November 2003 | back-issues, poetry
by Joseph Armstead
The Alpha and the Omega,
unto ash they are made,
craven shadows, shattered
specters,
obedient hounds of despair,
huntsman gone a’haunting,
broken souls,
and they weep
acid rain.
The music plays…
1) Nergal’s Nightwalk
Across the barren plain, it echoes
Infinity, the naked impermanence of the species
gathers a thousand prayers into one hollow voice
and drops it just below the pitch of
Heaven’s ears,
unheard, unrewarded, lonely,
one fragile cry
from the orphaned hopeful
Sitting on a Rock of Ages, the Pilgrim
plays a ghostly tune
on a flute of carved bone,
a serenade for nightmares
played for angels with
deaf ears,
one gossamer-thin cry
from the cosmic traveler
Abandonment sings an aria, it echoes…
2) The Winter of Ahriman
Dreams of forever fall from darkened skies,
Autumn fades from memory,
the Season of Ice
turns the air to thin glass
The Reaver strides before the King,
a weary downbeaten monarch of tombs,
and announces with great pride
and a sneer,
“Slaughter-Everlasting is upon us,
and the armies of night
need a hero, a mighty master,
to inspire them in bloodletting,
canst thou mayhaps
pretend to be furious and fierce?
The furnace of war needs its fuel…”
The hollow King smiles like a
happy idiot, seeking to please,
afraid of truth, fearing his duty,
needing The Reaver to override
his command
and says,
“I am the wolf of war and I set loose
the pack upon all the prey of this world”.
The Reaver sighs and bows deeply,
hiding his disgust,
dreaming of assassination.
Over the many battlefields
scattered ‘cross the globe,
all the warriors feel a chill as
the Season of Ice
turns the air to thin glass
The Reaver hums a childhood
lullaby as he gleefully taps at
the fragile membrane
with a spiked iron hammer,
making ever-larger
spider’s webs…
3) Tiamat’s Thirst
She is a singing dragon
haunting the deep of night,
swimming in an ocean
of charnelhouse castoffs,
red meaty wine, hot coppery
ocean, cemetary vintage,
her song echoing across
the midnight vastness
with poisonous unhuman beauty.
She sings of an endless
sleep
brought to those who fall
before the rapacious raging
hunger
of the Devil’s Undead offspring.
The dragon sings to ensnare
the ever-curious and unwise,
and to attract The Pilgrim
as he wanders along
the beach of Time,
seeing all and part of none,
playing from a bone-flute
music
for the dead generations.
EPILOGUE
This is the Alpha,
this is the Omega,
craven shadows, shattered
specters,
unto ash they are made.
The music fades…
— fini —
November 2003 | back-issues, poetry
By Joseph Armstead
The sign on the hill
Has the marks of muddy
Boot treads on it and
It is sinking in the mud and ash.
Ageless eyes
that beheld the wonders
Of the endless spaceways
and
The glories of the cosmos
Blink back cold tears.
He is alone.
The wind fans his hair
And it smells of old fires,
Storms,
Wet concrete and rusted steel.
He listens for the silence.
His wounds bleed.
Here there once were kings,
in this place of shattered brick,
rubble,
and they held sway over nations
and armies of fearsome might.
He sees Time
Pass like the waters of
An infinite river, no stone
Touched
By the same water twice,
As the embattled world decays.
He is forever,
All that exists around him is not.
All that burns, smouldering, will fade,
Crumbling
Into dim memory for descendents
Of proud warriors and greedy lords.
Curtains of blood
Descend on the last dark act of
A passion play with no audience,
Applauding
The ghosts of war-torn history
And the sad last pages of the future.
Immortal eyes,
Like twin stars,
See the sign that lies in the
Wet ashen muck, and read
The words
“You Can Save”
and the tears that fall
thereafter are hot and bitter.
The sign on the hill
Is covered by gray ash and
Obsidian smoke as the
Mud swallows it whole.
November 2003 | back-issues, poetry
By Joseph Armstead
Breathe in, breathe out…
You can smell it in the air,
That scent of rain and regret,
The perfume of bittersweet
Memory
And old dreams vaguely
Recollected.
It imbues a strange feeling
In the soul, a stirring
Of melancholy for
Things that can never be,
And it creates its own
Moonlight, transforming
The harsh metallic silver
from the gloomy evening
sky to the color of
gun-metal when you stare
down the barrel.
It’s there, that feeling,
That smell, that sound,
That music without
Melody.
It stays with you long past its time.
The ticking of the clock is meaningless.
There is only that
tremorous feeling
just before the tears
begin to fall.
Despair a’birthing.
The mind becomes a
window on the world
and the world is a large
wild forest of midnight,
full of night-magick and
mysteries and it is both
a refuge and a prison.
A wind birthed from
Nowhere
Springs up and rattles
The dry leaves of the
Forest of shadows
And you swear that in
its rushing hush you
can hear your name and
that breeze brings with it
an aroma, the
perfume
of a broken spirit.
Imagine that…
Breathe out, breathe in.
November 2003 | back-issues, poetry
By Joseph Armstead
Forgive us our trespasses…
There is a room inside
Our minds, inside the
Swirling maelstrom of
Sensation, fear, sex
And ego that makes us each
Unique, where we joyfully
Visit the deepest pit
Within the Circus Infernal.
No one likes to admit it.
No one likes to
Acknowledge they know
Where this place is in
Their minds, this tunneling
Spiraling hole through
Their soul, but when
Emotions are at a fever pitch,
When despair takes hold,
When the reptilian brain
Awakens, we stride growling
through the door, willingly,
and we dance amongst the
sulfurous magma and the
leaping flames with the
lunatic abandon of
broken children at play
in the fields of the brutish.
Our lust for the wicked
brings us to tears, falling
like wet crystal razors.
It frightens us, how much we belong.
It is our darkling home away from home.
Forgive us our trespasses,
Because we can be ever so
Much more inventive than that.
We need to sin big or
Not bother sinning at all.
It is our nature to be cruel.
It is our desperate aspiration
To be children of the Divine.
There is beauty in The Pit,
There are stories of courage
And of devotion, tales of
Raging angels and crying devils,
Of sins against nature and
Sins against the purest of Love.
The flames on the pyre of
Malevolence leap, burning
white-hot, close as an embrace.
We love that dark doorway
To Hell every bit as much
As we despise hosting it
Inside our hearts and minds.
Our duality is a curse.
It is also our strength.
Battling the beast enobles us.
At least, that is what we
tell ourselves when we are
alone staring into the
mirror at a face that seems
more animal than Man,
insanely impassioned, yet
more angelic than mortal,
perfectly flawed compassion.
Forgive us our trespasses…
Opening the doorway down,
We do not look back.
It frightens us, how much we belong.
Our hunger for all things
Wicked brings us to tears,
falling
like wet
crystal
razors.
October 2003 | back-issues, Kelley Jean White, poetry
Midge
show me the one that leaps
that spirals
that plummets
that rises
remains
is lost
is gone
Midge
show me the one that leaps
that spirals
that plummets
that rises
remains
is lost
is gone
Midge
show me the one that leaps
that spirals
that plummets
that rises
remains
is lost
is gone
Midge
show me the one that leaps
that spirals
that plummets
that rises
remains
is lost
is gone
Midge
show me the one that leaps
that spirals
that plummets
that rises
remains
is lost
is gone
