A creeping song of malcontent, Entered through a fragile hide, The One in doting, is absent, In Bower of Gods woe betide.
Thy fair kindred gathered ’round, Suckling on unmarrowed bones, Abandoned their fears compound, Shambling on to vacant thrones.
The Bower begets / boisterous offspring, Whose lilting lyres / lay all low, In the boughs of tall trees / talking, tasking. Twilit Lorëlei to spy and know, The movements of gentle father, to his garden go.
Lorëlei with secret babe at hand, The unborn, brimming with potential, Wresting her courage from those hidden lands, Striking action where kin are ornamental, Speaks lullabies to that unborn child, “Covenant, sweetling, the father reconciled.”
For it seemed the babe beckoned back, A-filled with promise and distant motion, To be set apart, as the One, To challenge him in grace, and ruin.
Lorëlei onward pressed, Past the empty seat, Thru starry hall, Her empty nest, Where once she rest, Her aching feet, Now raised she up, On gilded barge, Made in honour, Of fae entourage, Star Weaver flotilla, Lighting unlit stars, Musing their beauty, Of beauty, they are.
Out she sailed, Toward the leaguer, Thru the veiled, Field of stars, She assayed, To greet the marked Weaver, Whose mighty art, From worlds apart, Tore her from, Father dear.
Then she wheeled / warily to flotilla, Cresting carefully / on creative convoy, Chancing to steal / sight of Silūria, A sojourn of vengeance upon up-jumped toys, Outgrown their play and weaving the future, All while father, in his stupor, Dishes out our birth-right owed, As gild for his fae-turned bride.
In midst of cruising barges, Recapturing her childhood fancy, Lorëlei wracked with urges, To drop her ills, engage in whimsy,
And watch the dainty dancers, Engage in their great task, Nimble, weaving, world-enhancers, Sowing in stars her every ask, Their sellic charm, all enamours.
Adrift and adorned, Wariness beaten from, Her heavenly body, In a sea of storms, Crashing in agony, Pangs of creation, Dancing in ecstasy, Sweet sublimation.
Then after a mere glimpse, She is ruptured from it, Upon a torrent of anger she hid, Stirring even the weavers, From all their schemes diverse.
There, on the horizon of the bound, Father reclines and whispers, Sweet nothings and tingling sounds, In fair, romantic discourse, With bold Silūria, in her manse. Upon them Lorëlei descends.
About him she glides and swims, Circling his body like celestial sphere, Who in his orbit, at his whims, Captures his delight and holds him dear, Every orbit, coming ever nearer.
Till finally rests upon his palm, And shaking God begins to calm. Lorëlei sick of this wild psalm, Seethes and wreathes anger and harm.
Her body straining, While her coiled tresses, Abound her skin maiming, Tighter and tighter caresses, Constricting, Stoking fire so bright, Itself smoting, Till body wrapped, Wracked and fading, Suddenly from depths there came, A wailing.
Outstretched the wretch, Monādān, Lord of the first ere world turned, Embraces daughter, enwombed a Son, First offspring of Progeny unspurned, Monādān sought to temper the foetus learned, Whose touch, raging fire forever burned.
For at the moment, he braced her navel, Out sped a force whose endless course, Hammered a beat, thundering loud and stable, Cowing the lord, filling with remorse, For on the horizon of being, Was a nascent force, Who when risen up, Would be his unseating.
Harken, Atlanticist, To the deeping gyre, Heedless wreckage, Aye, the ire, The wasted patronage, Slipping under ocean shelf, That furtive quagmire, Fallen in the gulf.
There was a time when you thought: “If the world should crumble, let it fall— I shall gather the ruin, And through my lordship, Usher in the dawn.”
You sped on the wings of your fancy, Swiftly, upon that device you flew, Unconcerned with future clemency, Should the eye of scorn fall on you.
Two arms outstretched, Pulling the lands together, A bold scheme, no less, But lacking leather for the tether. More’s the pity—there the sunder.
Did it never cross your thresh, That all your uppity labours, Binding us to that bloated heft, Would drag us into ill weathers?
Why, you oughtn’t have thought You could drag the Leaguer of the West Over the sea to lands you sought, Americana yoked at your behest.
You thought you could bind the lands, Raise a colossus of old, Whose legs would straddle western lands, Whose body reared-up as Atlantis bold.
But your great hands could not move the lands. Your colossus legs split and buckled, Tripping on hubris’ gait, Before fully weaned or suckled.
What became of your grand delusion? Why, it fell into the ocean. From west of west, no aid did come, Despite all your devotion.
Pulling against the axial wobble, Chains to set the world to rights, A great year & great leap fumbled, Yet skies not set in deigned night. Atlantic Age dipped from sight— Lo! Our deranged hopes and sunken might.
These are the fruits of all your labours, Your mewling and commotion, While the abyss still spits and murmurs At your altogether, untoward motion.
Look at these things you have wrought— All toil heedless in vain. Look at all the bubbles come laughing up, At your machinations, profane.
More’s the pity, more’s the doubt, You mockery of man— Snuff that dreaded pilot out, And return to Prometheus his due, The hallowed fire that birthed you anew.
You gathered up that holy flame In some demoniac rite, With dampened spark, the future tamed, An age where no hero reigns, To rid us of this dwindling blight.
It was your lot to squander These waning years of ours, Binding ourselves to places yonder, To wonder at the supplicant, coat-tailed bride, While we, in managed decline, decried.
In all of Christendom, I never knew A cabal of rotters as fell as you.
Silence, while battles in the eyrie Saw hawks devour the doves— And tangled in that feathered blood, They, forgetting where they stood, And played as only doves could.
You have eroded every stone On which we had oaths to swear. Now, none to bully back in tow, You at the helm with your medusic stare.
The elite, replete in hidden vales, Pallid masonry beyond the pale, Whose busy hands, in frenzied state, Erecting impossible geometries in their estates.
Charts, stocks, and latest frocks, Appeasers, pleasers, You oligarch teasers.
With you stuck to the wheel, Wishing upon an empty throne, Fallen and brought to heel— Too late to atone. Your stuck colours amassed, They, as cold as crossed bones.
Despite early hiccoughs, You sell plan as-seen, Tall-tales—“We’re made of sterner stuff!” All aboard the pipe dream.
Hollow out the holds, Ring-fence them in, Return to your abodes, For supper do sing. In the middle, we do as told— And the middle, why, the middle never folds.
Quick champagne do, Strawberries & cream, And off we rush, Aboard HMS Pipe Dream.
Hush below deck, No one shouts down the captain, He’s a little green in the neck, And needs you to help him. Pity Providence’s son who leads.
We should have set off under new stars, Parameters reached and placed ourselves, You cannot blame us, Because you were harmed— The heavens not arrayed as our fancies depend.
Then is then, and now is now. We cannot reconcile. The old allies went out in style, Not to be spurred awake by your guile.
We are fixed, transfixed on saving face, No tricks, to switch with rank & file. We have fallen out of grace— The anointed, reviled, to stiff upper lip resigned.
And in front of all human race, We drag the spark unto its resting place, The grave of empires in Atalanta arraigned.
We should have set off under new stars. Instead, we hitched on fading Polaris— Out goes the light on the Atlantic farce.
Wake up afeared captain, it’s time for tea, Our figurehead Europe sinks into the sea, The drowned lady calls for thee.
This has the air of the fair, Smacks of it in fact, No trace of the hairy mare, Wheeling her desolate tract.
Come, wait a while, cracking smile, Come, sit still a bit, Tethered her with our guiles, our wiles, There’s the mare champing at it.
Down the lane past lowly spinster, Akimbo-rent the priory doors, Would you pass the sinister minister, You’d better go on all fours.
‘Tis dog house for you, as he extracts his toll, Ye sick, raving, howling monstrosity, Or clapped in irons as your mortal soul, Goes sauntering off down the jetty.
And it pops in the great lake gleaming, While mortal body flops and issues, Torrents, nay, rivulets of tears streaming, Nay, rouse ye weakling, ’tis all beyond your seeming.
These bare threads pulled to your unseaming, Threaten to bring on that dark, desperate night,
Why, maybe I shall put a clear sky there, And under my aegis rid the blight, An aid perchance to stir your care, For it is in domain of my sight, I am the whip driving the mare.
Where better to start than the beginning? Our humble, unreliable narrator Scattermane should help orient you and serve as guide on these early steps of your journey:
The Chronicle of Scattermane The Chronicle of Scattermane, The nattering Thane, Jumped-up, Styled self-fully, Bend me your ears, Do listen carefully, For I cannot re-explain, The words fall out wilfully, And they won't return, After the train, Leaves me.
My gods already, I've half-forgotten, All twisted, I've grabbed the wrong'un, And it's led me, 'long path down garden, Past bull-horned gate, Past where the stick ended, Got that shiny twine in hand.
Oh! That focuses me, Puts me back, In betwixt it.
'Tis the silver twine! Always pulls me back, Onto nexial line, Don't you crack, All'll be made fine, Whatever the slack, Of the great twine, it does return me, At ends to mine.
I am no mere.. Catastropher, Don't see thru the eye of time, Why, I Remain an humble on-looker, Who has, at last, Glimpsed the Rhyme, From my oblique seat, Way off, in the margins, Only a footnote, replete, With ummings and arrings, No feat, Nothing to etch in the main, No claim nor action of fame,
I Chronicle the First Pain, Of the fear that it towed, Original sin of First Thane, Wretched, mangled, bowed, He who, tore hisself in twain, And squandered his birth-right owed.
Oh watch me natter, Round & round the blooded stone, Coo little babe, What's a'matter? Compose, Regain, omniscient tone, Got some mettle in your bones, And for certainly have you atoned, Seen the rugged lords on them Entropic Thrones, Shirkers, the lot of them, Better blood is your own, Take your place, next to theirs,
The Chain of Causality The chain of causality is girded in true silver, The slight and pliable line, Patterning and weaving the diffuse into the singular. You may not split off a rod or twine.
When you fled from the bower of the womb And made your stead in the world at large, That silver thread still bound you yet, Dancing you in accord to its tune, That little craftsman forging apocryphal runes.
You may tug at the thread, gnaw it, bite it. You may go through the motions impassively. But if ever you think, "I can alight it," Know that for each and every one, is a like thread, All cohering at that final terminus.
Within its confines you tread, Put your dreams and Will to bed.
End of line is end of meaning, No one can thrive out there alone. Dare you to tear the plan unseaming, With rabid eyes and heart gleaming, Know you cannot master the darkling groan, For the entropic lords sit atop their thrones.
Mago’s Folly In the van of Tol-Calan, Many guards there were sent, A moth host at dawn they ran, Imbued of a certain hubris, went.
In terror forth they fled, Driven on without hope to turn, Unto wheeling destiny they sped, Crossing bridges they’d never return.
Silver rider with missive on steed, Hooves thundering forward they clout, No one there to lead or tame the stampede, No one to heed, that missive sent, And save the rout.
Masthead of the forlorn, Rushing into the morning sun, Oh, mercy on ennobled firstborn, Who yearns for victory in every deed done.
Mago from helm rasps, A sortie to breach the night, Young master will not grasp, His own very end at sight, Defying that blight.
With eyes of fire, Eyes of dread, Eyes to coax alive, The dead, The young man smote the dawn.
With myriad followers in tow, On he pressed without rest, His treads where many cannot go, Putting borders to the test.
The lines dividing earth from star, The membrane of the dark, He tries his force against the leaguer, Til at last he stares into the stark, Those unmade parks, Creation apart.
Now our intemperate creature, Burns and ranges ever forth, Our dear, dread Mago, The Nighthelm’s folly.
Where once in terra there is a tear, That bridges the worlds as one, There rides Mago and his men, Until their fated deed is done.
The Emergent Sea 