POEMS ABOUT FANTASTIC REALMS

CRONOAN

Do you remember strange Cronoan?
Pillars rising, cold dark stone,
Dance-floors tiled in polished bone
In long-forgotten Cronoan?

Lamps of grey chalcedony,
And dancing shadows ebony –
Fumes of myrrh and ambergris
Scent the Gardens of Cronoan.

Brooding under baleful moon
The broken arches of the ruin
Hear the ghastly, mournful croon –
Oh, the Gardens of Cronoan!

Recall, you, when the shadows creep
And something flickers in the deep:
The dark gods of eternal sleep
Reign in the Gardens of Cronoan.

Do you remember stony spires?
And ensorceled scarlet fires
Found again in funeral pyres –
We return to dark Cronoan!

THE UNDEAD LOVER

“Awake, awake, my own true love,
Awake, awake,” cried he;
“Awake, awake, and take my hand,
For thou and I must flee.

“All on the lands I’ve sought thy soul
And likewise on the sea,
A hundred years and more I’ve searched
To bring thee back to me.

“The blackest arts I’ve mastered so,
And pierced the darkest grave;
The blackest masters would I serve
All for thy soul to save.

“Awake, awake, my own true love,
Rise from thy somber bed,
Our enemies quick on us come
Our crimson blood to shed.”

Then opened she her eyes so wide
And pal’d from cheek to chin,
And frightened grasped her winding-sheet
As if to hide from him.

“What demon stands all garbed in black
And calls me from the night?
A hundred years and more I’ve been
Imprisoned from the light.

“You cannot be my own true love,
The man that I once wed,
For freezing are your hands and eyes
As though you stood there dead.”

“I am indeed thine own true love
I am the man thou wed;
A hundred years I’ve searched for thee
So long have I been dead.”

One icy kiss he gave to her,
Then drew his cloak all near,
And saw she trembled at his touch
And gazed at him with fear.

“A hundred years I’ve walked this earth,
A hundred more can bear
To gain a glimpse of the sunlight
All shining in thy hair.

“Death has slain a thousand loves,
But mine can never quell,
And I’ll return alive to thee
Though I return from hell.”

THE HAVRANT'S LAMENT
(based on the Gartan Mother's Lullabye)
(a Samru poem)

Hush, O child, while the twilight mourns
The singing city’s fall;
And evil from the grey sea comes
To wrap the world in thrall.
Humanity, the paling moon
Hath rimmed her cusp in ruin
And weeps to hear the sad, sweet tune
I sing, O child, to you.

Dusk is drawn and the mortal’s song
Only the dark night saves;
For all our hopes have sailed away
Far past the starry waves.
Humanity, my child, my one
Flee from betraying fires;
For Dhas, they lead their baying hounds
Toward our funeral pyres.

The land is dead and the cold wind cries
Across the mist-bound moors
The salt sea sobs and sadly sighs
Against the barren shores.
Humanity, kevalin lords
With eyes of hollow death
Stalk the earth with shadow-swords
To still the indrawn breath

Thy sire, my child, this darkness reigns
In armour wrought of stone;
Thy mother lies in earthen chains
Her visage nought but bone.
Humanity, child of the fall,
The Dhas, they would thee kill;
And death, it is an empty hall
And all that’s there is still.

Coronach wears an icy ring
A torque etched and engraved
To bind to him the cairn-kept kings
And keep the dead enslaved.
Humanity, the sun sovereign
Has left his fiery path
And struggles in a night-forged chain
Bound by the Dhas’ wrath.

The sun is gone, the moon in wane,
The green maid hides her face;
Powerful grows the dark ones’ reign
And closer draws the chase –
Humanity, the Epiphanein
Against each other war;
And all we do is mourn and pine
Along this lightless shore.

WERGILD
(unfinished)

The blood on his hands, red gold from his foes
In winter-made patterns frosted and froze
As weary he stumbled, ice on his breath,
From grim fields harrowed and seeded with death.
Two nights he stumbled in snow and in storm,
Seeking a place to heal and be warm.
The third night he faltered, and weary of flight,
Pleaded with demons to grant him respite.
Glacial-eyed princes in misty-halled Hell
Watched as he staggered and finally fell –
When the foam on his lips was ribboned with red
They accepted his soul and he rose from the dead.
So succored, he stood, eyes deadened and cold,
Soulless and damned, humanity sold.
Ten miles onward he finally came
To a cottage where flickered a peat-fire flame.
Three times he knocked on a door made of ash
And the wind tore it open with a shuddering crash.
The peasants drew back at the flash of his sword;
He saluted and bowed, as if to his lord --
“Companions,” he whispered, “feel no fright;
I seek only shelter in this endless night.
I am chilled to the bone and I stagger and tire;
Is there room for another here next to your fire?”

MAGE'S CALL
(unfinished)

I tread the garden verdant with
Amaranth and abisinthe
Aconite and thyme,
Carrying pipes of water-reeds and
Wearing jeweled tapestries
Stiffened with salt rime.
Behind me, towers crystalline
Lay crumbled down and glistening
Gleaming chryselephantine
Casualties of time.
I walk beyond them toward the sea
Lord of all that I can see
Master of my dark eyrie
Ruin-king sublime.
I lift my pipes to pale lips,
Ignore the malestrom that screaming whips,
And play to summon ancient ships
From dark ocean silt!
Dark crafts stir deep beneath the waves
And sailors rise from seaweed graves
Summoned back, uncanny slaves
Bound by piper’s lilt.
I search the ocean’s endless night
For prow, or mast, or sail white
Of a deathship in its flight
Lit with moonlight gilt.

CRONOAN REPRISE

Over the waters like an ancient lord of stone,
Forgotten and forsaken, the darkling Cronoan;
Overhead ashen clouds restlessly stir and roil,
Dappling with shadow the dark and windswept soil.
A lonely minstrel sits upon the grey and barren shore,
Wisdom-worn and weary, keeping the ancient lore
To the empty sky he sings his final ode for Men
As soft, eternal night descends –

– ice cold he sings his requiem.