I walked through the portal
leaving sadness, sorrow and grief behind.
My footprints were muddy,
and chains dragging behind me.

I left to find new purpose and freedom,
the old world of which could offer me none.
Every man that returned was a changed man,
a freed man set on a new path of greatness.

Now that man would be me,
who would find extraordinary power.
Even now I can feel my shoes being cleansed,
the chains feeling a little bit lighter around me.

Oh, what glory is this that I've found,
this glorious thing that has shaped me!
A changed man am I,
finally free from the bounds of confinement.

But, wait! What's this, this feeling that I feel,
filling me with lust and pulling me closer?
Something I have never heard of or seen,
a thing unforeseen by anything I know.

Hark! He knocks unceasingly on my door,
with the voice of a newborn and the staff of a man.
I am drowning in want for this,
yet this new world is filled with it.

When I let him in he comes with a howl,
and bounds me with new chains made of strong steel.
I am captured once more in this illusion of perfection,
too naive to see the truth of the dirt.

My shoes are again muddy,
but with the dirt of this society instead of that one.
The chains trap me and I am changed,
a slave forever chasing what I can never have.

The Evil Stepmother sent her away,
from Queen of the castle to Queen of the hay.
A servant of beauty to Master's dismay,
all because she thought she had to repay.

The Stepmother wanted her out of the way,
and the trust in the Huntsman he sure did betray.
Alone in the woods to the calls of blue jays,
she soon found a house and stood in the doorway.

The Dwarves soon arrived and did shock they convey,
but welcomed Snow White as she'd made a buffet.
Together a friendship as she had runaway,
until one day that wicked Witch led her astray.

Many times she came throwing the animals in a disarray,
then one day Snow was alone because the Dwarves were delay.
The Queen was excited until the next day,
when she tumbled down and died, but there was no time for hurray.

A prince came along to a bright sun's rays,
and soon enough the Prince was Snow's new fiance.
The dwarves were awarded and were asked to stay,
they did and made statues for the palace out of clay.

Yet the Queen's corpse under the stones it does lay,
the fungi growing around and the skin brown with decay.
Her legacy is black and the children do say,
"The Black Witch is dead, her Mirror in the lake; hurray!"

Footprints muffled,
a pile of rusted keys,
under a broken stone.

A reflection of glass,
through the trees glow
the heart of the river.

Cat
Emerald
.
Missing

An evening passes
and the dawn light breaks,
while a silence stretches thin
under the light of the moon.

Another night passed,
and seas swallowed the moon,
and the sun cried darkness
upon the foams of the waves.

When Night cried for light,
the moon did not shine;
drowned from the subtle hands,
by a delicate touch of sky.

A chair in the corner sits huddled with the shadows,
while a second chair lowers itself by the door.
A window between the chairs hangs silently on wall,
as the curtains whisper with the wind outside.

Towards the left of the window is a shrunken bed,
with bedposts like redwoods and the body of a willow.
On the bed is a bundle of fabrics and tweed,
twisting and spinning amongst eachother.

Joining the first chair is a spindly wooden table,
with wobbly fingers and with only three legs.
The top of the table is clustered with trinkets,
pinecones from Alaska and feathers from Pompeii.

Littering the floor are denims and glass,
clothing and pieces of vases strewn under the door.
Thrown under the second chair is a pair of old shoes,
weathered and worn and left to die.

On the walls with the window is doodles and sheets,
drawings of childhood tapped in the space.
Paintings on the plaster are dusted with flakes,
burdens of memories of past and future.

In the center of the room stands a coat stand of mahogany,
standing tall and strong in the ruins of its lost kingdom.
Unaware of what goes on outside of his window,
all he knows is the dust and objects trapped with him in the room.

The minute hand ticks,
and the hour hand follows.
One strike; it's half past.