They feed me red jello
In a little cup
A metal spoon and a tray in bed
Like I'm the queen of Spain

My courtiers come in pairs
An hour at a time
Sometimes I let them stay
For my private council meetings
With the advisors

Every night, I'm entertained
Every morning and all the time 
By the little jester on the wall
They told me I can change him however I want

Sometimes I miss the sunlight
Not just the little glimmer
That makes the cloud of dust appear 
The one that smells like lysol and copper pennies

My children are all too busy
In their duchies far away
Learning what they'll have to do
When this is their kingdom one day

They feed me red jello
And the beds are kind-of small
But from my lofty tower
I can see them all

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A bridge beneath the tallest tow'r
  In all of Gambershade
Where darkness creeps out bit by bit
  To form the Archon Blade

Inferior to the velvet throne
  Where sits the maddened queen
The queen of all East Gambria
  And southern Abderdeen

Her heartless chest of bone and flesh
  So longs to have its way
So dripping from her frozen lips
  Like ink or gaulder shay

"Bring forth the hermit!" Hear her call
  And see the pitied thing
Restrained for years at Æon's Perch
  Within the Ebon Ring

"How pleads your tongue?" She whispers forth
  Now grinning ear to ear
"Guilt is all that's left of me—
  But guilt and dismal fear."

So comes the baron with his axe
  To claim another head
And sinks the hermit to his rest
  Where death may be his bed

But from the chasms deep below
  Beneath the pools of blood
There rises an infernal scream
  Now comes the mighty flood

Ere daughters fate and sons of man
  Can raise their awful howl
And shudd'ring in her crumbling seat
  The queen pulls down her cowl

"Slay him now! Before they come!"
  Resounds her dreadful voice
But now the axe is made of stone
  And fate has sealed her choice

The veil is torn, the man reborn
  And wields his Archon Blade
And parts the night from brightest day
  The queen had once forbade

Now fate may bring— the ancient king
  His kingdom now to mend
And pierces through her heartless chest
  Her kingdom at its end

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Upon the desk in front of me—
  A half forgotten letter
Written from a simpler time—
  A time when things were better

Golden days spent in the sun
  Picking clovers one by one
Dreaming endless lives I'd live
  Tapestries woven from thread unspun

How my mind could wander then
  To jump around from star to star 
Ev'ry vantage, to be reached
  No cliff too high; no shore too far

How I dreamed I'd be a knight
  Or some strange king from distant land
And not once did I pause to think
  Another held a greater plan

Now, I've seen a different light
  Some greater, softer, simpler joy 
No knights or kings could comprehend
  No fables from some reckless boy

But in each gesture, in each thought
  In ev'ry scent that hits my nose
In each way on every day
  Like some song that grows and grows

In the fields of green and gold
  Even those of white and grey
There rests some beauty to behold
  Some clover I might pick today

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Pennies and the hour's pay
Golden chains to change today
The pilfered pauper in a palace
Sipping from an empty chalice

Bring forth your pitied, putrid poor
And I will turn her to a whore
Begging from her bosom sweat
Hung in gardens cold and wet

Oh the trinkets; oh the toys
From the men, I'll give you boys 
Send their mothers to the mines
Steal their meat and give them wine

Then, I'll have your children too
They were never meant for you
Raise them to be just like me
Just as bonded; just as free

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Buried in the eldritch thick
Of ancient wood and ashen brick
A purpose made for yesteryear
When men were not so scared of fear

And how the tow'rs, crimson stained
Might shift beneath their risen strain
How oft the cries are heard at night
Devoid of courage, stripped of might

When dragons and their wyrmling thralls
Did sound their fierce and fearsome calls
And who but man could meet him there?
To slay him while he burned the air

Dragons, dragons, wolves, and snakes
So pierced them all with rusted stakes
And of his wife and of her womb
What path thereof but to the tomb?

From fear and shame that man was born
To eke some truth as lies are torn
And oh the lies that spread to-day
Of fear and shame and cold dismay

How bitter cold that blanket's been
To speak of dangers yet unseen
How once were dragons in our keep
And now, but shadows make us weep

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Artificial mem'ries of
  A place I never knew
Flowing from a fountain in
  An iridescent hue

Greetings gone and courtesy
  Replaced with strong command
Question conversations left
  For stations now unmanned

The joys of life—the tears the pride
  Now given all away
And in their place, a shadow rests
  Of hatred and dismay

Given all a man could want—
  How terrible it's been
Some words were meant to be unheard
  Some sights to be unseen

And where we go—no soul may know 
  For never was it so
That man's own mind could be a slave
  To thoughts he might bestow

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My silver maple in the yard,
You couldn't choose which way to grow
You fought so long and fought so hard
And now you know it's time to go

From those fervent echoes yearning
In your younger sapling days
And your spirit ever burning
As you chased those heav'nly rays

How far and wide those arms could reach
To shelter us in silver shade
And deep, the earth those roots could breach
To know one day, your heart would fade

And now, I see your spotted bark
Your yellowed leaves in clustered fold
Those places time has left her mark
Your roots are crippled, wet, and old

Still - I see the tree I knew
If only for a hurried time
And where you go is only dew
And heaven's rays are more sublime

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A shadow falls upon the east
And covers ev'ry head it finds
From man into a horrid beast
By day, it frees; by night, it binds

And in the west, a torrid heart
Their eyes upon a distant shore
So ready to be torn apart
And cast into the nevermore

Though some may blame the distant foe
For ev'ry conflict rises there
But when the tide recedes below,
We see the hatred everywhere 

Where once were neighbors, friends, and kin
And each could share some bond in love
To now: an enemy within
No ground below; no sky above

Until each heart is swallowed whole
Until there's nothing left to mend
Until he's claimed each living soul
Until we've met our bitter end

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Walls on walls on
Boxes made of bread
The old ones far behind us
The new ones left for dead

Who takes a chamber in his arms
And presses it to sleep
Who comes and sows the common fields
And never cares to reap

Armies within armies within
Ever growing souls
The tattered sail that waves above
With patches made of holes

Who shelters in the heat of day
The serpents by the night
Who for the sport and bloodshed sake
Encourages the fight

Nothing given nothing given
Nothing in its stead
Stomachs filled with emptiness
Hearts, with molten lead

Who leaves behind a burning house
A garden filled with smoke
Whose mem'ries are but with him and
The empty words he spoke

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Little house beneath the oak
  The one covered in dried poison ivy
    The kind that doesn't even warn you with its leaves
    Just sticks and spreads like some alien fungus
    Whose roots strangle deep beneath the bark 

Little blue house, who floats above the tired grass
  Whose floor detached so long ago
  Whose walls are held with nails and staples and duck tape
    And yes, it's duck

I've never seen a bird against your faded blue paint
  Not the brilliant red of the cardinals that live in the crepe
  Not the muted grey of the nuthatches that swoop down from the maples
  Just faded, greyish blue, and the unfinished wood peeking out from within

The other day, I met you there
  Wanting to fix you up
  Or to put you out of your misery
  Or to use you for a candle-holder
  To hang the lights that we don't need

I looked inside your floorless soul
And I saw a little black hornet
Living next to a paper wasp nest
And I wondered how you felt
About becoming a wasphouse

When you were made to be a birdhouse


-

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How far and wide the sky must seem
  To little plants beneath the sea
Whose manna in its daily beam
  Might come alive and come to be

To feed and live on purest light
  To be the source of all that lives
How great and humble in its might
  That what it takes, it freely gives

And of the tow'rs man has made
  Of statues cast in bronze and steel
Each one purchased from the shade
  How from the light we've made a meal

Till heav'ns rest beneath our feet
  Till stars become our patient friend
We'll thank the hands that gave us meat
  Until the light has met its end

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I have asked a thousand times
My purpose and my place
And yet I've never seen a star
To fall from all its grace
No light is blotted from the sky
No nose has left its face

A knife, so rusted to its core
A knife—the very same
And though a fire may fizzle out
Its purpose was its flame
So like a knife or fire, I'll 
Find purpose in my name

For purpose is as purpose does
And so mine seems to be
To put words in an order
That I like to hear and see
And in so doing, find a kin–
A people quite like me

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Two hundred fifty years before today
When man had found his home in foreign land
Had felt the guidance of a greater Hand
And followed where His trails had made a way
Felt certain that their hearts were meant to stay
And in so doing, risked a treason grand
To follow words above the king's command
A greater King had other plans to lay

So it was their great and mighty will
And the Maker's will from which it came
Which brought to us the country we have still
United both in spirit and in name
Unmatched in beauty, thought, or patient skill
Burning on, that bright, undying flame

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I found a little mold along
The corner of my kitchen wall
Assigned it to my future self—
My present schedule much too small

In coming weeks, I found the spot
In terms of size about the same
And in the time since first we met,
Some greater tasks had made their claim

In time, the months went marching by
Till years had passed with nothing done
And then some evening in July,
I found a wall the mold had won

Determined not to let it grow,
I cut through soft and settled rot
But when I opened up the wall,
I saw what former eyes could not

The kitchen gone, the house destroyed
For rot had feasted from within
For want of will and want of war,
My house consumed within my sin

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To wit, to know of crimes untold
To bury them beneath
To suffer not a foetid blow
A blade made for its sheath

O the children, O the babes
They've tossed into the Thames
A far worse fate awaits for those
Bereft, the blood it claims

How callous thee, How cruel thine heart
Thy victims rotted fresh
Till callous cruelty finds thee still
To crows, thy rotten flesh

In the dark and sullied pit
Thine evil couldst survive
But soon, by day, the stakes will rise
To pierce thine heart alive

This bus is full of turbulence
Not a gentle rocking as we meander towards our destination
Not the up and down of maintenance two months past due
But the up and down and down and down
And the engine's smell
Like melted crayons beneath our feet

It may have been a better bus
With shiny shocks and fresh oil between each sprocket
Designed by men who cared
Crafted by men who gave a damn
In hot factories of passion and grit
Beneath fiery suns that held tomorrow's promise

But now the seats are torn - torn and cracked
And the people file in one per aisle
Careful not to touch another's elbow
Careful not to talk too loud
Careful not to care

Because who knows how long
How long this bus can last

On sunny days, those cosmic rays
    Of verisimilitude
Do obfuscate and confiscate
    Our hearts' great magnitude

But in the rain, the muck and pain
    Are drawn up from the ground
And in the clime of grit and grime,
    What once was lost is found

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The Inner Sanctum

Within the rains that fall today
    Among the wet and scattered fray
There calls a sad and distant tone
    Drained of blood and stitched with bone

In caverns buried deep below
    In places man must never know
There resounds the charnel beast
    Whose pride is most; whose grace is least

Come the banshees, come the phantom
    Sing chorus foul and dreadful anthem
Where horns and flutes and earthly drum
    Are scant and drown'd beneath the hum

There, the banished, ancient soul
    Torn in pieces from the whole 
And how that cry might find no end
    Till left is nought and nought to mend

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Patient apparitions 
    move beyond the empty frame
Counting in each breath, 
    in each vestige, in each flame
Waiting and becoming 
    what has never been undone
A fractal shatt'ring in each part—
    together and alone

Who's image is the holy one, 
    which master and which slave?
Whose bearing sets distinction: 
    day and night, and knight and knave
So as above, so as below, 
    the ancient prophets spake
But who can say where ends the rain 
    and where begins the lake?

Crimson adoration 
    and the flood within our veins
So as the flood and as the tide 
    that spans beyond the planes
And when the sacrifice be made, 
    how ripples through the veil
'Til every heart is written 
    and each face beyond the pale

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Three fears and puppet strings
  The fear of chutes and ladders
  The fear of falling down
  The fear of getting up

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