~ A Nursery Rhyme ~

By night the lamplights bloom in blue,
and Squinty Bat comes lurking through.
A flicker, a whisper,
a crooked spin,
she twirls in the hush where dreams begin.

She nibbles moths that orbit the glow,
grim as the gossip graveyards know.
Around the lamp
she loops and slides,
a velvet ribbon on moonlit tides.

At morning sun - dreadful, bright! -
Miss Clara Parrot claims the light.
She squawks and scolds,
so green, so loud,
a herald of day to the mortal crowd.

She tattles from trees with her feathered choir,
spilling the secrets that night conspired.
Their laughter clatters
like shattered glass,
naming each sin the shadows let pass.

Neighbors groan and pull their sheets
as Clara reigns over waking streets.
While Squinty swings
in her secret nook,
dangling like crime in a dusty book.

By day, it’s Clara, gossip and glare,  
by night, it’s Squinty, a ghost in the air.  
And before you ask:
Which one is blessed?
the sun and the moon will refuse that test.

Each court crowns a fool
Some wear it too well
I danced for his rule
Now I rot in his cell

A fool for the plot
He praised me in jest
But dead men still dance
When denied their rest

So I wait for a storm
To darken the land
Till cracks start to form
Beneath his command

Till the famine-worn tread
With their torches held high
To harvest the crumbs
Of a banquet denied

They carry my pain
In the heat of their cry
For the crown and the chain
And a kingdom awry

My cell starts to moan
As the ramparts collapse
They tear through the stone
And free me at last

I walk through the blaze
As the palace combusts
They gave me a stage
Now revenge I shall ******

He begged for his life
With tears on his cheek
I offered my knife
And let silence speak

No need for a trial
His crimes were well known
So I asked with a smile
Who had the last laugh

I walked this town with madness,
Where streets once full of gladness—
And I cried into the heavenly sky
That no sadness shall ever blow by
Upon this town of madness.

For all the churches and their bells
May ring warning about this hell,
But no bell can reach the drinking well
That drove this town to madness.

I turned around seeking that sound
That haunted every morrow—
That ripply wave that intertwines
And beckons us to sorrow.

I stood amidst this desolate town
That wore the well as its crown,
And every building knelt broken down
To hail the King of Madness.

The woman is writing in an unknown ink.
Izōs waurda in rauþai blōmins gamelida.
Darkness drives her hand.
Þaurstei blōþis swē þis ufsnaiþandins.
Writing her lexicon of horror.
Eis beidun saiƕan izos wulþu.
Volume bled at the seams.
Her voice was that of angels.
Kussus lubja-miliþs.
Eyes are mountain lions hunting in reed fields.
Gadáuþnan fram izōs handau was fahēþs.
She skips in the rainstorms.

Prayers sung in tongues forgotten,
Clerestories bare forgotten saints.
Weathered cathedral knells laments,
Blackened — a deathly taint.

But when the night desolate,
When no man wanders beyond the forest trees,
A woman of stars begins to blaze;
The bells start to ring.

The cathedral now an orchestra;
The cadavers now awake.
The star woman descends from the void,
The once dead climb from dying brake.

Her being graces the ground;
The ghosts follow her presence.
A waltz with her children begins —
The cathedral echoes psalms with reverence.

The height of the ledge granted miles of visibility, from which I perceived a landscape so barren that decay itself had littered the earth with writings of its famine.
Fixed overhead, the harsh sun exhausted every part of my being as my eyes pooled with gratitude—for I could not imagine the state of my vision had the ground been more solid and hoary.
Abandoning hope of amelioration, I watched as the stone below binged upon the light—reflecting only that which met it between guzzles.
From this binge, a subsequent purge of radiant heat ensued, seemingly serving as a form of remittance to the air through which the energy had initially been permitted to pass.
Tracing the cliff's face, the newly heated air rose in gusts to the point at which it met mine—further immersing me in a growing sum of vertigo.
Overwhelmed, I took a step back and—despite my efforts—still somehow managed to collide with everything existing outside of my posterior. The view of the desert displayed itself to me in full; I saw a place unapologetically indifferent to acknowledgement or understanding.
Haunted by permanence, the thought of the city struck me—and I became overwhelmed by the disparity; I felt myself choke on the recollection of its nourishless bounty—an ever-expanding sea of stimulation, perpetually begging for attention: damning us to be pruned by its abundance while starving in its own growth.
For centuries, a desire for more has given reason to manufacture new means for innovation; and in its wake, it has left nothingness itself—the true logical default—to now stand as one of the few remaining novelties.