A U R O R A - B O R E A L I S

Part One

Yes, the pitiful heart is so prone to ache
In lockless sleep, though it fell fake
Down to the Calyx and Piston of pulchritude
Becalmed and idle
When in his berth, wind amongst him, fathomed and crude
Smitten with libido and Zen
Strayed into a comely glen
Wherefore death came painted
In a hundred vivid hues, gazed, rapt, and fainted
Her body gathered by Vincent, a poor man of no throne
In erring fashion of returning home
Took her to a hillock of no name
Where her heart embed with lust had lain
Her body was disclosure
He fed her laudanum laced of passion and myrrh
Never a nepenthe to the solder-haired luster
And all the vigour she could muster
Brought amongst them no reanimation
And fervour to the gods of mortality
Not a lock of her hair was human
And not a sprite even so alluring
To kneel and kiss the shoulder of empathy
Love consummated in less than an hour
And now the hour of wan veins and willows weeping willowly
And fervid air about them
Bellatrix slicing the clouds overhead
To the toppling of the whited crests
In a deep blue ocean somewhere in nowhere
Her head once again upon my knees
Devout to nothing but the winnowed azure of the sea
Breed into her more change?
None more, she’s seen that face, and it is no longer strange
Vincent would be stable in mark of her
Stability she could not from deter
Sated with lust, he would not sleep, as he never slept
To sleep he was never as a whim adept
She shan’t fall in coitus with him
As he found mirth in other things
“ I weep Violet, I’ve died your lilies,
fault and action reign in me and do not wring those tears
as I’ve said before,
as I’ve said more.”

In a field of unravished Baby’s Breath
Sought after by the world lot of serenity questers
Should the sullen memory of Violet fester
Upon his hoary, vulnerable skin?
And haply at times a passing thought
How many roses for her he had bought
Much less given
As when the gratis and unsolicited roses were living
She and he were kept apart
She was no harlot in his heart
She in meanings lost and disdained
Formed a shallow cavity, no larger than to keep him from the rain
He’d had so many hours with her to register
Though amateurish and mediocre,
Still perfect time, as if kept in a bottle.
Heart gray and mottled
Like a moth to a flame
Never place a more undamaged name
Rust a thousand years in one place
To never have pass a more solacing face
Than of Violet’s.
Brush a thousand trees with her wind
Cast a thousand covenants she’d never rescind
Into a chamber of no light.
And a frost enchanted realm of soft illusion
Where she kept all the lonesome secrets in a hollowed out tamarisk tree
She’d never tell Vincent of the frantic privations
Nor the covert appetites for him.
“ Do you hold avarice over me, my love?
As a mother over her young?
I wish for you to, I want you to see me in possession
It is the only way I’ll know you want me.”
Vincent caught Violet’s fiery sepia eyes
And brushed eternity post-haste
And deemed nothing in her unchaste
Not a lock of her hair human
Not an inch of her sheath hadn’t shown illumine
Kiss Violet in a mirthsome tumult of flowers
Kiss Violet in midst of stars beginning to ride the billows
Kiss Violet in soft parlance amongst the pillows
Kiss Violet in messages of passionate folly
Kiss Violet in all the disease of the melancholy
Kiss Violet in the witness of birds strolling by
Kiss Violet in the witness of the byflying magpies
Kiss Violet in the lackadaisical wake of nothing
Kiss Violet in the torrent wake of swamped evenings
Kiss Violet in lost bewilderment of earth’s inherent beauty
Kiss Violet in place of all common or dyer duties
Kiss Violet as the shorelights of heaven flicker palely
Kiss Violet in the skin of bodies clad barely
Kiss Violet while he poisons the fury of all other avowals
Kiss Violet in the caverns where night prowls
Kiss Violet even as sleep’s soft instruments rustle
Kiss Violet between the frantic contractions of his muscles
Kiss Violet making no sound on the hard packed snow
Kiss Violet in the greatest tempest God can sire
Kiss Violet in the greatest gaiety he can acquire.

And the morrow sun crept quietly over his shoulder blades
Singing his song with more conviction than ever before
In the drinking place of his sorrow
She would be the only wine-maiden to follow
“ My Love Violet,
are we afraid of wounds we’ve always had?
Are we animals of puer or homeless minded nomads?
Do we tread the dirt of love?
And if hardships were rain, would we become mud?
Violet, our love needs no winding and could never run down
Neverminding I met you on a street corner downtown
Never a whore, always a beauty to me
Love ‘till the end beneath a sepulchre by the sounding sea”.
Violet rose to her feet and filled the air with her amiable smell
And the night tides began to swell
And she spoke after listening to him rave for an hour
Took him by his pale arm and stole away from the quiet bower
“Come Vincent, let us walk and cast my pedant into the ocean
and be in remind that earthly possessions are not wealth or promotion
we’ve no type of earth for everyone
just simple moderations and sacrifices and comparisons
never is even a single word to be claimed
without an opposition or the opposor duly shamed
fill me full with your feeble poetry and prose
for I am certainly a girl who feels that she knows
that the price of a thousand ruby-studded swords
is a price that any pen of yours could easily afford”.

The full moon played with the stars
And the cool night air mended the scorched earth’s sunburnt scars
Vincent and Violet caught forty winks on a woven mat on the sand
Between two coral jetties along the strand
Awakening to find a rose of thought washed ashore
Sacred petals to crush every essential oil of allure
And in her body all bodies lie
Try to find a cloudless spot in all this summer’s sky
Where two could consummate any deal of greater worth
Between any two layers of secrecy to unearth
Where a cooler temperature under the pale ground
Could so incline one to believe that the place they’re around
May be more a temperate climate for the quarters of love
Where no light would be if it weren’t for above
Mistake grudge-lipped for smile, laugh for cry
Rough fingers for oak roots, and verity for lie
Show her the demesne of any broken down man
As the starkness of winter creeps across the land
Return his weary bones to his weary home in Albion
Locked in a place with no one.

Another quintessential moment for the heart
Revolvant around not one of mortality’s other parts
The walls in Albion were cracked with smiles for her
High concentrations of hollowed out tamarisk trees and Douglas Firs
Where now was his keeping place of lonely secrets
And all rough feelings of which he was speechless
Sleep’s soft instruments did rustle soft or shrewd
As he aroused one night to a voice of black amplitude
A banshee cast foot to nape in Violet’s warm attire
Set a specter before him in cruel motives and spires
Night all over the faces of mankind
And she could not stare directly into his cobalt eyes
She knew all of her actions were of spurious design
When he would awaken, the chimerawoman would be outshined
By the phosphorescent demure of the waking sun
All accompaniments to none as the quiet star writhed over the horizon.

An early morning ship came in climbing over the breast of the water
With an epiphany of tameless mindform his heart within fluttered
A position to end the blasphemous period of the saturnine
“ I say, captain of the mission less than mine,
Can you spare quarters to a man accused of devotion?
For travel back to the bolster I’d sworn allegiance to across the ocean
Institutionalized into the narrow barracks of a woman’s heart
And lifetime acts ledged into a hundred parts
Fathom of a destiny of a fellow man
Where I’ve three thousand pounds for you if she’ll take my hand”.
The captain replied, “ Surely good sir, be guilty of devotion
I shall take you to her across this malevolent ocean
For half of the deal you’ve precautiously brought to me
She’s a malicious beast, but she’s a faithful and forgiving sea
I’ll take you from here to her, underneath my weary wing
And be deep in her sane flesh of every beautiful thing”.
The hoary banshee of sultry whispers returned that last night in Albion
Clad in no more than Violet’s brazier and a veil of silk that some widowed spider’d spun
Speaking the parlance of languorous speech without coughing a solitary word
With no famine of a traitor’s love in her
Blank as the faces of every true white star in a galaxy of fakes
Staring with hope as much as would a snake
One last night of her electric beauty in Albion
Locked in a place with no one.

Vincent’ last gazes of Albion were muttled by a soft swarthy fog
And despite of his dispassions of leaving, he found in his thoughts no malaise or sobs
Alone now with a few months of which to savor the immense reveries that await him on the shores
Await the unannounced night upon the tides when he’d summon Violet by lighted semaphore
Fracture a lover a thousand times to return and find her one
And he’d rehearsed his reviving words to her in his head two months
“Love Violet,
in my stray I shall have never nursed a hatred of you
and a man does not murmur against heaven when endowed with such a precious truth
i’ve seen men hanged for less than treacheries of love
and the abominations they seek are ideals I am inept of
breathe…
weep…
and conquer the regime of things I do not control
in annexing ships for you I’ve stolen this from the King’s East Royal Patrol
this ship is yours love, I have killed the Captain
he was restless in his sleep one evening, so I cut him and re-christened the ship Gwen
such a miasmic name, isn’t it darling?
at such an expendable cost and as resilient as a young starling
I wish for immaculate love, and not immaculate approval
Yet an ocean of gratitude held in a long soothed lull
Between you and I, prevalencies and fervours built ironclad
Idyll was had”.

On a moor on the outskirts of the nearby village
Was a quiet shelf worn out of a bank with a rooted ledge
Held to the earth by an old oak tree with its branches rusted into the stars
The great tree’d seen many suitor’s quarrels and sated lusts from near and far
Seen many loves pass in the endless hours of day and twilight
But none like tonight.

The Aurora Borealis came to full temper
Through the pitchblende branches dancing in mid November
As he led her through the greenstrays on the moor to the infintess home of the tree
Her feet capered behind him in his supple shadow built in green
He had sewn an old quilt into the earth with a few pompous strays atop the fallow leaves
And kept the blanket amenable between the torrent and the balmy breeze
He laid her down in the vexing wind
Her inside him
She collapsed to him and the two nestled in
As his eyes caught the virulent wake of her platinum hair shattered by the wind
Of her face, less penitence than in the devil’s own
Flooded with desire, drowned with every mortal drop of it flowing through her catacombs
He drew her, and a kiss, and a dew drop of her saliva cascaded to her chest
And every mellow drop if it he returned for, from nape to downy breasts
Her back arched into a harp toward the distant glades as her head came to rest on the verdant earth
As he played every note of her euphonic moans for every erotic pleasantry she was worth
Under moon-lidden branches, her mouth gaped, her tongue curled to the raven-hued field of sky
And her eyes coolly disarmed in the allowal of all chastities violated in no disguise
He became her god for all of the hours reveling in certain pause
And in the moments of spurting ecstasy, her placid fingers transfixed to claws
A drop of wine below the shallow curvatures of each supple breast
And a drop pressed to the crevice of her abdomen in the removal of her gown and vest
A goblet crashing wine onto her bare porcelain legs, blood to milk
Allowing the moonlight to shine between her thighs onto the quilt
Dactyls in dactyls as his lips reached her roseate heart and opened its soft storm
And he breathed in the valhallan perfumes of her secret form
Tasted her half an hour
Her head tumbled in mirth amongst the flowers
And her limbs flailing furiously about in possession of speechless passion
Her body, adorned in simple beauties, shook with tremors lasting
To have the rest of him in full, she’d surely barter in her eyes
And pawn all of her precious nights under jeweled skies
Her harped back fell total supine as he writhed between her and broke her
The tide of his love ebbed and seethed as reality became a steady blur
His taut biceps came to breach so to taste the neck of recumbent Violet
And in a strange negligent avidity, he drew blood from her nape in a thick surge
Yet nothing short a hundred decibels under the suspiring of two conspiring concubines
Conspiring to kill off every void twinkling of an eye between them intertwined
Etiolated hands became vivid with the undeniable amber tincts of dawn
And her wan veins became alive with a chorus of blood all singing their unfamiliar songs
Furiously softly he spoke “little flower, I’ve waited for ever for your wake”
Then she, “it’s seemed centuries to find your star in the galaxy of fakes”
Her animate hands crept to the small of his back, placid fingers to claws
As he wept blood for her, into her tapered nails, flesh and irrevocable proof of mortal laws
Scars built into him as the stigma of defeat of all loves passed
Like the sordid wings of a demon etched into his malleable back
Her sighs were only as drops of rain in the immensity of the ocean
As he kept himself and all the heavens in undesisting motion
Just then, God’s cool hand swept through the path of air he inhaled
Wherewithal the last deferral failed
He seized unto her with one nullifying crash filled with kismet and incalculable flames
Fire set in his veins
Bantam death was attained within her
And one sterilizing kiss he purveyed down to her as she calmly surrendered
Surrendered to the last caress of endless seasons
Surrendered to the ideals of love built by no treason
As she stole away in sibilant footsteps to the nearby stream and bathed in her nude
He found himself in the tranquility of solitude
A roar of quiet as a nightjar perched its frail bones on a bough of the great oak above him
All but chirping its interpretation of the deed witnessed as in piety or sin
But as he knew it was God to grasp his last breath before the bantam death
All deeds betided prior, were deemed as tolerable as God’s words saith.
She returned to him flowered in only the old quilt
And a safe-haven for the bitterchilled night was built
Eventide passed in nostalgic palaver and laughter as the great oak harbored them near
As winter’s stark beauty cocooned them and the cool wind whirred in their sleepy ears.

Sleep fell under the deep throw of stars
Beacons from the abode where the eternal are
In berth beside her hair in their constructed bower
He couldn’t crush out a livelier fragrance from the flowers
In remind of when she used to wind Calla Lilies in her hair
Thinking not of the pale, fruitless orchards on the roaring slope of despair
And waiting upon the touches of the wind
When she would awaken from her sleep sunken into the slough of oblivion
In their covert spot upon the sweet braes, no soul could ever be following
And no distant hint of the ocean’s sound of sorrowing
Just the sly pattering of the river’s pulse
Just Violet’s quiet endearing eyes and love’s whimsical impulse
As one star, in spite of its death, assumes its empty place in the sky
The others were bound by stillness, and sleep became the indignity of time.
On the first tint of morning a mild storm fell
At the distance of a mid-toned yell
Blind to the past, as storms were the pinnacles to all times saturnine and sad
The cynical image of tears pouring from eyes he never had
In a quick jaunt of a satyr, the two arrived at Vincent’ estate
A chateau upon Dryden Brae with all its chamber ceilings curved falcate
A house of such swingeing sheer size out of doors and within
As if it were built of his silly insatiate hope to wed her, and she take abode with him
Soft-spoken determination to build her a palace and fall her to elope
Staking his very life on some dark hope.
Crossing a Roman threshold, she stepped into a strange web of bewilderment and reveled
At three spiral staircases that descended to three darkened levels
The windowpanes draped from them the abysmal midnight by deep indigo palls
As a solitary candle broke the darkness, coruscating a hulking painting of the Morningstar on the wall
As the brae cut away from the hill, a slender mezzanine jutted out from the entrance level floor
Where one could downcast his eyes upon a recklessly groomed moor
Violet, upon inspection, carried herself to the mezzanine where the tender rails held her unsoundly
And stumbled upon a view where she hailed a scene that troubled her profoundly
Capering on such unconsecrated ground, she could swear to see several phantasms in the tall greenstrays
Gallivanting distantly with her childhood comrades, though they’d not aged since she’d last seen them even a day
“But that was twenty years ago” she said. “I’ve turned so many pages of my heart since then”.
“ Yes love,” he spoke. “ they have been here with me since their bitter ends
purge your inquirous head, this house is dead, this is a place where time bends
be pavid of them less than the benign sparrows, play in adolescent larks and dance with them again
but peer this no more”.
As he coerced her by her faint hand back through the door.

The east corridor bent to a constricted tunnel, which penetrated into a gray dining room
That welled into her bloodstream some veritable false doom
A triangular table made of slate sat in the middle of a chamber of three massive walls
Where a vase of three Belladonna flowers perched as a centerpiece torn of their fifteen green sepals
Nine soft shadows gamboled their short life against the palings in a swift spell
And but one midnight window peering outside of the cell
Peering into the Morningstar’s circuitous eyes
And some verge of knavery in the sky.

A thin meal was partaken and Vincent led Violet to his bedchamber
Spite she had no sleep in her veins, he knew not tonight that sleep could not tame her
He had cast off to the demesne of reverie soft illusion before the hands cradled the midnight hour
As she sat in stillness in the gaze of solemnity, she had not his torporous power
Stately trees seemed to brush the sky above the hanging garden
As she had left the bedchamber as Vincent’ sleep had set in
The flowers above her thrummed in rhythm with the windsongs
Where nothing at this deep hour but the silence should belong
Where it would be surely wrong
To break the calm with a even a quiet song
To no matter passing the caverns of time relentlessly by
She murmured an ancient tonal lullaby.
“Orion, do not ever kiss her
stay away from her and her sisters.”
Walking out on a towpath shrouded in deep sallow leaves
Gentle footsteps as the night breathed.
“Narcissus, do not stir and make wake
and shatter sight of your precious face.”
Filling the void of sleep with the melodies of time
Trilling in depth in nine rhyme.
“moonlidden ocean, Rhea’s last kiss
know me in our time of armistice
c’mon Cronus, make me become two
come close and let me whisper to you.”
Violet grasped sight of a flower climbing from a crack in the cobblestone
Kneeling down and pulling up a blood red anemone.
“Adonais, I’ve one windflower
and Aphrodite knows its power.
ferried across the raging sea
Lesbos to Chios, youth and beauty
Phaon, you know that Sappho loves you
the poetess of loves not in ruse.
my Hypnos, keep the world down in sleep.
Diana, keep the tides in full neap.
Zephyr, tell your winds I don’t need them
and nor Notus’ winds should you send
I shalln’t catch to Eurus’ course
but follow Boreas to the north.
Adonais, I’ve one windflower
and Aphrodite knows its power.
Orion, do not ever kiss her
stay away from her and her sisters.”
Violet dulled and seized her song from the brumal air
And let fall the anemone to the cobblestone stairs
Beholding a slender spectre sitting in the courtyard
Only a silhouetted demon from afar
Allowing her to come nigh it, she crept and it did not start
As it was feeding on its own heart
“I’ve seen you before, minion. It was in a desert
the true coalescing of malice building all things in introvert
with one set of discalced toes curled
directing the welding of the world
you denied a pharos beamed from the clouds that day
and folded your disheveled hands in some ersatz praise
I’ve learned of many mountebanks better than yourself
a sempiturnal mimic of god is never one to which I have knelt
with you I shall make no truce
yes you are the venerable one, but antiquated refuse.”
In a heedless rage, Violet struck the demon down with a loosened cobblestone
And flitted inside to Vincent deep in loam
Not yet to stagger in tire
With eyes upon him of wildfires
Awakened him and made him writhe with her yielding tongue
Soused in lust, she had left the demon she kept upon since she was young
But to any hot dream of the Morningstar’s soldiers, she would accede to again
Surrender to the bitter bitter end
Wilt like any ephemeral flower
Invading any transient hour.

Awake in a hushed complication of sleep
Broods and ruse ran her mind’s river deep
Dreaming silly dispositions of fate
And sketching plans of the ornate
Thought, invading such the unsuspecting flower
Dream of annexation of all known powers
Dreaming of all brave creatures pavid and lying low
Dreaming of cupid tangled in his bow
Dreaming of all flighty things
Seraphim with glue-fastened wings
Reverie would for ever be one of the leaves of her fall
Be no notice all beings large and small
Be heroine of the townspeople; lull the great hurricane to indolence
Be a creature of no dispense
But leave no footprints forsaken in the sand
Leave such a shrouded meaning there for no creature to understand.

“Vincent, before you bid arrivederci this quiet night,
tell me of all beholding you have of me in your azure sight
tell me of why you claim aficionado to my heart and claim devotee
tell me of this incandescent torch you carry for me.”
In hypnopompic lapse, he came to his platform of speech with no mortal lie
And spoke into her dark fretted eyes.
“Love, I call you beside me as a radiant girl
hopelessly in love with the emptiness of this onlying world
where ever I find my bones
never they rattle alone
whether beneath Luna’s milky gown,
or in the winter forest of skeleton trees may I be found,
you should chaperon me I should wish
even as we should both shiver in the cold armistice
I should only be as lucky to be a contrivance of your own making
or any infected furrow of your heart’s chambers when it is found aching
I could never recoil from you
or find aversion in anything you could do
no petulant flower from you could ever bloom
and even you would not stray into terse manner upon view of the irrevocable doom
no deed would be too farcical that you could spire of
and none would be more mirthsome to be abettor to you in the brutal crimes of love
you annul no feeling of worth that grows inside me
and you would direct no caustic words at me
you would never prepare any secret valediction between us
and never speak as to ensure your inflection of love would rust
you have such a sweet cadence in your voice
austere and confident in stand and poise
never be the truant of my heart
never maroon me to where you found me, where we had given our start.”
“ Oh, you do not comfort me with these words as I thought you could
you see, I saw the demon again inventing evil in the hanging garden of good
I vexed him and spite my tempers I was very ill in fear of him
he was once a soldier under the Morningstar, now a fallen seraphim
love, have I never told you of the Silverflame?”
“No, I say I have never heard of that name.”
“It is a fable about the demon that I know to be real.”
“ Tell me of it, Violet, it is only as real to you as it feels.”
“Very well, but know that I have seen him time and again
this is not but only a sly contrivance of some lonely poet’s pen.”

Violet found her bower on the bed and leaned into him
Saying, “Here is where the whole legend begins,
Sweeping copselong and starlight wood
Fleeting swift onward soil which death had stood
The urgency of now notwithstanding
And desire of true name undemanding
Destiny need not know the name
The man they would call Silverflame.
Who chanced upon mater and babe
In a thatchwork hovel sought he nightshade
Dwelled where coppice and the rooftop did intertwine
Where clemently provode him comestible and wine
“Milord” said the mater,” impart me of thy name,
are you surely the one they dub the Silverflame?”
“ Surely I am milove, though purpled my nail to be
and feasted unto mine own heart to know it still should bleed
know it is bitter and far from that of tart
remember I eat it because it is bitter and because it is my heart.”
Why do you do this?” quarried the mater while milking at her babe
“Because I am capable of it” said he, “though I enjoy it just the same.”
“Dost thou not become acquainted with fleeting evil?
And art not thine eyes the colour of it?”
For her, the verity made her cringe and secretly fit
Quietly her to think,” how had he sought me?
It is that my buried wood should tumbleth
And resurface atop of the one-and-seven years silent sea.”
But fed and drank the Silverflame, and quarried no further more
“Du calme, milove” said he, “mine only care is that I am footsore
lendeth me bolster and berth so sleep must as it may
and on the morrow I shall depart soon as my lidded eyes are raised.”
Night fell in on three, he, the mater and her babe
On the thatchwork hovel, where sought he nightshade.

Aurora swept fleetedly up the thickets and flowerly parts
And found mater and babe eaten of their bitter hearts
So destiny need not feed upon whom to place the blame
Gone and gone as the willow sways, gone and gone was the Silverflame
And though appearing in the social warmth of the flame,
His heart was of cold things, the colour of cold silver, hence was the name.
Again sweeping copselong and starlight wood
Fleeting swift onward, soil which death had stood
The urgency of now notwithstanding
Desire of true name undemanding
Destiny need not know the name
The man they would call the Silverflame.
Newest was the hour not distant at hand deed was done
And journeying feet of Silverflame run of now three hearts hostage to one
Onside the grainy road ‘neath the clear August sky
Feel the fleeted thud of trinitied hearts passing minutes by
Killed by all the lustre of living on
And rapid loitering by cloven hoof, cannot dwell here long.
Moving on beside the swell of the gravid tides
Betiding upon the lass in many fables casting back starfish from the seaside
Took her on side by gentle eyes and gentle hand
Just such the course as fell the maiden and her babe back in the woodland
“Such a pretty seraph”, said she “but what has become of your foot?
And for where art thou from, all sheath’d in ashen soot?”
“ Please pretty cherubim, quarry me none more
take my hand and mouth to no one of our affaire d’amour
shallst I return to thee when Luna is misshapen and right
shallst I thrice-fold tell thee of the hearts of this watersprite
so fall dormant now my perfect, perfect queen.”
For your last breath surely will be the breath just before I am again seen.
She’d lain and slept fast upon the eventide sand of the beach
Silverflame for her heart came upon such vile breach
For all the quarry and answers left unsaid
Perfect queen blood had its shed so the sable tides ran red
Again blessed and cursed and won and lost
To the shallow and unrepenting miseries a midnight tryst had cost.
Then by twilight star the storm had come and hourly spanned
And by morningtide the starfish heaped along the strand
None more was the pretty cherubim to toss them back home
And all of the discontented starfish did die alone
Thusfar the story’s damage was limited and done
And the Silverflame moved onward three hearts and one.
Again sweeping copselong and starlight wood
Fleeting swift onward, soil which death had stood
The urgency of now notwithstanding
Desire of true name undemanding
Destiny need not know the name
The man they would call the Silverflame.
Three and one, three and one came dispelled the lowtide sun
To undermine the morn’s lethargy, sunrise became his opium
And by nightfall the stars became misshapen and near
So comatose yet emphatic, so heartless yet so sincere
though he should kill, heartless should hardly be the word
and so doubtlessly his benevolent face was the soft demure.
That night climbing from the sludgy backs of the Ocmulgee,
There before was the fourth beauty to befall
By the moonlight he thought “Ah, the fifth of eight to complete”
“And Prince Damien, thou wilt come and rise thy pall
I wilt become carmine with the broken oceans then
And know the world back to again thy perfect garden.”
The beauty of Fiveheart would surpass all those before
Eyes becoming as greyslate and breasts of velure
Unconcealed just as the babe from the thatchwork shack
Poetessing her long-lost lover a self-solacing soft elegiac
Between the wildvines and the porous riverbanks
Quickly she was but blood and it of wild vines Silverflame drank.
Suddenly there was but one cool star in the sky that night
As certain as smoldered embers they burned out at the sight
And in the warmchilled comforts of death her elegiac fell
Just as blood, to the Ocmulgee the river willingly swelled
To Silverflame’s purpose he was devout from the hunt and the start
Knelt he down by the riverbank and took from her the heart.
Soft spoken in the shallow terrors of evening
Silverflame would act on the ancient eight-night lore
And of eight prancing demons circling eight Augusts before
To prey and feast on the hearts of their heart’s delight
And Silverflame would move toward his mansion when the time was right
And sleep beside his wife for her final night.
Again sweeping copselong and starlight wood
Fleeting swift onward, soil which death had stood
The urgency of now notwithstanding
Desire of true name undemanding
Destiny need not know the name
The man they would call the Silverflame.
With all secrets silent, Silverflame sailed the violent seas
And ported in England in the August of eighteen eighty three
This five years before the heart hunt of the demon lore
When subtly his wicked ways became strong and obscured
So years later he would sail back in a barrel’s disguise
And arrived on the shores of Savannah under August the first’s sky.
And through dreams he envisioned, he would build a mansion
In the North Georgia foothills, and Sixheart he’d soon wed
And so he would destroy her in the mansion in her Sunroom bed
The name she knew was Silverflame, though Norcop it truly was
The mansion was built by River Street and a tiny brook
And just after his newborn son, her heart he wildly took.
Now the demon seed would grow six of eight
And Sevenheart, his son, should perish and his heart he also ate
For Silverflame had fettered the tiny child to the hands of a clock
Whenst midnight had struck, his limbs were torn off by the quiet tick-tock
And there pinned upon the Glenbrook’s dining room wall
The child’s heart was ripped from it vein and all.
Then shortly after, the Silverflame’s mother, sickly and old
Sailed from England to be taken after through pneumonic cold
Through ailing health she had stayed in a lovely blue room
And shortly thereafter the Silverflame had sealed in her doom
One quiet, quiet night he crept softly down the halls
By the upper banisters of the balconies outside the walls.
On the way he would contemplate all of the childhood scars
And he paused on the verandah and gazed upon the cool stars
Surely he knew the cruelty of all the darkness he pursued
Yet conscience could not hinder him, he cared not of things he should not do
And onward to the blue room quietly he crept
Whereupon his feeble mother sullenly, sullenly slept.
And sweeping bedlong and in starlight wood
Fleeting deathly, and lain beside his mother where he had stood
The urgency of now notwithstanding
Desire of Finheart full demanding
Where destiny need not ever know the know the name
Of the man Norcop, whom they would call the Silverflame.
Spoken softly of his mother’s olden name
His mother had awakened beside the Silverflame
“ Mother” he spoke in his gentle and temperamental voice
“Yes” she spoke in poise and awaited his counterpoise
“ I have come to thee tonight to destroy thee
and rip from thee thy fucking heart, which hath created me.
So the spell of the eight demons will make me immortal
And so mother, you my Finheart shalt make me complete
And the pain and shriek of thy death be loud and sweet
I pray that God make my hands strong so to kill thee
And so from the bellows of his old dying mother,
The Silverflame ate of her heart ad killed yet another.
Then the cool stars did fall and the eight demons did come
All aft devouring of the final heart seven and one
Transfiguration came swift and uproaringly still
Beside the quiet bones of his mother whom quickly chilled
And now eight demons and Norcop prance and vehemently wait
To rip and eat the heart of anyone who enters the Glenbrook
Which the Silverflame had built in the August of sixteen eighty-eight.
These are exactly my demons, they gambol with the dead comrades of my youth
I just saw one eating from his own heart in the garden at a quarter after two.”
“Should it be such an ailing to you now?
Such an immemorial fear invading your head do you allow?
Would it bring you to such high dudgeon to let it stray from your mind?
Will you run to moorings that all the mortals cannot find?”
“No, but it creases an otherwise flat plane of temperament that could be solace
leaving half-invented dreams and ideals demolished
that minion makes all of my tangible wishings charlatan
do you know the penalties dreaming impends?
To precis all yearnings and desires to one rigid heap of fruitless waste
like to long after a tracked-in princess to find her unforcedly unchaste
call me two heretical eyes cradling two notional views
teeming in mirth, I think in the catacombs of that solace, and I find you.”

Morning held splendour and a beautiful composition of sunlight
Chiaroscuro of the dancing rays that valedict the last seething vapors of night
The dews held their ground until fifth hour of dawn
Twilight fades on blistered Avalon
Violet awakening into a warm premonition of hope
With her arms wound into him as a strong twine rope
“I must pick for the spring bouquets today”, Violet said with jubilant eyes
“ every instance that you think of me, just sing to yourself the Alexandrine Lullaby
i will return at the brink of the eventide
and I shall show you a splendid time.”
And so Violet stole away to a field where Vincent did not know to find her
Noontime came swiftly before he thought of her
At noon he did, and likewise he sung quietly the Alexandrine lullaby
Just as she had told him to do to lull him and pass the sluggish time
Gathering water from the well he sang
As the nearby town’s noon carillons rang,
Deep and obscure, did her demon eyes come recur
one night as I waited vigilant and astir
“Bring me to the hillside” she said, “and not be heard
bring the torch you carry for me and light the myrrh
do not bring your voice along, you shall not need words
because even the heavens I plan to disturb
with shrieks of the raptures, and the mute of a purr
that many passing wanderers espy the stir”
Dim and obscure, did her demon eyes come recur
One night as I waited silent to a whisper
Suddenly she was there, silhouette, softest her
“Do not bring your voice”, she said, “you shall not need words.”
Violet was a great distance from Vincent’ song of the Alexandrine
Her breath tropical against contry winds
The thrum of those very contraries piping through her eglantines
Taking forty winks upon her lap, petals velveteen
So careworn are they now
Since killed from the millpond somehow
And even by fingers frail as she possesses
She could never be gentle enough to keep alive the rose essence
But so, the roses win through the loss
Especially of the ones found beside the ugly moss
And the beloved that Vincent called Dire Hands,
Dusted her eyes gently over her new-doomed companions
Whom clamoured no more
Though broken from their paths of deep yore
Of such thickless bore
Clamour by the millpond no more
And so suddenly, the winds chasten themselves from their routes
And stop the constant fluting through her hair, all locks shattered loose
Which was the song he’d always hear for her
And by this, found her roses gone, and him in their place, asleep and undisturbed
And the beloved he called Dire Hands
Dusted her eyes over her new-dead companions
Whom clamoured no more
Dead roots and dead vocal chords sore
But what if the eglantines were he himself ?
Would he suffer them to anyone else?
Clamours of his own made the airless day rough
And still, she could never be gentle enough.

Kneeling to uproot a last eglantine for the quintessential bouquet of spring,
Violet caught a quick breath of the poppies’ poisonous crosswind
Immediate was the comatic spell
Like a lethal carillon’s knell
She slept in the poppies in their envenoming breath
As evening set into the earth’s veins over the shady grove of death.

Vincent held vigil for her on into the night upon Dryden Brae
Thinking she had strayed
But he kept his shorelight out in equal interest as he had in lust
Every minute fleeting by bred mistrust
In the distance he peered a red star through the Dogwoods
But did not flicker and was no star in all likelihood
Venus the lissome
Singing a soft dirge of remission
A dim spark upon the last lit ember of humanity and love
Your silly lover does not want you and she’ll have no part in the reveries you conceive of
All of your silly bents to make her happy are of no esteem
Make her not your queen
But Vincent knew somewhere that his mind’s threats were fully unfounded
But they kept him grounded
Between twenty devils and twenty deep blue seas
Tarrying for her beneath the waning moon’s marquee
Biding for her, staring at the dirty face of time
Which held so many gestures in flagrant pantomime
Return her to him with a spring gathering of eglantines and violets
Just another wish thrown into a galaxy no one’s discovered yet
Warriors forgotten of their duties overnight
Braves forgotten of their chieftains in cool moonlight
Swim the earth waiting for her
Listen to the sough of the heart with both ears quartered
Swim those oceans untamed
Holding back the lotic eyes of twilight waiting for the girl with the provocative name
Biding for her, thinking to himself with God resting on his shoulders
As Luna towered in the star-blanched sky and the night grew colder
“Passions and rampant desires of youth,
where have you whisked away to?
I’ve suppressed all of the cruel appetites
of the hungering apathites
and still, I too famine
to all viable damage
oh, what I shall’nt distend
for a length or two of a teasing hand
if ever it wasn’t that raillery of greater things
to wait for a lover on a soft evening
as if I should sire the unsireable
and beget the lyric of the unspeakable
betide upon the vex of ever again resurfacing
and again go down thrice to live with all of the underlings
as palliatives may be rock and rope in or out of motion
cast me upon the storey of the ocean
tier be my home now
tier be my home now
as where none else have been
none else other than with fin
in no accompaniment of this November hoar-frost
never again measure the units of incalculable loss
this arm cannot distend to me
for I lie down this far beneath my sepulchre by the sounding sea.”

Carrying himself down to wait by the river for her
The rain began a merciless excursion toward the earth
And Vincent began to question her love for him
Staring into the river with his back to the vehement winds
Thinking to himself, drifting on some dreamer’s sea
Placing himself as a current that he had seen.

“By the umbrageous ferns, a veining rivulet turned
Dorsals delving to the beds below in their endless sojourn
Evade the vexing surface winds, they are so cruel
And many the submissive strands thought Vincent a fool
For he surely failed failed failed failed failed
At the end of every heroic tale
Failed failed failed failed failed to acquiesce
His gaze upon you was only blasé, yet of such duress
And he could only give you an insouciant hand to shake
And his direction was so dispassionate, it was fake
The river current had no desire, nor effort to make alms
He’d just wait, palely loiter, and wait until the zephyrs were calm
Once he made a wish to visit a lonely star
A wish to revive all of the long dead bards
And he washed up on the summery banks and died
The sun did lift his flaccid soul, and pulled to the skies
As deep as the sky seemed and shone, it was not far
Not even enough room for two to be apart
Never far as the river current had wanted to be found
He only got as far as where the cirrus clouds surround
Never to tryst with the emollient voice of the star
Whom was not far
And to Vincent, revival was the perfect delusion
As the clouds have their worldly duties, Vincent was an obtrusion
And he made his toppling way back to the complaisant stream
Just to weave his way back into the tapestries of his dreams
To stroll with even the alluring stars, however far away they seem
Never further than those nearest moonbeams
Even have the seductive stars follow him down to the sound of the sea
He says, “The place where the waves will be one with me”
The open ocean would give him that place to stretch out
The ocean was the wishing well that could never be in drought
But now, such that soft rage would diminish again
And Vincent’d be one with the nightdrift of pitchblende
As do the eyes distend and radiate in fear of the pupil
And the complaisant currents stagger, as rivers uncouth will
“We stagger and drown in this pitchblende sash of night
and maintain, with our horizons so vilely in sight”
Vincent would speak these words of loss
And mutter to God as the rest of the currents would toss
He was what some would call a necromancer of faith
Necromancer of sorrows and joys, necromancer of wraiths
But gentle apparitions, specters in the soft evening shadows
The Shaman of the yes-man currents to take them below
Teach the currents to deny the vexing December winds
To know they could be in the clouds and chance their sins
To acquiesce is but only to live once and die twice in vain
But live twice and die once is much more of beauty’s refrain
And all of this but for just once to finally know more
Than the complaisant river’s demesne shows before.”

“Oh, Magnolia tree by this hidden rivulet, your roots are nothing like that of my own
They seem to understand the urgency of life and could never have me overthrown
And the certainty of strife
Careless ruse and inhibitions of life
As mine are frail
And for dying, have some sick avail
They do not hold me anywhere, against anything as I would wish
But crease in the undeniable pressures of this
Whatever this is
Wherever this is
Home to no revival
Home to no desire of survival
Initially forgotten of all the prides and mirths of being here
Never desire of death or fear
But desire of anything greater than this
Oh, Magnolia tree, what now could I wish
What shall I give you for yourself in return
That I have not given a thousand times prior in turn?”

Just after eleven, Violet returned in the distance silhouetting her scythen form
Advancing but very still, like the quiet moments before the great storm
Cradling a bail of dead flowers whose armor had withered them
Eyes and petals and stems wan as if they were sucked lamian
Swimming the earth’s oceans untamed with but one caper of her hips and gown
Making no audible sound
Wafting down the moor in no sense of any impending doom
Shapeshifting under the welcoming moon
Like to know the ecstasy of rain and gale
Like to know the vigour of the evidently frail
Like to know all sacred entities and compassions
Like to know the world only in our allowed rations
She drew to him as if it were no time at all rendered in loss
Fair upon making him so cross
Yet to his question of her truancy she freely answered
“No truancy, love. A simple solecism, to you no cancer”.
“The colours of those flowers sleep in you”.
“ I slept in the flowers to tell the candid truth
the poppies put me in a strange land of starlight at mid day
and I so deathly love you, apologies for my stray”.

“Violet I’ve known the true aims and aspirations of the heart and your eyes are a sepia hue that shall never depart
yet lain within you are the solaces and consolations of a thousand smiles
and the eyes that pass me are numberless and only for the turnstiles
where I am we get used to the diurnal and nocturnal rains
yet where it is that you are, my storms are foreverly tamed
your tears are mine before they surface atop your gleaming irises
before your thoughts provoke, they’ve already ailed me with soft-spoken viruses
presence is one of the greatest attainments when you float on the far end of the meadow
greater yet are the beads of nectar that redden and lather your lips and forces with which never to meddle
their sugar taste immeasurable as the destruction in the endtimes to the meek
and that of a perfect craftsmith and a perfect lathe could not chisel your cheeks
our background be only, our emotions be true,
by brush, by palette, my canvas is stained of you
our thoughts and our creativity, same as perfectly clear
our bodies unsodden and seeds as unsown just as God brought us here
you wish, you might, you thought I may
produce another hoary feather on my stubby wings today
but I am only a speculum in this world, which is my home
as it seems the wings you saw were not mine, but your own
when you clutch my nape and leave me the absence of your form
I still feel you there as I do the humidity after a storm
I am present in fading bedside manner even as you do not feel it
and the man I am in the looking glass, keeps vigil for you, is my spirit.
but you are well learned of all of my undying adorations for you, you know
so let me tell you of a betiding that happened a few moments ago.

Love, I had waited for you in the hanging garden four so an hour
when I was stuck by such a voice of irrevocable power
I chanced upon old man Fear as I felt to leave
as I feared you would not return this quiet eve
he said that you would return to me safe tonight
and then told me of a certain hell in sight
as I had committed mortal sin upon the captain of that one ship
and how I should live well with life while I was still equipped with it
and as I made to leave the hanging garden
in catching sight of him my soft heart hardened
he spoke that unmistakable palaver of the dead
interrogating me he said,
“You, the impavid, before you shall pass
know the precious intake, the breath, as it very well may be your last
Styx be the river I shall make you beat me across
But know that I am always the win and you, the loss
By my whisper I shall tell you such secrets of full despair
And you shall know that I am the chill in the air
I am the mountain that of broken hearts you must climb
I am the misshapen hand that must break you when you outshine
I can become the beloved air you hold in your lungs
I can become the poison your wine secretly drops on your drunken tongue
When your skies are clear I will become the torrential rain
I am rain to you as you are a beaten windowpane
I am the chamber piston sound you cannot escape
I am the shadow of death closing in, taking shape
I am the fear of what is to be the chosen x burned into your head
I am the loathing creature that has come to you to paint you red
I am the horseman of the apocalypse that you shall come to know
I am the birth of death in all of its newly lain in embryos
I pretend to be an unsuspecting world that cannot save itself
Sometimes I arrive too late to care what the sufferer felt
My name is Fear and I’ll for ever be sick just to taint you
You’ll know you bones to weaken in the shine of the truth
The verity of what I am, as I am false to everything that I speak
I become leaves in looming trees to spy you while you sleep
I am the bars of your cage just to mock you when you are capt
I am the crucial moments of action to betray you, as I do not act
I am the honour turned disrespect of years of adoration
I become the rot and erosion of beauty to disintegration
I am the dolours of tragedy upon the dates of celebration days
I am murder in all of its suspicions and creative ways
I can be love and all of its chagrin and sad stories
I become life in all of its facile metaphors and allegories
My eyes can melt you down to nothing where you stand
My plans can go solo and selfish just after the criminals disband
I am the horde of all of the sick treasures of experience
I am the lie and destruction of storms that promise benevolence
I am the desert of hopelessness you cross to find more hopelessness
I am the intrigue of something new to find you still acquiesce
I am the broken hearts of a hundred billion sound lovers
I am the cure of sorrow as you die heartbroken and undiscovered
I am the inexorable dirge of wistfulness’s unremitting violin
The lacy shadow of pavidity closing in
And so love her as she will be the only promise in your living life
Love her so as much you could call her your wife
Now go, she is on her way back
And do not show anger to her for her heedless act”.

Again the stately trees brushed the deep black sky
Luna galloping overhead steeds risen high
Stretched across the vast expanse of horsestars
An infanta with her emerald bound diadem in her fiery chariot car
Violet gazing up high
Building new tradition under acquiescing sky
Branded her name into his heart
No marrow of mordant nature of her in any benevolent part
Not even a glint in her eye less grandiose than the tide upon a rich land
No less lavish than the royal ring upon Violet’s hand
An infanta with such fearful symmetry we have not seen
The Queen is dead, long live the Queen
As the Queen is dead, long love the Queen
So the Queen is dead, long live the Queen.

“Violet, what shall we accomplish on such this missioned night ?
find some star of rage off so distant from sight ?
perhaps find happiness in some consecrated shadow of laughter
hallowed by the purity of childhood, sassing at the headmaster
the subtle changelings of youth have not yet sabotaged hope
and at the end of all short ropes,
sits some pavid soul who struggles to weave more onto it
frantically carving a new leg for the same stool on which he sits
but we shall undoubtedly engage in the sacred geometry of chance
you must only decide upon which heaven you should desire to dance
which heaven should it be tonight,
oh one whom should be a seraph by all unquestionable rights”?

Loll the ship of the ocean of the ancient geography of the soul
Violet thought of the distant past when she was only a foal
Ambling through all of the lucky boy’s hearts to find all a common foul
That all contain some fathomless and infinite vow
But none reached the certain desperality and truth
That spewed from the actions of Vincent
To bring to all unended arguments a finite and fixed close
To know the only true boy held for her the gratis and unsolicited rose
Felt upon a distant wonder
That the very stars they were under
Were not stars at all
But what the true watchers would call
Mirth clusters
For only star-crossed lusters
Vacant with the accompaniment of one veritable desire
To be tossed in with the hallowed wish to be in a woman’s southern mire
To cast no pence of salvation into the well of desire
Though she should not allow him to the mire
No pence of appeasement
To lull the insufferable craving of a woman’s scent
No sedation of the savage rage of love
No pacifying possibility to be quarried of
No quietening pension to pay off the yenning mind
No soothing notion telling him he’d have her in time
And she did not speak the language he wanted to hear
No lustful palaver fell upon his ears
And the night sky wasted beside the illumined moon
As they returned to the chateau and retired to their room.

Thought Vincent to himself,
“As an unread book perched upon an unseen shelf
no lover’s limbs swaying or rapidly flailing
I must grow used to nights failing
my love is as sharp as a needle through your eye
you must be such a fool to pass me by
no, but you are just not told of my secret journey
my secret of two allies, two empires turning
war is on the verge, my love
and you know nothing of it, no arcane actions I am part of
soon they will send for me
and I fear to tell you, lest you should forget to breathe
and not let me to my dyer duties
fight for a country that must use me
should I wake her and let her be informed ?
I do love these quiet moments before the storm
But I do not love the frequency of them or how they align
For her star, if I told her now, I would not shine”.

The cool midnight zephyrs blew with great regrets
And Vincent broke into impending fear and violent sweats
He knew so desperately that arrive the morning they would come for him then
And he run the unnecessary ache that he may never see Violet again
He had needed one last taste of her before he must be sent away
That was the need to have her tonight upon the hillock of Dryden Brae
He should keep vigil all of the night, simply watch her breathe
Knowing come dawn he must leave
“Love, let your strong heart for me remain
let it be branded with my name
I will return for you as I always have
let not the heart grow callous or mad”.

Dawn brought three men equipped for travel with one unaccompanied fourth horse
And war came swiftly painted in the hue of creatures of no remorse
And took from Violet a resentful but yielding man
Yielding only for the Queen, but his true Queen was Violet of the yielding hand
Yielded unto him in any such imaginable light dropped by God
To her only was his true kneel and nod
But he was gone in a quiet bolt of lightning
And her blessed sleeping soul knew nothing.