How treacherous.
How boring.
It was a time between three and four.
A time between eleven and one.
The pre-emptive witching hour.
The incidental grey area.

My mind was a-buzz.
My thoughts were flashing.
I knew not what they were,
But I was morose and melancholic.

I could not work.
I could not sleep.
I could not think.
Chaos had become my order.
And infinity had become my moment.

Then, there ahead of me,  
Stood two women,
Straight and strong.
One was a Siren
The other, a Muse.

I thought hallucinations.
Perceived ideas through a ******* mind.
But alas, they were real.
I touched them and reacted.

Warned against their poison.
Their mercuric tongues.
Their stolen hearts.
Their arachidonic souls.
And their odd Tsavorite eyes.

They walked.
I followed.
Into a labyrinthine hive,
They sauntered.
Nonchalant angels,
Indifferent to my stalk.

In the centre, there lay
An abyss.
They sat on the edge
And beckoned me
Forth.
I accepted, curious, yet cautious.
And through the Song of the Siren,
And the Myth of the Muse,
The blackness beckoned.

I fell, I flew to my mind’s end.
Accepted my descent, unknowingly.
The air was still. The tunnel black.
And I landed softly.
Alone. Safe. Hungry.
So, I walked to the edge.
The Siren waited. Offered her tail
And walked.

Crawled into smoke, was a Rat.
The Siren pointed, then followed
The smoke.
Rat awoke, to run to my foot,
Up my leg and towards my shoulder.

Rat pointed too,
So I walked to the edge
To appear in water.
Glistening and moist
Stood the Muse,
With a smile on her lips.

Again her tail led me,
As Rat jumped to the Muse.
We glided in the water,
Blinded in the dark,
Until we reached a cave, having dodged the rocks.

Inside, I was left,
Save for Rat.
The Muse flew off, a smile on her lips.
Drowning, by my waist, was a rodent. Erinaceous and small.
I lifted it up and placed Hedgehog on the opposite shoulder.

Hedgehog thanked me,
And showed me the way.
A niche in the rock.
We entered, all the same.

On the other side was a bed.
There lied the Siren and the Muse.
Seductive and Bare.
I was pulled forth.
Their tails were strong.
Their tongues were mercury.
Their hearts were stolen.
Their souls were arachidonic.
Their eyes were Tsavorite.
I was poisoned all along.

In vapid lust,
Morose passion,
Melancholic ecstasy,
It ended.
They have left me
Only with Rat and Hedgehog.

Here I will die.
Led to be abused.
All that shall be known
Of my boring and treacherous
Witching hour
Is this story.
I dedicate it to
The Muse,
The Siren,
Who are but one girl.
And to Rat, Hedgehog and me
Who is but one *******.

a nor' easter sways a whole-heavy

tree across grounds that dance

away.

so the plods of its rings can see to

underground thunder.

its Tsavorite registers in a buck's

eyes--having stomped prior &

during the tree's honorific sleep.

from crown to trunk it scrapes

its antlers along it.

shedding them in the thick of

woodland chandeliers blown out.

within cavelike craggles, prone &

crownless the buck mingles limbs--

for a while.

far earlier to rise & move on.

A lofty rabbit stands afore me
Mocks and jeers, if occasionally.
It came from behind a curtain.
Why now, I am not certain.
To the masses, I flee.

It jumped and socialised with humans there.
Aware I was; always naked and bare.
Confused I heard and spoke.
It shrunk only slightly, yet it leered.

Speak with a distraction, my ***** play the same.
True, my contradiction, sometimes it I blame.
Useful, as always, I speak to a girl.
Eyes of Tsavorite, tongue of Mercury; what a thrill.

The girl she responds, yet why does the rabbit smile?
Could the rodent have sent me to her? How vile.
This act creates displeasure.
My mind, here, loved her at my leisure.
A sip, a sip, from a forbidden phial.

This was a day beyond my conscious.
Betrayed and now, slightly anxious.
You see, I knew to love you, would
Not be intelligent. Refrain, I should.
Yet, here I write merely to be bloodless.

You sad fool.
You drunken fool.
You make me melancholic.
This optimisim of yours;
I  wonder how you will survive.

This world is voracious.
It is a dragon, which does not speak
my dear boy.
Hungry.

And all of of it’s young
Are the greatest woman
In this world.
And only a few men.
They are the children of this dragon, which does not speak.
They speak for it.
If you listen.

I met one of her children.
Her eyes were made of Tsavorite.
Her tongue: of mercury.
She flapped her wings.
And I was a her slave.

She looked at me with Vulcan eyes.
That created something within me.
A heart.
That she sought to destroy.

I was her pawn.
Her chess piece.
But she favoured me.
For I had crossed the board.
Through gambits and feasts
To become the queen.

But I was only a piece.
And I thought I knew it at the time.
That the dragon
At any time
Would melt me
Be it glass or wood.
I was always under her command.

But she favoured me.
I was, for her power.

If only
Stepping off the board
Meant
I would not be glass
I would not be wood.

I would be of scales
And flesh.

For her
Which I am
(but not with her)

I will be the queen amongst the pawns
The knights
The bishop
The rook
And the king.

But a chess piece
To the dragon.

So maybe I need to sacrifice myself
Be a gambit
And fall.

Maybe I will transform
As I did from a pawn
To a queen.

Then maybe
I will be more than just a piece.
I will be a dragon.
And I will be hers
And she will be mine.

And the game will be over.
And we can shake hands.
For we know that the beginning
Was only
“Pawn to 4E.”

Checkmate.