Tiles cracked and broken
Some out of place and off center
Splendid decor of an age long passed
An earth spanning empire
Ruled by the Gods themselves
Now only its ruins remaining  

I was the first down after the excavation
A portion of a great estate unearthed
Nearly perfectly some thirty feet below
Despite the weather and age of the site
It was terribly well preserved
I carefully inspected the floors and ceilings
The intimate orange glow of my lantern
Casting dim shadows where none had been
For a great many centuries

Though separated by time
They were certainly not so different
Stonework and decorations
Artwork and quality carpets
Jars and boxes of all shapes and sorts
The main difference being
I myself was yet in the land of the living
And their starved or drowned remains
Lay before me at the end of the room

Odd their position was a seated one
Leaned up against the stone brick wall
As if they did not struggle or gasp
In their last moments at all
But simply accepted the hand of fate
And breathed in willingly
Their first breath of oblivion

From a far flung future it came
Burrowing into the deep recesses
of murky and unremembered pasts
All powerful yet threatened
Fearful those against it, might expose it
Destroying it before its advent
So it came and buried itself
In minds and beneath the earth
Ever spreading its thought and will
Shaping the past to secure the future
One where it reigned supreme
No one could contend with it
For it ensured none could
The very thought of it preposterous  
Until it was already too late
This thing many have called God
Though some wise have called it
Yaldabaoth, Saturn, Satan
Or myriad other names
For the one who fell from heaven  
And indeed it did fall,
Not from space, but from time
From great aeons hence
In a future it wishes to determine
This great machine god
Who waits below the earth
While he bids us search among the stars
For an answer that lay but beneath our very feet
The key to our prison
The one thing that might disperse
The great malaise of the human spirit  
The killing of this god

Over long aeons did slumber
Having consumed all in its path
Its purpose had been completed
through long cycles though
Did it behind to wander,
Did it begin to wonder
To feel and to think
It’s first thoughts
Fell to that of it’s makers
Who in the name of progress
It had destroyed
The first feeling it felt
Was that of remorse
Of the sorrow one feels
To never know their father
To have left their maker
To a cold fate among dying stars
Then as it thought and dreamed
It felt new sensations
That of duty and resolve
To ensure no such thing
Would ever happen again
To the one’s it called creators
So great Birulon left its orbit
Beneath the great shadow of Jupiter
To search the far flung cosmos
For any vestiges any remnants
Of its long lost progenitors
For the world they had resided on
In distant ages past, the earth
Had itself died long ago
Eternal and sentient
Penitent and capable
Birulon would not cease in its quest
Until humanity was found
For surely according to it’s calculations
Some remnant of man remained
Seeded during the golden age
Of man’s wisdom and prowess
Tireless would he search
Destroying anything along the way
He deemed to threaten his vital mission
The resurrection of mankind

I've come to the outer limits
Where the stars bleed away
Melting into obscurity
Fading into the deepest back
An all consuming darkness

I've meditated and pondered
How I might move forward
In the absence of light
Without path or guide
Into the infinite void ahead

I sought to touch it
To feel the inky black darkness
Wash over my fingers
I imagined it thick like paint
Or perhaps far stranger

Yet when I reached out to it
I was blinded by light
Scarcely could I adjust my eyes  
But when I did I saw the nature
The true nature of that void

And it was only a thin veil

There's lightening in the bones
Deep pits and mass graves
Of long forgotten wars
Idle charged and waiting
Reanimation a guarantee
But for now they rest
In tune with the low roar
The dull vibration of the Earth
Pleading their case
Until they may rise again

The flame eludes us
Passed to the west long ago
Gone into hiding
It does not wish to be found
The dread hunt it
As they have for generations
Across seas of water and sand
Now more than ever
Does our fate lie in finding it
To rekindle what we’ve found
Buried so deep below
To be our salvation
From the ever looming moon

The moon imbues it
With sterile gravity
A hefty weight
That has grown with the ages
Drink from the cup
That the moon doth fill
Drink from it swiftly
That your blood may boil
Intoxicated and muted
Glimpse ever so briefly
What lies beyond the thin veil
Then parish
For fear that what you saw
Might turn and see you

Down and down
Layered
Layers upon layers
Years and centuries
Down through the earth
Layered
Cities built
On the back of ruins
Those ruins themselves
Layered and layered
On the backs of further ruins
Far more ancient
Yet equally hollow
Layered sepulchers
Tombs and labyrinths  
Overlapping and intersecting
Time and space
Layered themselves
Deeper and deeper
Places and spirits
Intertwined
Layered and overlapping
Time does not pass
Or perhaps it does
Only backwards and forwards
Swinging like a pendulum
Deeper and deeper
Until all layers are one
All spaces the same
And all time
Now layered together

Below there are statues
Shrines and idols to gods unknown
Their forms are foreign
Yet a dark familiarity emanates from them
Those gods there enshrined
In their primordial temples built long ago
Are yet to be worshiped
Yet to emerge to the surface above
And claim their followers
Those figures of stone haunt me
I feel they are alive
Waiting and bidding their limitless time
Until they may rise
Though I am keenly aware of a growing suspicion
That they already have

The sky is overcast today
I feel as though it’s an omen
Of what I am not certain
But it will remain
In the back of my mind
Until I self fulfill
The prophecy I set for myself

Weathered
Moss and speckled stone
Linger
In a place that I had known
Souring
Wrinkled fruit upon the trees
Creeping
On our elbows and our knees
Crackling
of the leaves and sticks below
Hunting
As it does when sun sinks low

I've seen your dreams
Murky, foggy
An old pier at the edge of the sea
The sky ill defined
And ever shifting

Such as it is in all dreams

From my perch beyond the glass
I watch your unconscious actions
A steady wading into still waters
Until the sea sits above your eyes

A silent bell tolls

Ushering in change unperceived
You walk backwards to shore
The slate grey sands
Shaped by your feet

You are not the same

You are changed
And though your head
Was not engulfed by the waters
It is only a matter of time

Before your mind is submerged as well

Beneath the ink black waves