Sometimes

I

I wonder how it is
That She\’s there behind my eyes
Pressed against my spine

(So close that I can feel Her
Breath in my ear
Fingers on my skin)

And as the world turns
I see her in the faces of strangers
Dancing through a cavalcade of bone; a carnival of blood; a sabbat of skin.

She\’s far away, and long gone
To lands where men say the sun has set –
But they have not learned to see in the dark; nay not yet

And though my sight be poor
I see by Northern Lights;
Their shining curtain is the pulsing of a Hyperborean heart

A hearthfire that beckons with flute and drum
Calling me ever on
Though I be broken and afraid

Aye, sick with fear and loathing
Still I grope with fumbling hands
Through darkened woods

Full to the brim with teeth
And blood
Encrusted snow.

I should turn back
This I know;
Should have turned back long ago

But now there\’s nowhere else
No other path ahead –
Just this kind of life

Between

The Living and the Dead
This my meat; my drink; my bitter bread.

Yet still I cry salt tears
Of strangest joy –
All I was, as man and boy

Has led me here
With aching, burning heart
And eagle-hungry maw

Seeking, ever seeking after
The source of might and awe
Spoken of by ancient folk long dead

(Marked, enshrined
Emblazon\’d blackly
By the Ravens\’ head)

II

And still She smiles at me from shadowed space
And I desire those eyes to never leave my face
The pools so deep and full of ice

That speak of innocence
Beyond measures of virtue
Or of vice

She moves like phantom
Or like ghost
But I\’d give my all to play Her host

To lie beside such wisdom
By sweet flesh belied
There I would tarry, and abide

No matter She mortal
Or be of other kind
She basks e\’er now in waters of mind

Ne\’er caught
Ne\’er captured
Like a lady of the Lake

I\’ll not be a slaver
Or make Merlin\’s mistake
I\’ll let Her be as She wishes

Accepting Her kisses
Wheresoever She stands
I, ever the stranger from Stranger Lands

For \’tis whispered on the winds
That long lives ago
When the world was younger than the tales we know

I visited her there
With blood on my hands
And Death at my back

Covered in tales;
That was my hide
Birdbeast-man; eater of those who had died

(Covered in ink
All colours and black
I\’d marked my passage

Gone There and Back
In-between;
And Outside

I told the Truth
Spoke wisely and with wit,
But just as quick I lied.)

No fear was in me then
Not for I
The fear of Men

All had I
Was the way of beast
To play;

To Fight
To Kill
To Fuck and to Feast

These my hounds
My hungers
Nowhere lay doubt in I

As I looked upon Her
Found Her form most pleasing
Her bite most tart

But what quickened me
Set me to burn
To quest for Her Secrets which I should learn?

\’Twas that steady gaze
That gleaming eye
Which spoke loud within my heart

Drove from me all thought
Set me upon my Art
To win a place there, at her side

III

Upon her lap to rest my head
Weary of whispers and hidden thoughts
The dark and awful things that I had wrought

The lives ripped asunder
The blood that has flowed
The hate and the iron that warriors know

And tellers of tales
We take these all inside
The furious poets who wildly ride

We thunder our songs
We shriek out our runes
Running like wolves; to bay at the moon

We remember the dead
Stranger and kin
Feel them all jostle inside of our skin

And with our burnished souls
All gleaming with scars
We raise up our hands to reach for the stars

Grasping the flame
Embracing the dark
We shiver and shake; bleeding and marked

(This is true
Yes, even today
Same as yesteryear, and ever alway\’)

These things I gave
As gifts to Her –
My blood, my breath and my main

As never before
And never again
Have I done in all my days

Those eyes met mine
And fast I fell – I who have walked the paths of Hel
And known the misty lands beyond!

I undying
Was downward struck
Despite my might, despite my luck!

My words were gone
My Art lay still –
Nowhere a sembl\’ance of my skill

\’Til at last
With firm hand and feature most refin\’d
About us Her hair she drew

My heart to bind –
And ne\’er a more pleasant
Noose have I known!

And after I had been
By her claim\’d
I struggled there in that bed

\’Gainst the horror that remain\’d –
Within me the echoes of slaughter
Still did writhe

(For one such as I
Must pay the tithe
Of Memory to gain his Thought

Such the ways and wyrd of I
That was –
Yet still echo now down the halls of Time)

Yet my flesh She held
My soul\’s cold fire she did bear
Yes, and soothed with soft voice ever there

And though I left Her side
Ere dawn had lightened the eastern sky
To stand and watch the coming storm

Her love never left I
Nor did her care
For when I took wing

\’Midst the battlefog
Or deathly mist
I ever felt her there.

IV

Now I sit
As man alone
Mortal now with a death of my own

To come in some season
Racing close
Like that same storm brewing in the Eld

Bedmates have I known
Lovers have I held
Faces have I seen

They dance in memory
And I wonder at it all
Even as I hear the distant song

\’Neath the pavement
Behind the brick
And chattering horde

Somewhere
She stands
Waiting for I

Her tale flowing like a river
To meet the shining sea
That pulses through my veins

And if she be in one
Or many
It still shall be

As I wake
With the taste
Of her still upon my tongue.