world spun of shadows,
Endless quiet moonlight that
silvered the air:
Moonlit eyes watched me and said I was beautiful,
Moonlit hands held
me, unbraided my hair.
Dream not of darkness, child, dream not of
shadowlands,
Here is your world, child, and here is your life:
Some day you'll find a man,
someday you'll bear a child,
Stand in the sunlight as husband and wife.
Mother, I
dreamed of a guide and a teacher,
A flame and a blaze and a star and its fall:
A light that
would lead me, a fire that would burn me,
A spark that would kindle, a voice that would
call.
Quiet now, my goldeneyes, mother is here for you,
Mother and father will
watch by your side:
We will not leave you, we shall not desert you,
Watching above you,
protector and guide.
Mother, I saw I would walk through the darkness,
Storm my
companion and mirrors my friend:
Shadows flawed around me and flaws running through
me,
Truth my sole longing, and fire my end.
TAROT
: MASQUERADE
Overlay
A fragile piece
Of skin upon
The
rigid bone:
Fingers trace
The cheek's high ridge
And feel, beneath
The skin,
the stone.
Dancers step
With careful poise
And turn around
Unspoken
words:
Angels, dragons
Move beside me,
Children, wolves,
Bright-feathered birds.
Eyes are gems
Cut en cabochon,
Giving nothing
Real away:
Faces silk
Or painted metals,
Nothing but
The parts we
play.
Though in time
We strip those masks off,
Bare our faces
To
clear view,
I may see you
Clear and open,
I will know
No more of
you.
Here's the mask
That I am wearing,
Careful words,
Thoughts
in their place,
Feelings hid:
Skin painted lightly
Over bone:
It's called a
face.
TAROT : SONG FOR BASSOR, IN
DREAMS
Tell me the meaning of this dance:
First I retreat, then you
advance,
You smile and offer me your hand
As though you think I'll
understand...
This little game may make you smile,
It may amuse you for a while,
But
when the door swings open wide,
Then what is on the other side?
If I should see you
in my dreams,
Then nothing there is what it seems,
And whether you are false or
true
In dreams I need not turn from you:
But in this game of life we play
The stakes
grow higher every day,
And I know all too well the cost:
If you should win, then I am
lost.
This challenge that we can't refuse
I fear that I am going to lose:
You gain
amusement from our strife -
I pay my wager with my life:
Whether I should be bound
or die,
It makes no difference, by and by -
In each event you will have won
And
what I am will soon be gone.
I wish I did not want you so:
I wish so much you did
not know
That I must freeze and yet I burn,
I should be free and yet I yearn:
You
watch me with your silver eyes,
And smile at me in faint surprise
That I should think I
stood a chance,
That I could hope to leave this dance...
Return to the Poetry
Index.