ghastly


hell draws a breath from her lips
a mere sigh
but with the might to steal away life
airtight souls with vacant alibis

hell draws a little closer
...inching up the ice
bending and stretching and molding into shape, its children etched in glass
crystal golems with ruby eyes and clear shadows
forming into their army ranks
wielding a vast wrath beneath their inured plasma

she runs along the gutter bed
and squeezes herself free of the wretched grasp
the bleak intestinal tract of the devil...like a gallstone

bearing witness to the screams of those young brave men
who naively dared to be the heroes, the martyrs, the first of the bottom feeders
unworthy in their dread
as they perish beneath the overbearing thrust of giant thunderclouds
balanced deftly on the scales of unreality

alas, it seems that some higher power is busy in completing this evil task
of summoning as much chaos as five fingers can channel
sweeping away the ranks of soldiers, the streams of purity, with a firm flick of the wrist
and his minions are bathed in the cosmic rays of his wicked light
and the golden army charges the breach that separates underworld from surface

some may be shattered and rendered helpless and some may be too weak
in the shadows of its seemingly insurmountable barriers
from which are discharged millions of brilliant gleaming lightning blasts
but the strong will not perish with the meek
they will weave their crystal claws into the seams and threads at hand
they will cleave and wound and blast apart the jaws of time
to enter the outer realms from deep in the distant future

and with havoc and chaos as their teachers, their guides, their souls, their eyes
their hearts, their senses, their loves, their hates, their lives...
it will be a matter of indefinite, equivocal moments
(as if time were not itself obscured among the meaningless haze of the future)
before all is laid to waste; the golden army being wholly and instantaneously victorious
in its quest for total annihilation

...and while the victims of the eminent thrash and burn in the flames of such ultraviolence
there is nothing left to say about the world at heart, no more priceless ancient wisdom to
unravel
no unmarked territory to claim, no new fables to narrate to its children
and it is true that there is nothing left to say about the world
for there is nary a voice to speak for it

and in the minds of the dead and dying
withered and bleeding thoughts in mental decay
searching for the sunlight

the bliss of angel sunshine
how could they live their perfect lives
in ether’s newfound shade?

if only they realized
that they never had that much sway	
in the land of rape and honey

when she hurts
they cry	
when she kills
they die
when she bleeds them dry

glitter, glamour, guilt	
give in
and get it over with

glimmer, glower, guilt
give up
and purge your hearts of this	

it’s the apathy that stabs at darkness
that of love and hate
and from every which way
it flows into your pores and up your spine
feel the shadows lurk

it’s the same old world from the same old tale
regurgitated a million times over
but never in the way it was meant

searching for the sunlight
nowhere to hide from the darkness
and if only they’d realized
they never had that much sway
in the land of rape and honey...

...and in what seemed to be the end
when their sadness met its death
when eminence was innocence
hell drew that breath from her lips

vacant souls with airtight alibis
either which way they turn and fly

the ghouls gain speed
the fools lose ground
and jupiter whirls by with his mighty
wind
and draws a little closer
draws a portrait of an ogre
bound for heaven
raped of sin
cleansed and born of imperfection
	
onward they perish
slain in angst
by the gods and their almighty garish fate
	
cipher’s children watch so dire
as they learn of such angelic pretense
they gather round heaven’s funeral pyre
and vow never to do as such is morbid

and across heaven’s countenance
etched in gold the words are read:
I AM CRYSTAL CROSS
I AM MYSTIC WHORE
I AM WYVERN DREAD
	
and the gods’ creations lost the war
and their domain is theirs no more
and etched in red the world is bled:
I AM FURY SCYTHE
I AM ANGEL DEATH
I AM ETHER’S LAST
but in the end they are merely left aghast




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