PROLOGUE (a fortnight prior to the story’s present tense)
Something niggled like ideas at back of mind, it squiggled like a worm traversing one’s behind, Sullen might have said that it was really more like a feeling, incessant grating on his nerves that somehow left him reeling…
Beyond that failing shelter’s door, winds arose and raged as if at war, with stillness found within a space, that lends a bit of needed grace…
In moments fraught with disbelief, one feels as if a falling leaf, but winter renders such things gone, and we’re left perturbed fortune’s pawns…
A winter’s hearth housed in a hall, scant comfort, yet come one, come all, steal moments of respite whilst lost in need, if nothing else, come drink, come feed…
Tucked as he was in a dark corner seat, modest fare set fore, some wine, stewed mash, and meat, he wondered at the breadth of sky, such was the distance in his eyes…
He took his cup and sipped the wine, whilst contemplating folds of time, in which we rise as shooting stars, then fall away from where dreams are…
Eternal as the one’s we hold, forever near in spiritual folds, beyond the veils and empty words, the journey marked in mythic thirds: advent, travails, and finding meaning, this realisation left Sullen beaming…
But he wondered where, and why Keeper had fled, from a collective for which they all had bled, just that same insipid, empty feeling, the kind that leaves the faithless kneeling…
Just then the whir of a cold seeking wind, a swinging door let a new stranger in, but this unlike any other Sullen had ever seen, compared to most half again as tall, and broad, and mean…
By looks of him a brute it could be said, but there was something about the giant’s head, obscured by hood, though not entirely, Sullen might have shrunk were he but cowardly…
So, the giant grimly laboured in, ‘tween dark tavern’s folk, amid their din, Sullen rose and stood as tall as he could, some ancient voice convinced him that he should…
And in the face of his likely doom, Sullen beheld eyes of someone in whom, he’d once found a friend to span all time, no matter dross, nor pale design…
At which the giant pulled back its crimson hood, Sullen saw that a pile of friends there beaming stood! Stranger and Ariadne bore foundations’ weight, whilst on Ariel’s shoulders did Toad gyrate!
Teasing in his silly way, a way that brightens every day, Toad pirouetted and extended his hand, to the one who dreamed himself a better man…
Sullen, for wishing it at skyway’s door, transcending to rare realms, what’s more, beneath rising moons and setting suns, one comes to know oblivion, in search of those who feel compelled, to convert this earthen shade of hell…
Into something rared children dream, for paradise exists between the seams, but as people find they’re getting older, their courage wanes as their doubts grow bolder…
After a spell they laughed and thanked the One for friends, fine means by which to buck the trends, of nerves worn thin in vapid times, forget for whom the bell e’er chimes…
Toad twirled and did a little dance, on Ariel’s shoulders he skipped and pranced, and all of them then gathered near, in sweet embrace they chased their fears…
Sullen took Toad off of Ariel’s head, set him on the stool beside instead, and the rest soon softened into fire’s glow, then the housemaid food and drink bestowed…
Once they had supped and were at last, a little warmer, Stranger rose and took his fiddle to opposing corner, a stage surrounded there by candle flame, a point from which to escape mundane…
Three chords that sang of three passed moons, for time is also kept in magic tunes, we conjure when we’re most in need, of those with whom we fight and bleed…
The music rose as asps on air, it inspired every person there, and on a bridge ‘twixt different planes, should one simply go, or e’er remain?
Mired in the woes of life, for fleeting suns and endless strife, recede into your pale fortress, forget, survive, but is that truly what it means to be alive?
At which the winds beyond the faint and failing frames of that edifice, joined with the tune Stranger played in protest against that which threatens us…
Ariadne was the first to ask, “What shall we do now, Sullen? What is our task?”
As if on cue, Toad belched so loud, expressed some dank and bilious cloud, of insect juice and fresh ate stew, it bore a brown and greenish hew…
They laughed, but soon laughter waned and went, for too long had all their hearts been spent, in animating life from dust, or hope from loss, discerning noble paths from all the roads that cross…
Without any chance of resolution to be gained, to finally outlive, and out-love the human stain…
They looked unto that Sullen one, beside whom they’d seen all doubt undone, but Ariel interceded then and there, twirling ‘twixt pale fingers a flaxen tress of hair…
“It’s not enough to say that he just went, despite the wondrous love he lent, we must persist and seek him out, for surely he’s in need of us, and is afar somewhere about…”
Sullen shook his head and calmly said, “If he wanted it so, he would be here with us instead…
But within my thoughts I can’t stop reeling, for the same insipid, empty feeling, and it seems somehow so known to me, as if some recurring, ancient frequency, and I swear it is within that place and on those tones, that I know that Keeper feels he’s heading home…
Nearer destination, despite any temporal loss, toward a central time, for all of us…
No distance, ruin, nor fading face, the clock of life retains a place at, and in a time of our choosing…
We are only gaining here… we are not losing more than measured loss to balance things, what fortune takes derision brings…
And smiles…
And friends…
Come, good folk… lend me your hands…”
Their hands placed there, the one upon the other, if belief in more is life, the earth is the mother, and Stranger gathered too, having quit his song, to rejoin the circle to which he must belong…
And in the glow of soft firelight, secured from winds at least for the night, Ariel leaned still closer to Sullen, as he took another sip from his cup…
As two cub Snizziphants sprung from Ariel’s sack, but she quickly gathered them up, soothed and gently placed them back…
“But say to me what I see within those sky-stretched eyes, for your silence is a thin disguise, there is no plan yet hatched within the head, so you’re just idling lost within this pub instead…”
Sullen regarded her as Toad climbed and perched upon his shoulder, “We are, each of us, moving our own existential boulder, up and down the mountainside, summits gained and lost for balance we abide, and what I believe is happening here, for here and now it’s coming clear, is that Keeper has had his fill of marking time. Three moons have passed us now since he took flight, but I know it’s just the start of a different, noble, worthwhile fight… And he’s run off to find a radiant and special way to be, our sagely friend in perpetuity.”
Ariel looked gravely upon that Sullen boy, as Toad flitted his tongue at his friend with joy, but her brow furrowed for the folly there, in lives spent grasping at elusive air…
And then, as if summoned back from dreamed haze, returned unto that time and place, Sullen raised his cup to all of them, and with his eyes good feelings lent…
“Before we drink, I’ll simply say, Keeper has not yet gone away, for our part now it’s time to live, unto respective stories give, mind and heart that mythos grows, that time is measured as we’d know...”
To this, they drank, and called to sky, pleading voices, longing eyes…
“And where will your path take you, my love,” Ariel asked of him, wondering what he was thinking of…
Sullen shuddered before replying, in some sense he was abstractly dying…
“I must find him as it was he, who helped me through the mythic door, beyond this truth I’m grasping straws and nothing more.”
“So, you’d have us fall away and head about, to forge our own sagas whilst you figure things out?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” he said, in a tone both resolute and shrinking…
“No.”
Ariel pronounced the word and it hung on air, stark silence soon descended there, and free from both her skin and space, she called them all back unto place…
“We are the story, and the center, the solution to any problems into which we enter, first from within as you and me, then collectively we supersede, flying further and higher than I’d ever dreamed, so departing now does not e’en remotely seem, in the slightest bit too helpful here, amid the absence and the drear!”
At this, the others roared and flung coarse bits of bread, at blushing Sullens’ whirring head, and then they clambered to a central space, that eluded eyes but occupied a place…
Sullen laughed and solemnly nodded his head, basking in the radiance of fellowship, instead, “We shall indeed endure as e’er, as one, unto the heights of kingdom come, I will simply say that it may fall to us, as time slowly compresses, to rise above with but a thought, a hope, a dream, to slip the knot…”
DISTANT STARLIGHT SHONE (a fortnight prior to the story’s present tense)
In the distance starlight shone, leagues so far away, a liquid fart from arse was blown, well, it really sprayed…
The Keeper stirred from numbed sleep, he swatted at his head, at nightmare shapes that crawl and creep, to make him reel instead…
From knowing any sense of calm at imminence, the fact of endings resolute, as the proof of his incontinence, raised unto air pollutes…
Fairest skies and fair ideals, in fleeting frames they had achieved, he and friends to render real, the grace that they believed…
Defines all creatures great and small, from snizziphant to lord, amid the torrent hear the call, mortal infected chord…
He scratched at hollowed, vacant eyes, his ravens perched at shelter’s cross, three hosts at rail, e’er at his side, despite his arschen sauce…
Within a hovel in the fields, a shelter for the night, for whate’er days and nights may yield, he feted his loss of sight…
Better not to see at all, regretting life’s fatal touch, it is still common unto all, furtive in its mortal way…
He stretched and dripped it down his leg, that strained noxious juice, to which the wise would plead and beg, for a however fleeting truce…
After a spell with his head still thick, ‘twixt sleeping and some mythic dawning, he was sure that his sodden cloak wouldn’t stick, then his farts gave awkward way to yawning…
But no sun yet, the stygian hours, never more alone nor far away, he had known want, as bees know flowers, as that which tempts but never stays…
Stretched at the pile, clothes strewn on soiled hay, wondering at the leagues or miles, ‘twixt there and sky’s doorway…
Eternal want of light, but mired in the murk, not until the boy and friends had come just out of sight, did he fully understand the work…
That lay ahead of all of them, in a world where dross pervades, ideals extol and hate condemns, from foulness now dissuade…
A mantra Keeper spoke aloud, whilst picking at a stringy snot, wont to slip eternal shroud, of lives eternal spent without…
Grace is calling, hear it sure, the dawn not far behind, you left your friends for need of more, to bring calling to sublime…
Whilst somewhere stirring beyond veils, time is never clear to men, Kronos shuffles off the scales, of too long letting them…
Make a mockery of how it’s…
Used…
THE MOB AT ATROPON (3 days prior to the present tense of the story)
There is glistening light as dawn emerges, o'er snowy fields when the mob converges, on a single fellow yet fast asleep, because some dreams are worth everything to keep...
Chorus conjecture and muted in space, would that once truth were told straight unto one's face, the journey is everything rare hearts undertake, but those lacking faith deem the reach a mistake...
So cold to feel truth out in the expanse, so cold the compulsion and ne'er take the chance, to be someone rare, despite the sickness about, to personify trust, whilst transcending all doubt...
Sweet Sullen had never adhered to the line, nor succumbed to despair and all that which maligns, so he knew from his modest, ill-defined start, that he would be scorned for living a life based on heart...
Blazoned on fast closed eyes, the dream, the truth, and the vast cirrus skies, promises are each new day, they are the purpose and the way, we clamber forth throughout this life, despite the dross and endless strife...
What reason might he have felt just then, to depart the dream state in which he had been? Why rush once more unto the vacant trite, the antithesis of dreaming's delight?
Sullen neither flinched nor stirred, until the space before his eyes then whirred, for fingers waving back and forth, as prying hands at dreaming doors...
As if in a haze then dragged and led, beaten at limbs and about his fair head, they took that dreamy Sullen one, back whence with spite they all had come...
And shackle-bound, thrown o'er back of beast, the leads soft led by the maleable least, a mob is naught but fervour forced, to alter peaceful living's course...
Sullen shifted there and felt such pain, the broken bones and gaping veins, not yet, he thought despite rising winds, not yet fade, not yet time to give in...
In sky blue eyes the story flutters, succession and the mythos uttered, the things we do for love and friends, defying allthe hollow trends, somehow it seems beyond skyway's door, Sullen had glimpsed what he was looking for...
The truth that haunts all mortal days, compels our friends to leave, not stay, to seek it out deep in its heart, to somehow tear that truth apart...
Procession moves through central squares, tangential killers here and there, four points at least from which to see, what went before and what will be...
But stealthily fastened to a shade, permitting neither shift nor sway, Keeper too beheld the morbid column, and in his heart became so solemn...
The very point of having fled the fold, forsaking all he'd ever wish to hold, was to prevent the truth that comes undone, as the thread that was by Atropos spun...
Unto the heart, unto the seat, he'd hastened but per chance to greet, destiny before it found them all, and hoarded them to pale and deathly halls...
Keeper's ravens circled so high over head, shared unto him scenes of transcendence instead, solutions are waiting for those who stand firm, against circumstance they boldly come to terms...
Submission is there for the faded and weak, the ravens see all in the heart that we seek, thus Keeper lamented that Sullen boy's plight, whilst considering a plan for a way to take flight!
From shade unto sun is the counter to blight, no more hiding from fate he would burst into light, but for niggling pretension of far grander plans, he froze for a spell, that most curious man!
He knew time was short, that his friend needed help, he flexed and he bent and he bellowed a loud yelp!
He wriggled his toes and stretched his leg a bit, and quite absently secreted a lean coil of shit...
Emerging from darkness, swerving unto the light, hidden neatly 'neath robes and so far out of sight, his eyes rolled way back far into head, that coil of shit foretold great things ahead...
Softly and warmly dripped down along leg, unto foot and unto that which anyone begs, just there a way out, or way in it would seem, unto cistern and sewage trails forth he shall stream...
The mob took turns beating Sullen about the head and heart, if they could, they would tear his existence apart, cacophonous cries extolling all human acts, but they didn't know why, no one there had the facts...
As to why it was amid resounding refrain, that it was unto Atropon that bold Sullen boy came, he'd gone after his friend to dissuade him from ends, only now to surmise what this brutal life sends...
THE BIRTH OF IDEAS (a dream between a fortnight and thirteen days prior to the present tense of the story)
Swirling in some distant place, the heart a realm of birth, flying free from weighted space, that tethers us to earth...
Toad wriggled through a dream sequence, the one where he's at home, he swears it only seems pretence, that he is not e'er alone...
Such fortune is so rare to see, he's hopping proudly with his wife and brood, how is it this has come to be? When life afield is pestilent and crude...
Zigging left, then zagging right, extends himself to fullest height, the ones beheld now in his sight, imply the world is coming right...
But then a thought so deep and dark, idyllic scenes don't ever last, consigns us unto choices stark, to render futures free of pasts...
Rare smiles e'er fading far too soon, as warm suns from the sky, we're left cold beneath indifferent moons, to forever wonder why...
Or how it is we manage time, that scenes like these forever stay, make permanent our rare sublime, that those we love don't go away...
An idea curling like a star, around the planet where we're mired, peering in at Toad from way afar, an idea that's neither weathered nor tired...
Toad grasped at it, as if his own life, depended on it's realisation, he hopped away from brood and wife, unto some dreamer's desolation...
He somehow knew that it was the one, the idea after which they'd so long sought, means by which to end the continuum, of lives with endings too long fraught...
But beyond dream, in waking space, one of Sullen's band bestowed a fart, a bubbly one, in Toad's own face, it killed idea, and froze the heart...
Abruptly banned from dream's idea, come cold unto the dawn, subverted by that old Gaea, mortals e'er the ancient's pawns...
Whilst far away on his own stone, Keeper scratched at absent eyes, some bright idea left him alone, beneath early raging skies...
He'd captured just enough of it, twixt earholes left and right, then diagrammed some scheme that fit, dimension, breadth, and height...
He rose, as his bones they cracked and creaked, pale morning come at last, across the sky deep colours streaked, like the dying after the past...
TWIN SUNS (thirteen days prior to the story’s present tense)
Twin suns emerged at new days’ dawn, two orbs ‘twixt which a line is drawn, Sullen belched, pinched out a fart, and stretched his limbs, then gauged the space dividing suns from him…
Soon Toad emerged from blanket folds, and wailed complaint at morning’s cold, the others soon came crawling out, from here and there and all about…
At scratchy eyes and sandy tongues, daily routine at ladder’s wrung, then peered through panes affording sky, define this day how to defy…
The waning hours that mark these lives, no matter altitudes to which we strive, becoming more for want of less, as injuries hurt, they also bless…
So Sullen sighed and then exclaimed, “We shall not let things stay the same!” He rose and slid and sprung, and whilst eyeing those twin suns he sung!
“The center point between these orbs, that is where we’ll find the door, to which our friend has surely gone, I see it clearly as the dawn!”
Stranger asked as if still lost in dream, “Are you sure we’ll ever find the seam, ‘twixt darkness and rare beaming, what is real and what’s e’er seeming?”
Ariel took his hand and helped him stand, “We are all pilgrims from a foreign land, exiled at birth from paradise, and now beholden to temporal device, nothing we wish fervently, is ever far from you or me, so let us not a moment waste, our friend is alone, thus we must make haste!”
As the ladies prepared and deftly shuffled, the men muttered in tones e’er manly muffled, “So, we’re going there?” Toad asked, pointing to a random place on air…
“This is the best that we can do,” Sullen said. “I awoke this morn as blue as you, for having let our friend depart, from fairest corridors of heart, but if time wanes and Keeper knows this too, we must encounter him at someplace true…”
“And that’s… there?” asked Toad somewhat fretfully.
“Yes,” replied that Sullen one all too regretfully.
“I know that you are too long separated, from those whom you love, who’ve so long waited, patiently as reeds in streams, for the one who truly means… everything. Time slips and is regained when rare altitudes of love are at last attained. This fellowship is but a bridge I say to you, and what is left is ours to do… traverse or not, it’s up to us, to live with hope, to build our trust, only in this way shall we find him… I assure you, only thus.”
Toad scratched at his little chin, within his head a little din, a celebration formed in thought, of life with family textured… fraught…
“It’s true that I am too long amiss, too long since I’ve offered tender kiss, to wife and kids long waiting cold, it’s thoughts of them to which I hold, as I fight with friends to render grace, across this tired mortal space…
I shall indeed away once more, with friends unto the skyway’s door, that we might have some say in fate, and shine a light that permeates…”
CIRRUS (later on the thirteenth day prior to the present tense of the story)
Cirrus sighs in midday skies, as hopes we free from earth, the steps one takes just after noon, so oft afford rebirth…
Resistance raised on an early morning muffle, but soon all limbs were set upon a shuffle, for Keeper had fled so silent far from them, from luminos and everywhere they’d ever been…
The band of friends once more afield, the procession of lives, fervent long for what hope yields, toward what our hearts e’er strive…
Toad hopped and skipped with gleeful joy, for what these efforts lend, the coping schemes one e’er employs, when distance never ends…
When all one seeks is here at hand, the ones with whom we walk, in file formation over land, friends with whom we care to talk…
‘Bout anything on the heart that weighs, in static hours alone, the ones who bring us smiles that stay, who make us feel at home…
Ariadne trailed in Stranger’s wake, a thought twirling on her tongue, the subtle steps one dares to take, when the love one feels is young…
“Of you and that which went before, I’d dearly love to know, of how you’ve lived ‘cross skyway’s door, and how you wish to grow…
Beyond the pallid tones of day, beheld ‘twixt iron bars, beyond the harm they do and say, that keep us from the stars…
It is eternally we, who choose our prison terms, that which yet interests me, are those who shift and then squirm…
Like jaded hosts, once more unto light, forget all the ghosts, as e’er crave delight…
And radiance in o’er passing skies, take some respite from dross, embrace those who stay by our side, who remain despite the cost…”
At which Stranger swerved right and left of the file, bereft of any means by which to reconcile, endless questions, countless doubts, concerning who he was and what he’s about…
“Within my heart and my own mind, our band represents new paradigm, onto which to inscribe, something rare and sublime…
Why then such questions, which no longer relate, to love’s mythic expression, amid this fleeting state?
The past is the past, and well it is gone, for time flies too fast, lives are quartered and drawn…
Into magical bits, that ne’er fully fade, they adorn in rare fits, amid life’s grand parade…”
Just then Sullen offered lightly, and loud from the rear, like sun emerged brightly from cloud-covered drear, “Who cares for the why’s and the how’s of our grace? We celebrate love in our time and our space.”
Ariel raised her agreement on the wings of a song, rendered clear the way ahead, for journeys are never so perilous or long, as those we take within the head…
“We are indeed as ever we, as songs within the heart, the truth of all we come to be, the sum of all our parts…
As sprites e’er dancing ‘twixt ancient trees, transcendent hours we know, the magic come of you all and me, we’re reaping what we sow…”
Toad did three flips here, then three flips there, if he was flipping it was clear, that he was flipping everywhere!
Then Ariel and Ariadne danced too, snizziphant cubs held tight, it only matters what we do, in the face of earthen blight…
Way up ahead horizon breathed the air, neither orange nor red, but pink instead, in hopes they’d soon be there…
With Keeper gone so far away, one wonders what he meant, by his flight soiling grace of day, a one so heaven sent…
And ruminations dark and deep, assailed our Sullen’s thoughts, for any journey undertook is rumination wrought…
The voices of the others fade, as pasts we keep within, inspired intent as e’er conveyed, as devils on the din…
“But no, not this,” he thought whilst scratching at his head, “there is another, better place from which I’m hatching this instead!
No certainty as yet exists, regarding what’s to come, but everything we’ve done ‘til now has all been so much fun…
We shall not shrink in hours of need, from that which must be done, we shall as ever rise, indeed, as flowers unto sun…
And laughing ‘long the way we know, no matter what may pass, that this has been a time of hearts, and it has been a GAS!!!”
And so, they journeyed further still, Toad’s flatulence on queue, no matter what he tried or willed, there was nothing he could do…
With every single step he took, he tooted green/brown gas, like little sickening bulbs of stink, emitted from the ass…
A mountain glimpsed before they finally settled for the night, Ariadne would not let that Stranger from her sight, helpless to control dark thoughts how deep they tend to go, the demons of a loved one’s past, one should not deign to know…
For judgment is an easy thing, it measures us in time, permit rebirth at cirrus skies, then boldly make the climb…
The Way (twelve days prior to the present tense of the story)
Took to path twixt night and day
Keeper and his birds
horizon is a place that stays
in colour come of thirds
his staff in hand he made the climb
away from and towards his heart
exonerate or proof of crime
complicit equal parts
if only one could stay the time
progression in its place
if only one could breathe sublime
without from inner space
he saw within his blinded eyes
the troubles friends confront
in chasing after life's great prize
at which he freed a bestial grunt
and groan for all the aches of it
living with some hope in heart
it is no easy thing
yet it's what sets the rare apart
and that which makes us sing
he'd heard on whispered winds long passed
of scribes who wrote the way
for seekers and the one's who asked
of sky and its doorway
now leaning in to the ascent
so fraught with all that was
the wailing wolves don't e'er relent
there is no still because
of what still wants and needs to be
accomplished in our time
hasten unto something free
and clear of all the grime
far ahead an ancient haunt
a mountain's cave it's said
a beacon for all those who want
to grasp the ancient thread
that ties the "that" to all of "this"
to learn the way again
from discordance unto bliss
across temporal strain
Keeper mutters solemnly to wind
"lend me grace to guide the way
out of the hole we're in
where we're not meant to stay"
he'd learned it once, long years before
he'd muttered over embers
"We must move back 'cross skyway's door
in hopes the world remembers..."
the way...
AT HANGMAN’S KEEP (nine days prior to the present tense of the story)
In restless circles sleepers dream, as stars traverse the sky, morphic hands grasp at what they mean, before they’ve passed us by…
Two points upon some astral plane, one oughtn’t say a static combination, adjoined yet not e’er the same, perceived hells and future destinations…
Vast leagues divide these points in space, the Keeper fore, friends flailing in his wake, in dream Sullen surmised the former’s place, and delved for knowing’s sake…
Phantom eyes amid the crags, foothills lean unto the peak, dreamed sighs as spirit sags, bereft of what he seeks…
At Hangman’s Keep, the Keeper sought, a scroll that speaks of time, eternal sleep, from dreaming wrought, as distant church bells chime…
Bulging knuckles, swollen hands, and joints that ever ache, wasted in the waning sands, he searched for pity’s sake…
Outside the cave, hewn black in moon, his ravens circled low, Kronos swears he’s coming soon, to cut the ties we know…
At last, the scroll heroically obtained, the Keeper forges flame, each word he reads pronounced the same, forever mired in games…
Illusory twin pendulums, sway back and forth, just so, the ones who feel, the ones who’re numb, mark time as e’er it goes…
Dangling at the hangman’s will, denied the gift of death, in pallid shades they’re dreaming still, bereft of living’s breath…
Like a madman searching in the night, Keeper felt for ancient words, ascertaining Brail’s delight, these lives are drawn in thirds…
A truth so solemn resonates, in distant, vacant tones,
as wolves wailing at iron gates, we face the void alone…
Unless…
At which our Keeper understood, that which he’d known before, perspective beams what could and should, bring us nobly to the door…
The fissures of the earth collude, to bring foundation down, adherents to this servitude, are e’er consigned to ground…
O’er dreamed fields, connected still, we feel for those we love, surmount the walls, impose our will, the lives we’re dreaming of…
Within that sphere of conjured flame, a certainty took root, the pillars of ideals we hold, time never can dilute…
With pragmatism, skepticism, or bilious rendered dross, to those who can’t see skyway’s door, it simply is your loss…
Whilst leagues away, from Hangman’s Keep, still hours from light of day, footmen beat him from his sleep, they set on Sullen’s way…
Two hands o’er mouth, in silence led him hence, no chance for crying out, hard blows diminished sense…
So, taken quiet from the fold, and seemingly betrayed, lament the loss of dreams we hold, and bear these waking days…
Some hours later Toad emerged, delirious with smiles, at seeing sun and moon converge, the dawn is come with style!
He scratched at skin and sleepy eyes, whilst wriggling his butt, so stellar to at last arise, amongst companions but…
E’en birds high singing, freeing morning’s song, could not subvert truth ringing, imparting something’s wrong…
OLD MOSS MEADOWS
Keeper flailed then slowly turned around, the plight of sightless seekers far, stretched arms to feel that which surrounds, some trace of errant star...
"It's more meaningful than all this time," he thought as he scratched his ass, "to from this dissonance, render rhyme, that our futures scorch the past..."
Three ravens circled just outside, narrow fissured refuge place, when pasts and futures somehow collide, one is forced to gag on space...
Descending spirit, wandering fields, left all of them behind, the ones you love, who sing in kind, all that which feeling yields...
The good and bad, the highs and lows, we take these things in turns, but patience somehow always knows, the way our spirits yearn...
So, Keeper swept himself up in his cloak, with fervour set about, and unto fields to have a smoke, to puff away all doubt...
And as he sat there ‘neath dawning sky, a crooked pipe in hand, a gentle friend from years gone by, just happened to descend...
Old Moss Meadows then reeled to form, from someplace 'twixt the earth and sky, with him the sky breathed something warm, and the world came alive...
Moss Meadows smelled of morning dew, like all the dreams of me and you, and Keeper too, for all his crank, the bilious way in which he stank...
Moss Meadows was one not much for words, preferred to quietly await, the dawning chorus of morning birds, hear them persistently elate...
The saddened states of broken hearts, of travellers wandering far afield, even Keeper and his putrid farts, for all the truth that they do yield...
"So, you are come to greet me at the end," said Keeper on a breath. "I have come to greet an ancient friend, at the unwinding of a death...
Or the unravelling of beginnings,"breathed old Moss Meadows on the breeze, Keeper beamed with hopeful grinning, then stood up tall with little ease...
"I've still yet leagues and leagues before i reach, the fateful transcendental space, where boy crossed sky and gave this place, a taste of all those dreams that swirl...
This way, that way, here and there, fates are shifting left and right, their way, our way, truth or dare, we gather here to end this blight..."
At which Old Moss Meadows puffed a circle made of clouds, in which emerged a question mark, "Why so quick to lift the shroud, and undermine the will of larks?"
Keeper sat there in a centric sphere, Moss Meadows yet present at his side, Keeper gasped and muttered with drear, "Don't know how much longer i can hide...
From things i have, or haven't done, the worlds set into being, ideas and clay in unison, and love that took my seeing..."
Moss Meadows took some light into his hands, then he proffered it unto friend, such acts are indeed the living strands, and that is what perspective lends...
WHY ARE YOU COME UNTO THIS PLACE? (three days prior to the present tense of the story)
Magistrates, they come and go, the world is full of them, but little despots fade too slow, amid realms too fraught with men…
Small ideas control the world, the heart’s forgotten song, no matter skies nor dreams that swirl, the things for which we long…
Order, structure, fall in line, at your peril deviate, we’re all consigned to fatal time, so sayeth magistrates…
Thus filled with all his tired air, chest hewn with medal’s gleam, too many more than he can bear, projects what e’er must seem…
Relevant, e’en at the last, as if history blinks an eye, in tedious order lives are cast, and then they pass us by…
Enters quiet as Sullen sleeps, such curious confluence, what counsel do such dreamers keep, and at what consequence?
And Sullen for his sleeping part, was far away in bliss, dreaming from his daring heart, of all the one’s he missed…
And lucid scenes adorned his mind, as if contemporaneous reels, our friendships and these lives entwined, from which Kronos e’er steals…
Precious moments, days, and years, live and love with all you’ve got, live beyond our slavish fears, that we might somehow slip the knot…
Of what awaits in time’s embrace, the silent haunted halls, for we can texture our own space, with a thousand heartfelt calls…
Unto being more than fools can bear, live far beyond their chains, awake at last to finally breathe the air, to find courage remains…
Inside.
“Did you wish to flee and hide, inside of your own dreams?” Magistrate asked at last.
Sullen stirred and quelled the hallowed scenes, in which his dreaming self was cast…
“I’ve no wish to hide from you or anyone, you’ve but interrupted time, it’s only idleness that kills someone, who has a friend to find…
Take some hours, days, or weeks, it’s all the same to me, we seekers find the ones we seek, as you will come to see…”
Magistrate clenched his fists so tight, for his hatred of those who dream, to live beyond imposed blight, and the state-imposed scheme…
Just then the clocktower sang, the dire passing of the hour, the rifles of a line of soldiers rang, an ode to stately power…
“You will find I’m here to learn, the secrets you would tell, regarding that for which such seekers yearn, beyond this cold and hollow cell…
No matter what you think you’ll find, no matter existential cost, you will feel this cold in kind, and lament the one’s you’ve lost…
What is it that brings you joy? Why are you come unto this place? We’ll diminish all your spirit, boy, wipe that smile from your hopeful face.”
A narrow fissure in the frame, a window one could say, not unlike the one through which he came, through sky on that mythic day…
Sullen sighed and closed his eyes, as guards pulled him roughly from his bed, “i am as free as endless cirrus skies” he muttered as they beat him at the head…
