There’s a man been hung at the old crossroads
In the village of Little Deeping,
And in his pockets a couple of toads
That were there when they caught him, creeping,
They bound his arms and they hung him high
On the bough of a mystic rowan,
And filled his stuttering mouth with straw
To quell the spell of his going.

The village is set in a mystery
That was old when the world was growing,
Three thousand years of its history
Is lost to the world, unknowing,
The valley’s not in the land of them
Who are yet to stumble upon it,
For men live now as they once lived then
With their wives in a primrose bonnet.

And superstition is rife down there
In the village of Little Deeping,
Where women never reveal their hair
With men in the meadow, reaping,
They take their water deep from a well
And light each cottage with lamplight,
Using a primitive type of oil
That seeps from the soil, in moonlight.

Their brides leap over a witches broom
When the harvest grain is swelling,
Under the beams of a crescent moon
With a bonfire near their dwelling,
They change their partners every year
If their bellies haven’t swollen,
Or hang their charms up over the door
So their offspring won’t be stolen.

They live their lives by the Druid gods
Who would bring about the seasons,
And never question the rights and wrongs
For nature has its reasons,
Their days began at the break of dawn
To the sound of the cockerel crowing,
An ancient bird with its comb and spurs
That would bring the sun up, showing.

But Tam Eilann was a surly man
Who would often lie in, sleeping,
Dreaming away the early day
While the rest were out there, reaping,
He hated hearing the cockerel crow
As it bid the sun, its rising,
When he said, ‘that cockerel has to go,’
He was more than just surmising.

One autumn night, he snuffed his light
Went out in the darkness, creeping,
And caught the only cockerel left
In the village of Little Deeping,
His knife flashed once in the cold moonlight
And left the cockerel dying,
His neighbours hurried to see the sight
Of their only cockerel, lying.

‘You’ve shamed the gods and must pay the odds,’
They said as they bound him, crying,
Then hung him high on the rowan tree
And cursed, as they watched him dying.
The cattle low in the byre still
And the bees, they stay in the hive,
For there’s not been a single sunrise there
Since the day the cockerel died.

David Lewis Paget

Stars spark from a deeping, clear, blue winter sky as
the moon prepares to enter the scene, stage left.

A breeze sweeps away the last blushes of sunlight and
evening caroling-bells, ring like wind-chimes.

The evening chill makes students walking back from
classes seem to walk a little closer for warmth.

Students, huddled to nail down evening plans seem to smoke,
like the exhaust of cars exiting campus in bumper to bumper traffic.

Wet sidewalks, like dark and winding mirrors, twist reality, inverting
and reflecting lights - bending them into pointing the way home.

FROmRosesDeeply
D w,n
o      inrose's
        d;E
          e
         ply Sleeps a downy deep rose
A rose unrising sleeping
A rose of deeply sleeping
Downy Petals weeping
From the bulb of deeply sleeping
Sleeping deeply Rose,RISE!andSPEAKsoSWEETLY,
             a colour sweetly Rose
a colour of your sleeping
    the colour that youaren't speaking
       (when your downy petals sleeping)
deeping in their sleeping
                won't break that darkness speaking
'bout thy downy petals sleeping

He undertook
  Such a jolly folly
To search for his heart's twin

O'er plain, and peak
   Never sparing daring
Mad quest he did begin

He careless spent
  All his funny money
For he spared no expense

Heard of a man
   said to uncover lovers
Without a recompense

"He's only known
   as the Giant Bryant"
For there were none bigger

So off he went
  For how dare-he tarry
With the greatest vigor

Within one moon
  He did righted sighted
The giant's stone castle

And cautious stepped
  Midst the towers flowers
For he was quite facile

With guarded prose
  Lest he adverse converse
Relayed his quest of years

And though none be
  A more mighter blighter
Tall Bryant shed six tears

"Your search for love"
    Reflects gallant talent
And will surely quench thirst

In yonder vale
  In a deeping sleeping
A daughter who's born first
    
A true love's heart
   And hair flaxen waxen
Braids tressed with a blue fleur

She longs for love
    To keep-her deeper
Hope steels her to endure

It was just so
  For he found-her sounder
In the vale with fields green

Her braided hair
   In breeze saving waving
With the suns golden sheen

As he held her
  In their blissing kissing
Knew he'd ne'er search again

For in her eyes
   Shown a growing knowing
Reflecting his hearts twin

INTRO

What happens beyond the realms of  reasoning, where do the lines of  reality blur, How close are the boundaries between light and dark, between dusk and dawn.
  What takes us beyond the thresh hold, the point of  sunlight and shadows, Are  we lying in wait as our limitations are questioned? How many souls have been taken unwillingly to the depths .
         Fall into a place, this chaos which so quickly crept into me, slipping away bringing me back to thoughts of sanity.
  But tainted thoughts stain what innocence is left, making me vulnarble and weak.
  Corruption is tempting you to just give into its wicked ways, influenced by bad habits unable to be dealt with, your surccumed to the sins.
  Such problems now swallow you entirely. There is no cure to this disease, I'm fighting and pondering a hopeless battle, I see no victory for me in the end.
  I will never win, I fear and know this now.

CHAPTER ONE

After the silence entered me,got inside rmy head  ,the lack of sound drowned out all the outside noise . Oh so quiet my world became,except for a suttle  humming,buzzing which echoed in my ears, I could only make it cease with the voices in my mind,my thoughts which I could now hear, and I heard them loud and clear. I heard fear, panic,uncertainty, so many questions I had no answers for.  I told myself its just this happens,maybe its just age,it won't last, this silence won't last,right. Yet another voice told me that something has gone terribly wrong here,and that this is only the begging of my end.  Along came the silence with it then came isolation, one by one everyone I loved let me and has not yet came back. Not even strangers met my path, instead I came across loneliness who now won't leave my side, all alone left to deal with me by myself.

CHAPTER TWO


It didn't take much time until the whispers began at first they only came with dusk,the end of day,when the sun sets taking the light from the world. The sky dims ,lower and lower until all is covered with a blanket of darkness. Shadows creep in slowly cascading across my walls, they remind me that something wicked this way comes,the essence of dread is in the air. An unsettling aura keeps me from sleep, as night falls my eyes grow heavy and my mind is so tattered. Yet slumber eludes me for the fear is much stronger. I lye  awake yet another night. Up until yesterday only an unwelcoming silence suffocated me made my emptiness almost unbearable. Then,well then it was broken, in the 2am hour, a whisper entered my dreamless conscience mind,from no distinct place and yet from every direction both at once

CHAPTER THREE

With such length of time now with deaf ears, I instantly noticed the change of frequencies, though it spoke in a low,low pitch normally it would go unheard or simply mistaken as a gust of wind. But lying there uneasy amounst the darkness of solitude,lacking of sleep and being not of sound mind by this point, I had begun to speak my thoughts aloud, answering my own questions, listening to my own voice somehow gave me comfort when nothing else could. Whispers,quiet whispers echo into the night, for my ears only. I can't clearly understand what they tell me, but the tones of each word gave
off a unsettling undertones that sent chills through me, if only I could understand, but  my  translation of these whispers are inaudible, pinned down by a fear that I'm sinking in slowly,like quicksand,its slowing pulling me under. A catatonic scream paralyzes every part of me, and I can't stop this, this downward spiral into madness. A descent into insanity, I feel myself growing weaker as my mind struggles against  chaos and the discontent , my dreams are dying before my eyes that will not close so I might rest, no no lately the days have brought me only misery,and a question of my faith, it will not give me a moment of ease cause every night has been just the same

CHAPTER FOUR

Why is this happening to me, why won't this just stop, and let me be, this hope fades the longer I live this way, won't somebody come save me, I'm wasting away and I have no control , my will is broken now. How did I not see this coming, something wicked this way comes, it comes for my soul, every peice of me turns black, and it hurts until I'm numb, A sudden suffer rips over me just before dawn, I  understood the  whisperes after all ,go adead just give in, suffocation is near, taken into a sea of self despair, this life you live and breath isn't yours any longer, step by step you will stumble, until you fall, until your empty and hollow.  Where can I go, where will I run, when there's nowhere to hide, nowhere at all. I thought i saw a glimpse of the mourning sun before I fainted from the weight of realizing that I am far from the better days ,tomorrow will lead me further, is this real, or I'm I only dreaming, is this reality or have I imagined all of this, I just don't know these days, time laughs in my face, and I sit silent and still. Watching myself fall,and fall and fall

CHAPTER FIVE

  Down in the dark, an endless night, keeps away the sunshine, cause lately I've been stuck in the shade, wishing for brighter days that are so faintly seen in the distance, I fear none of my wishes will be granted, now many of will be destroyed. I can not change this spiral into extinction, helplessly I watch myself stumbling, crumbling, and slowly coming apart.
  As I live and breath, I see my life wasting away.
Choking on what is yet to come, everyday brings me another dose of misery and a lothing ache that spreads thru me , suffocation is draining me from the inside out, What is pain, I can't scream loud enough to express what has taken ahold of me these days
  All this crept in on me like a cloud, why me I keep asking myself, won't this just go away, won't this just let me be, did I deserve this, well did i , nobody should ever know these wicked ways and all the inflict upon your soul.

CHAPTER 6

Y So with my mind a mess so much so that my consintration strains each thought, I can barely function anymore, and sleep depervation blurs my vision,ive been seeing traces and objects that aren't really there. Plus add the pain, loneliness, and total breakdown of my will, the stress is more then I can handle, I bear a heavy burden, and the weight is crushing me, but what can I do, nothing, I can't run far enough,or hide where I can't be found, please save my soul I whisper aloud, to late the damage is done, this is how I will die, surcombed to a bittersweet end, one day at a time. Now adrift into the void that swallows me up ,and a darkness dissolved another
day

CHAPTER 7

Within a few days I have managed to lose everything, All I am, all I gave and all I  made of this life, Step by step I watched it taken from my grasp, I saw what I worked so hard for be stolen, so easily from me. Peice by price my very exsistance was shattering , All this has torn my world whole apart,  it is being taken out from right underneath my feet.
   Ya I've been experiencing some real trials and tribulations ,they say life isn't easy  but they don't go into depths of how ****** up it can be, or how far down you can fall without any warnings or signs that you didn't realize until it was to late and the damage has been done.  Oh no I've heard some really messed up stories about some of the **** some people have lived thru. But in my personal opinion my life started 2 days ago and it this life of mine since then has been slowly deterating,

CHAPTER 8

ya I'm a sad sort who isn't alive in a sense but instead a slipping mindless  lost soul, that has nothing to look forward to because tomorrow isn't going to be any better and it never will.
    When the sun rises up from the darkness  bringing you Into another morning your wishing harder and harder wouldn't come. That just one night would be your last and you wouldn't take another breath of the morning air. Why oh why can't you just fade out with the darkness,  why oh why can't these misfourtonate events of lately end, I just want everything to just end. And if you Were in my shoes I know for certain you would feel the same way as I do now.


CHAPTER 9

Y … Well I can not express these emotions that have, but they are intensely surging inside me. And I only wish I could share my pain, if only there was someone besides myself to share what I'm going through. It would make it a little easier, well probably not but at least someone else would understand,to feel what I do right now.
So it may seem like I'm droning on and on, Im probably not telling my story so anyone can make sense of it.
  So sorry if I haven't made sense or if I've told this scattered all about.  My thoughts aren't as sharp or clear as they were before this nightmare started, a few short no make that long,long days ago.

Chapter 10

YThis verse keeps repeating in the back of my mind, kinda like a
  song you  hear somewhere but your not sure where, and can't get outta your head ,you find yourself humming it subconsciously ,and this is whats stuck in mine.
  Here I am, Here in this place, Here in this state,Here I am a nowhere Wonderer.
  This is me, This is all of me, This is what I've become, This is who you see now, LA LA LA LA
  I hum this melancholy tune as sappy as it may be,all day long from morning to evening, 24 hours,no 48 hrs. , no 64 hrs. now. I guess I've lost count but it seems that there's been a broken record placed someplace inside my head.

chapter 11

YSo this brings me back to the present hour.  And once again, yet one more day which hasnt let up on any of torment continuing to be inflicted upon my mind, body and soul. I struggled through the sunlight until the moonlight shone down upon me.
  Naturally I find myself lying silent and still, insomnia plagues my weairy self , drained of any motivation. I really couldn't move or accomplish a single thing, I felt frozen inside myself, trapped in a almost vegetable state.
      Dropped in the velvet shroud of darkness, night has placed a veil over the land, and it has me in its embrass but instead of a calming drowsiness as  all others are effected, I instead have an allergic reaction.  For sleep will not come to my tired restless soul, not when fear enters the mind and stirs up the worst of thoughts, how can I relax with such horrible not stations.
      

Chapter 12

T  Here I am starring into the air as the clock marks 3 in the am hour.  I almost thought I might or that I could catch a few zzzzz's, a quick cat nap to recooperate,to regenerate my mind,oh yes my mind in such a desperate need of rest. As well as my body, my sore,aching bones, im throbing all the way to my very core. So when I felt at ease for how ever brief a moment it may last I willed sleep to come, sandman bring me to the land of nod, please oh please.
  But of course as I shouldn't of expected much less, I blinked and my moment was gone, once more I wouldn't dream,wouldn't sleep, wouldn't find slumber or any escape from my new found reality,
In a land far far away, fantasy and make beleive are put on pause cause my presence has been marked absent

Chapter 13

   They started in a low low  tone, the whispers.
Whisper,whisper,whisper, ascending louder with each tick tock of the clocks hands, clockwise,round and round the clocks face marking time, reminding me my life grows shorter with each tick and each tock.
  Ya t-i-m-e isn't on my side, oh no its not, but it makes me feel lm gonna die, and I'll keep running back, yes I'll keep running back.  Ya I can't stop even if I tried. N-o-o-o time isn't on my side, and that's a brutal fact.
Hhiisss, hiss, blahblahblah,yaddayaddayadda, mumbles of the incoherent voices, the voices I guess if that's what you want to call them, these whispers calling out to me, relentlessly tearing me down , thru all the twilight hours
of the night.
   With the morning dawn,  the whispers grow quite once more, disapating with the dark skies.
  Im conflicted by the sight of the sun rising, not sure if I welcome the light of day or curse another day I find myself in it.
  For one daybreak ends the whispers which I'm sssooo thankful for, but yet its another day I have to deal with the misery and pain that seems to intensify with every day that comes and gos and comes back for another round.
  
  

chapter 14


  I got a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror today and I almost didn't recognize the stranger staring back at me me face had changed, my cheeks where sunken in, I didn't notice how much weight I had lost, but I guess I hadn't eaten a thing for days I just had no appetite the thought of food made me nausious, so I went without.
  And my eyes they looked so vacant my pupils where so dialated like eyes gone black, to match the deep darkened circles under them.
Just a glance and you could tell ive been neglecting my health, I looked pretty banged up, a real mess. I didn't dare look to long cause my appearance made me sick to my stomach, in only  3 days going on 4 I seemed to have aged 10 years, and the deeping lines on my face showed it.
Oh what a sorry sight I am, and I'm glad no one will see me this way, even if someone did I had a feeling they wouldn't even care. I let out a depressing sigh I am damaged goods now, this black cloud that hangs over me has made sure to push and shove everything I had, all that I loved. Took my life right out of my hands and crushed it, so that piece by price my life wasn't my own anymore, I had nothing to link me to the life I once knew. Why me, I don't think I'll ever know. But what a tangled web they've wooven for me, and on that note I let out another mournful sigh.
  

Chapter 15

YSo I push and shove well corruption bends my will, no matter what I do I can not make it still. Instead Im inflicted with a disease that there is known cure for, my diagnosis is a fatal one with a slim chance to nil that I'm gonna go into remission and win,having a full recovery, , I can feel it in my bones and I just know I will lose this battle,no matter how tough or how hard I fight against this,this bad bad thing, this destroyer of souls, this devourer of free will, this monster in my nightmares that has crawled out from my dreams to haunt me well I'm awake. I think I'm going crazy, but Im watching myself go insane and I have no control, how maddning this situation has reached, reaching out without reasoning.


Chapter 16

  So here I am still as another day finds the dawn and once more I watch the sun rise, but I can't see the beauty in this anymore.
Now I believe this makes day four without sleep, without rest, without happiness, without any emotion or feeling, except the constant dread and emptiness that has drained me dry.
  I can tell this wickedness has grown a little stronger, its borrowing its way into my soul.
  Alls I can do is helplessly sit back and and wait, to just let this happen to me, and realizing this only makes me weaker. Im becoming such a fragile being, I'm almost afraid to move from this spot, cause my brittle body will most likely shatter to peices.


Chapter 17

Tick tock, tick tock the clock laughs in my face, it screams at me telling me that time has no meaning in my life from this moment on, and as the hands round the clocks face hour after hour, tick tock tick tock, your running out of time , your life is coming to an end sooner then later.
  Amoungst the buzzing silence of the daytime, I hear the clock somewhere in the background, its becoming a nuisance, annoying me just enough to where I can't possibly try to ignore it.
  I sit here silent and still, motionless , paralyzed from fea

i hide  my heart
into deeping, deeping chest
but he always makes a stake

asking for your sake
will be mercy
and showing your smart in away

making him be patient
for you  to be absent
from only his eyes

but her mind is full of thought
and always remind your face

Fistfuls of lust, yet tender
Smell your skin, and dare remember
Holding, yielding, grasping, pleading

Smokey eyes and steaming embers
Destruct the inner walls to lend her
Naïve tongue and tremble breathing

Heat. “I like it”.

Roughing, grinding, fasting, slowing
Oils seeping, fingers deeping
Push and pull to tease and bend her.

Stop, but just to start again,
Steaming. Heating. Beating… Beating…
Beat the heart to break and mend her.

Just when she thought
Of only broken things
Someone crossed her path
Her light, her destiny
Understanding from a similar soul
Awaiting on the other side

The days passed by
Haunted her from a distance
Every night more restless than the last
Only when they were together
Did it make sense, feel like home
Often she questioned her luck
Rolling with the change so sweetly
Every storm running out of rain

Always, she knows she loves him
Deeping, these emotions every day
Almost there, the wait almost over
Memories to be made
Such sweetness to be share

Numbness
In the quiet
Rattling peace
Confusion in chaos
Created by me

Hollow heart
Deadness within
It's not real pain
It's mental
Yet unbearably insane

Seeking punishment
Well deserved
It's ok
Turn your back
It's well earned

Quailing nightmare
Find no peace
Hurt me to ****
The beast
To make it cease.

Time's the enemy
For I suffer
Deeping hole
Widening abyss
Where I can't find my lover

© sd greene 9/19/17

A faint glimmer
of last nights shadowt mis(+)

Clutches to weary
                & arms  to stealth away thy
alms
Not steal but (seath)sieve

Bedowing morning
clapse on morning way side hills
while voices murmur
                 wind breaks on wall
As click to click, like snow bal
rose & trickle dow acquesent ....
      bell rings & neawly fonder toward...
  deeping in sights om in ~(re)prose, nay but a + condessed repression

tide bay thee wake &- glapse to horizon sun kist
eye for there wed thee & make of what rebedded to bloom of this old wood

You are lost to the waking world, a
denizen of the darkness.  I pry my
fingers from off the steel lock.  You
risk the deeping years, the early

yellow springing world laid for you
from my body.  I talked to you in the
corridor of my youth. You only tried
me for.a moment. You took the
pages of my determination and
threw them over the brick lined
walls of your selfness.

You made me witness your dance.
The song you sang, your lyrics
beneath my pillow, the
voice of ancestors not heard until
your music escaped the fences.

My mother did not live to dance
with you.  The songcoated signal
escaped between  your
incomprehensible affinity.

The dance of genetics in full
display.  I am still the Baffled.
The one footed dance  of
the broken, the chondral song
played every evening.

Go behind the schoolyard where
you and the lions of your
collective urges vye to be
the fitest ****** on the block.

My life is short now with my own
kicked addictions. I drowned in
the lake of desire. I have swum
the frigid surf and walked away.

You are not unique. Many sear
the letter of desire across their
bare forhead and cannot traverse
the concourse of the day.  

I will not declare myself aroung
your wheel. I walk through Grace.
If you choose me kneel for the
Benediction of God.

Caroline Shank
5.28.22

Under the witching moon, she chants the ancient song.
Singing to the twilight sky to bring a lover home.

A maiden fair had come to her desparate in her plea.
Longing for her gentle lad, who seeks his fortune out at sea.

"Bring him home!", she said, "To fill my heart and warm my bed."
With eyes glowing, a firebright, the witch woman spoke into the night.

"Caution, dear." In somber tone, echoing in the deeping wood.
"Pure, the love you have must be for this magick to do any good.

Should any other kind prevail, obsession will give way to greed.
Selfish desire turns passion to madness that will forever control the head."

"You have my word, this love is true." tears in the maid's sapphire eyes.
With one last word the spell was done and cast off into distant skies.

She watched as the maiden fair disappeared into the mist,
and looked down at a familiar face that arched and gave a reproachful hiss.

"I tried my best." The witch woman shrugged winking at her lover moon.
For she knew full well the lover's fate would begin with the rising sun.

A watery bed awaited the maid, her blood on the hands of the gentle lad.
For pure a love must always be if using magic to force fate's hand.

Into the darken woods the witching woman wandered on.
Shedding robes she tipped her hat, to dance bare under the witching moon.

I listened intently
Deeping and contently
To the voice to which every other sound remains empty
She spoke with her whole chest
Using words that would continue long after she left
I lay awake in its echoes
It meanders and flows
And from it all my love grows and grows