the yearling roasted on the spit
its drippings crackled the fire
huddled in a smoky closed space
family with a neighbour, or two
bags packed, shoes on, ready to go

the meat carefully carved
its skeleton intact, unbroken
with endives rolled in flatbread
unleavened as we had no time
meal's remains destroyed in the fire

we're ready to leave at any moment
from where we're born and always lived
to a place known only from ancient tales
outside, shrieks and wails, of horror and utter terror
inside, goosebumped, hair standing, we waited, in silence

Rapid striking of Copper and Nickel,
Tantalizing both the ear and the heart,
What is it that this hypnotic tune,
That has both the momentum of a freight train and a falling feather,
is trying to tell us?

Realization drops like an anvil upon the egg of a quail

This siren song is calling westward,
O' Hark!
Offering both salvation and  damnation,
The Spirit of the West Herself calls,
Rattling one's teeth with her percussive thunder,
Blinding with the flashes of her lightning,
Strobe-like in both aspects,
Prostrate thyself,
For with every booming step she draws closer,
and the music grows louder.

Is that her steps now?
Or the thundering of your heart in your chest?

She whispers upon the howling winds,
Promising nothing that is in your control to change,
Only that her domain is a hard and still wild place.

It is everything you feel the desire in this moment,
An escape from this quicksand you have found yourself in,
Toward the unknown yet the sought after.

What shall happen next,
That is the chapter that we'd have to write,
For good or ill,
A sign or an omen.

Drive Forward!
With a thundering of your own,
With the ground shaking momentum of a thousand charging horses, I say!
Drive forward with a fury of your own making,
Let your purpose be just and true!

DRIVE!!!

...

And like she was never there,
The Spirit of the West disappears,
Her spectral like visage disappearing into the wall,
The vision broken,
Leaving you once again in the quiet and dimly lit room.

Hope and fear lie sizzling in the hand of a kind dry light sun drenched to the fire of silken sand, the naked voices of ones be heard on the bereaved winch of wind as the niche neglect pitch nuts and bolts to the ****** of grace, filled to the pinch and quench on a human oasis, the stiff of heat slaps the face of the souls cry to the deep sweep of dust and swine smell a sway on the principle of a turning tide, oer the eye of the opal queens velvet cress of sleep sipping her lips to the sweet serene atmospheric, tumbling toward xtasy on the tender rich faint silent hum arrested to the ***** of elemental bliss

What are we doing
I don’t even know
Why can’t I
Just let these feelings go
We’ve stayed innocent
But for how long
Next time we’re alone
What if things move along
That’s not what we want
But I don’t know if that’s true
There’s ideas in my head
That want to be pursued
But I can’t give in
There’s too much to lose
So I'm hopelessly in lust
With nothing I can do

In years of hunger
we workers on the land
long for a good sign

to return
to a free existence
and it has come

Thunder and darkness
The high lords mock
That is what happens!

They let us go
without cattle, we laugh
in their face and stay

supposedly
We secretly pack
go through the village at night

**** a child in every house
and point with the blood knives
at the gold and silver

as our wage of years
After a quick meal, we leave
a long caravan of wagons and cattle

We make it to the Sea of Reeds
before the army comes and
it starts hailing real stones

Doubters start to moan

A day in love is like a thousand years,
With a heart beating but time moves no more.
I know the timelessness of loving you,
Is God-like as in Psalms ninety verse four.

To be in love with you gives me my soul,
Your love is the breath of life from Heaven.
The love my lungs breathe is like the spirit
God breathed in Genesis two verse seven.

Your love shows me mercy, grace, good and truth,
Patience, forgiveness and absence of hate.
It awes me like when God showed Himself in
Exodus thirty-four seven and eight.

The more I love you the simpler it gets,
It’s something I just naturally do.
Love’s forever inscribed in my heart like
Jeremiah thirty-one thirty-two.

I knew help was needed
when I laid down my sword
felt like I was dying inside
enslaved by insecurities
abused with lies
I pushed myself to the side
to ride for the wrong one
thought I was meeting HER,
then I ran into you
my hairs gray but you’ve dyed my soul blue
the mad man blows me east to west
The great spirit, My abba,
in my soul, He invests
I’m ending my complaints
learning to play the hand
keeping my eyes upon the sand

-Ashley R Wright (@wisecurls)