Light On the Devil's Chord - Day 37
I heard two distinct voices in the night,
Conversing amongst themselves most eagerly
They whispered like children in excitement
Their sardonic mouths sung many savvy tunes
It was Death I could perceive, defending me,
And he, a strange, distant friend
Seemed lost there,
In suspense and confidence
“It is endearing, surely that she should come before us,
A follower of the Way—once human, now spirit,
To flare her light into a roaring abyss of demons and daftness!
And our Prince—how willingly he hands her the reigns!
Tell me Hades, what wonders shall she show his gleeful eyes,
Shall they enrage them, or intrigue them?”
I could hear Hades grimace before his scoff uttered note:
“Death, if but her rotting flesh reminds me how quick—
How easy love dies in the face of righteous reason,
I would think her mad—idiotic, to even dream,
That she could deter his darksome mind
From the plans he has definitively set to
Against God above—against my lavishing earth!
I ruled its underbelly and smelt its most penetrating odors
It shall exceed its rot, I tell you—just as the armies
He assembles in his rancid reign
Shall find that they blend bitterly in the blood-soaked soils
Like her grandfather in warfare
Blending, old, dying, and definite!
The sodden, soiled world Whitman wrote of—
A soggy, reeking mesh of red, greens, blacks, bone whites
Ashen and Ashamed
Oh how I miss it—
And here only—only!
I regulate the soot, and you keep watch
Over those who have not yet resurrected!
Fleeting are our roles here, like dancing Time
As she, pretty in her prime,
Is promised forever young to the good!
And, we, we whom are not good,
Only lust for more of her
As she languishes in evergreen age!
What dreams do you imagine in these
Stupid, unresurrected bones?
She should be asleep amongst the dumbest skulls!
Can they not be as silly as her own?
How mad the Almighty must have been
To drag her like a mouse before us!
Throwing her into a well of raging dogs!
How cruel and unusual
That she feels she belongs in his jaws
I would love her better caressing her rotted flesh,
I would love her better digesting her bones
In the mouths of insects and worms!
At least in nourishing these creatures,
I give only straight answers,
If not, silence!
Just awful—truthful—frowns!”
Death’s gravelly laugh, low, and rumbly,
Pained the circling Hades,
Finding his way round the pool of water,
Where he could sprawl in what remained of his soot
Hades’ last word resounded
Just after the strum of Death’s bass
Filled the well with resentment, unrest
And rising, rising slowly, mysteriously,
A mass of shadow with the reddest blood-gushing eyes,
Facial features hidden in darkest fogs and mists,
Of confidence and strangest intention,
Death looked down upon Hades’ ashen frown
Amused,
Chuckling
“You miss the point, grim Hades,
You needn’t be bitter of her mindboggling dreams!
The fruit must be shared—you see,
The fruit must be shared!
There is no shame in her arrival,
And no wonder in her departure
Just as flesh lives, ideals oscillate
Just as flesh dies, evil vacillates
He welcomes—welcomes a courageous,
Rectifying, challenging, rebellious
Disparate, diffident soul!
Surely you see she is drawn to the darkness
For a certain purpose?
And even if she catches its danger—if it is shouted out
In booms and downpour and punishment,
With the Almighty’s harshest Word—
She cannot stray from its sway,
Nor shield herself from her want
He consumes her like the plague
Among the ignorant!
Cruel—no, delicious Hades,
Irresistible is the fruit she must share!
And what she shall show them in their maelstrom,
Shall it be her ultimate dream of their union?
Shall it be he, a higher strength of he,
Repented, alive and well,
Rejuvenated by light!
Separated from the bonds of darkness…
Shall it seed in him everlasting love,
Shall it give him attainable peace—if not but an alternative?
Shall it give him merely rage or surprising reverie?
It shall give him— only agony?
I cannot believe it for a second!”
Hades spat and snarled, ceasing his scamper
To scoff and laugh low
“You are lofty, suicidal—wild!
To overjoy for anything more
For this ghost-ridden romance!
Where are you in all of this?
How can you even care!?
You destine only to be nothing,
In thought that you,
In your nonexistence,
May somehow, impossibly dream!
You are paradoxical—just as she is!
Desperate—just as we are!
This is how it will be—
He will return to his villainous placement
For who can leave his Lady long?
Just as you can never leave—though you may dare to dream,
He will be freed only to be bound again
She, only now in her present stay,
Finds a home in his darkest secrets
Like a snake to its caressing burrow
And she shall slither with us in its harsh oblivion
KNOWING LESS THAN BEFORE
(he whispered this—though I heard it as thunder)
Foolish infant she is!
Careless—wild!
Intolerably, stupidly sweet!
But it is our Lady—
His truest power,
The bitter lips containing the poisons
Of which he needs of her to thrive
The child shall awaken from her nightmare—
To know this bitter truth
And leave him alone once again
And in our time we will witness his wars
We will marvel at their numbers—
Like sands of the sea they say!
Only to watch them cave in,
As we prophetically die with him
Gehenna…the true Gehenna,
Of nonexistence
And I, merely the worms,
Shall fall away
And you shall do the same.”
Death remained solemnly quiet for some time,
Taken with Hades’ disparaging words
As the night drifted away into the day
He turned to me,
As I lay there,
Beholding these two beings
He stared into my eyes,
A paternal knowing in their glow
I blinked slowly into them
Into its red hug
“She awakens, to lighten his great wings…
Continue your circles of doubt, Hades
While I will bet on greater things…”
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