I dwelt alone
             In a world of moan,
         And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride—
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.
             Ah, less—less bright
             The stars of the night
         Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
             And never a flake
             That the vapor can make
         With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
Can vie with the modest Eulalie’s most unregarded curl—
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie’s most humble and careless
  curl.
             Now Doubt—now Pain
             Come never again,
         For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
             And all day long
             Shines, bright and strong,
         Astarte within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye—
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.

Bare feet scuttle around on marbled floors

Painting muddy footprints on the white canvas.

Onlookers walk by in disgust, their noses in

The air as they click their heels in an effort

To avoid the unbecoming scene before them.


The feet are callused and shred, imprints of

Pebbles forever etched into the raw flesh

Of their nakedness. Was it worth it?

Yes. It should be.

It will be.


The gritty pavement is as hot as the

Sun, a burning star, a supernova lifetimes

Away. Their yellowed teeth are clenched tightly;

They are determined to stand despite the furious

Pain slowly eating its way into the

Soles of their feet.


Many scars and scratches from roads they have

Traveled are scattered across the bareness;

They are proud, for it is their art,

That is the measurement

Of their life.


At last, the final goodbye from the scorching day

Kisses their heads in a bittersweet farewell

And You see them smiling in the dark,

Blue eyes glowing with a brilliance You have

Never seen before. They are eager to

Run with their bare, misshapen feet

And jump with all their strength into the

Watery depths below.

You look around.

They are splashing in the waves,

The cool ocean soothing the pains

Of the day.

The corner of Your lip upturns with

A hint of a smile.

This is how they live.

And this is who they are.


Who then are you going to be?

To whom it may concern
The toils and burdens my soul upturns
Burns insipid valleys in her earthly world
I am the pronouced hate
Invigorating the vapid sensation
So plastically waiting to commensurate
Residing in the bowels of God my stitched fate
Defecates the defective path, one day we all must take
Smite the plight purging these devilish urges?
Or rage the plague until the roots of life are twisted with screeching decay?
Either way death always stares one dead in the face
And yet it is I who carries the torch to light your funeral dirge

I couldn’t help but notice the difference
between the smile worn before a camera,
and how one’s face upturns
much more beautifully
in that split second of joy,
before vanity adjusts the angle.

He shoots the bird and gives its name
To the arrows fletched from its wings.
He wears the feathers knotted in his hair.

He cuts into a fruit and watches
The juices run and bites
The flesh and knows its name.
His arms, for branches, bear the peach again.

He takes downs trees and pulls up meadows,
Upturns the hills and shatters constellations into day,
And in among the clay and rubble
He tastes the fruit and sings the sparrow's name.

Just keep blooming little rose,
No-matter what upturns your roots,
What stones may clutch your stem,
Nor what draught and darkness shrouds your growth or twists your path,
Just keep blooming.
For someday, something will come along
That brings colour to your cells
Turns warmth to your skin
And shines the moonlight on your petals
As you have Always deserved

This vessel filled with sanguine nectar
Placed before my tortured face.
"Drink, drink", growls the Collector,
"So the ritual is not debased."
With a quiet sigh I raise my eyes
To find there's no one in sight.
But the shrill cries still to my spine bring chills
From the vague memories of the night.

"Who speaks to me in this empty place?
And what causes me these conniptions?
What are these echoes, these screams that resonate
And what source has borne this addiction?"
There's no soul here to hear my words,
Yet imposing shadows loom in the light
Of strategically placed candles set about the oubliette,
Ready to begin a dark rite.

"The one who speaks is the one who hears,
Indistinguishable except by delusion.
You writhe for the memory as the fogginess clears
And reveals the true cause of pollution:
We, Dante! We are the ones who
Fill this cup to the brim!
You are the lure and I am the hunter
And blood is what cleanses their sin."

As the snarling, disembodied voice speaks
I become filled with lecherous dread.
"You're a monster, a devil, a hideous fiend!"
I scream to the voice in my head.
I regain my composure but suddenly looking over
A room full of familiar corpses,
Torn open, bled, all eyeless sockets,
Materialized by unspeakable forces.

The flickering light from the tiny dancing flames
Eerily animate the dead,
But the bodiless shadows that tower remain
Motionless as the voice again said:
"The one who speaks is the one who hears.
By indulgence you gain from their tears,
Their terror, their anguish, they strengthen you, tame this
Devilish gnawing you fear."

Five leering shadows, eighteen festering carcasses
Surround me in grim trepidation.
Why, why do I choose to take part in this
Unholiness in this dark wretched station?
I try to refuse but my failure amuses
The entity goading me on.
I embrace the chalice of blood and of malice
And drink to fulfill the liaison.

As the ambrosia from the chalice is swallowed
A drunkenness begins to befall me.
As I stand, the five shadows, my servants, they follow
But as if they aren't walking, but crawling.
Altogether the flames grow brighter and stronger
Until the room like a kiln now burns.
The desiccated bodies prostrate and offer
Themselves so the fire upturns.

In my blood-drunken haze my eyes are opened
To the creation of my own obsession.
The Collector, the Harvester, the Reaper, the Chosen
And the Hunter, they are all but reflections.
"The others are voiceless", said the one voice I hear,
"Only I can speak as you can.
And you, Dante, are a bloodfiend, a ghoul.
In only man's realm you feign human.

"We are all you, all one in the same,
And as one we are death and disaster.
These victims before you bathing in flame
Were brought before the ritual master
That the remaining token be brought forth, bespoken
By the aspect of you that's most potent:
No, not the Chosen, though he holds the notion
Of calling that one the Unbroken."

At last all those nebulous memories
Are elucidated in this nightmarescape.
The Unbroken the voice just spoke of is me,
An amalgam of these shadows of hate,
Of murderous, methodical diabolism.
It all has finally become clear:
This black, ****** rite has brought me transcendence
As something all the more terrible draws near...