A skeletal stag standing ten trees tall
Hanging moss adorning His wide antlers, patches of rocky lichen covering His driftwood bones
Large cloven hooves stepping carefully yet purposefully among the bleached remains littering the forest floor
He alone reigns here, in this place beneath ours
Even the pines fall silent as He passes
Even the stones
The air is old here
Thick with a power lost to time
Only He is left; a dimming flicker in a collective consciousness
Keeping a lonely vigil in an ancient forest a thousand miles deep and a hand's width beside us
No breath is drawn here
The soft rattling of His timber ribcage is the sole sound as He moves
Ceaselessly
Without rest
To a place always changing, never quite there
The ossuaries lay in a heavy silence
He assures the eternal slumber of all who rest here
The hollows in His skull seem to observe them, undisturbed
He moves on
His name has been forgotten for millennia
This sacred ground has become but a fleeting memory
Few old gods remain, lost to the quickening of time
He remembers, as He stands keeper of this place
Of an age before ours
When they would polish the skulls of the hunt with holy oils in His name
Dancing wildly and unburdened around towering flames
Primal sounds ripping raw from reverent lips
Now He is all but a wavering in the annals
He pauses in His endless march
Raises His great antlers to the thick canopy above
He listens
Feels the shift -- another one has faded
He will most likely be the last of His kind
A somber sentinel tasked with ensuring the dead wake not from their final sleep
Ensuring the silence is suffocating
A deep, weighted vibration
As if the place under ours was itself thrumming with power
Though none remain who once spoke His true name in fearful whispers
He will outlast
For all will eventually come to know
The one they now call death

War; absolute
This will be my macadam into re-assemblage
For if I'm not on edge, I'm taking up too much precious space
What wickedness lies beneath the surface of the skin?
I should know this place better than anyone
But my landscape has become mercurial
Ever changing, impossible to map
I am forced to navigate its pitfalls in ever complicating ways
It has become a desolate place
I alone should rule here, my sovereignty unquestioned
Yet I've become content to be complacent, and have allowed a sickly intruder to slip past my walls
They infect, demoralize: turn my skin to stone
They must be expunged; cut out, snipped from the healthy flesh like a cancer
As one removes a gangrenous foot to save the leg
Though my tools at the moment are blunt, I sharpen them daily with the whetstone afforded to me
They will not continue to expel bile into the bloodstream for long
My strength returns by the hour
They know this, and they tremble
I am the goddess to whom this altar is devoted
I am righteous fury, come to cleanse this blight with holy fire and flood
The war drums sound as the gate is lifted

The iron bell tolls -- judgement day cometh

I am sailing upon the ocean
In a rickety vessel perforated and laden with rotten boards
The black water surrounding me is rough with roiling violence
The island that was once in the distance, where I would weather the storm, is now gone
I am rocked on every side as restless giants churn the waters to foam
A profound sense of dread permeates every fibre of my body; if I lose my grip on the rigging I'll surely plunge overboard
Dragged down to the cold, crushing depths by the hungry beasts lurking below
The pale sun only breaks through the clouds overhead to mock me
A momentary respite before the hurricane resumes, bent on consuming me
My navigational charts are all wrong, the stars have switched their positions in the sky
My anchor can find no purchase
The dark sea stretches to the horizon in every direction
I know not where salvation lies
The surface ripples with movement
They are waiting
                              waiting
                   ­                         waiting
Though I must reach into the salty water to distill it, I dare not dip a single finger
For the coiling leviathans beneath will rise to meet me with great gnashing teeth and ugliness to swallow me whole
It will be dark
It will be silent
And I will be alone
So I forego the water entirely
Learning instead to live with parched lips and a leathery tongue
And the gnawing emptiness within

He tasted like cigarettes and baser intentions
The spiced hint of whiskey on his thunderstorm tongue
The kind of rebellion that young girls lie for
With soft, swollen lips, and nowhere to run

City of rust punctured by stone
Where the rain only stops for the snow
Painting with a palette of opiates and pocket change
She'll christen the night with a smoke

She commandeers my attention with a modest sleight of hand
The boys in the band all write ballads just for her
I ignore their tune as she slips out of the room
A creature lithe and limber has no reason to linger with a man like me
She's carving sin on the back of a bedpost
She'll show you eternity
Her eyes advise against this ill-requited course of action
As the ghost of tomorrow falters in the doorway
Pensive thoughts of uncertainty: her duplicity is second only to catastrophe
Fairylights cause retention of the shape of her thighs, too lewd to mention
Though branded in my mind is the fluttering of her linen dress that night
In her wake, she left the air charged with esoteric energy
My fingers far too clumsy, fumbled to bottle it for my own
Foolish fantasies rose to life in my mind as her hand brushed mine, and she suggested we go anywhere but home
Of crackling records in Exeter, over-watered succulents, and fresh ink on vellum; I averted my sight
Opting to stare instead at the passing streetlights, trying to hide my  blushing thoughts, though from her face it became obvious that she saw
And the secret in her smile, knew unlike I, that tonight would survive only a short while