It must be the last winding cobbled road
In all of the city

It weaved in and out of old stone houses
Built long before there was any pattern
Or structure to the town's layout

Rarely these modern days
Was its surface graced by human feet

Its lampposts were still gas lit
Though who maintained them
I could not say

As it surely wasn't the city

Nestled away tight and narrow
As the European cities of old

The cobblestone path
Bared no resemblance
To the wide macadamized streets

Of the ever burgeoning city
Which has all but forgotten

This old and sacred place
Where the lonesome memories
Of distant ages yet linger

Broken down over wartorn years
That brave old colossus
What her remnants stood for
Scare few remember  
Though her damaged legs
Now rest below the waves
Her bright torch yet shines
Guiding wayward souls
To the Republic fallen
That it may rise again with her
In great Phoenix glory
To stand atop the shattered world
An unending flame
A beacon of distant hope
To all the poor, tired, huddled masses
To the wretched refuse, homeless
And tempest tossed
A beacon whose meaning is clear


The Colossus has been reborn

Shadow wax
And shadow wane
Cast by the one
Who's left unnamed

He wanders about
In the dead of night
Feeding on fears,
And dreams of light

Perhaps you've seen him
that tall cloaked man
Who wanders the world
With scythe in hand

Encased in ice
covered deep in snow
Tombs and chambers
In shadow below
Lying in wait
Or at least so it's said
To come in the night
those things that are dead
I know those stories
To frighten the young
But if only they knew
The darkness to come
The things that they fear
Pale to the sight
Of the undead creatures
Encased in the ice
Though they lie dormant
The ice will soon fall
And the curse spread once more
Dooming us all

There is a place
I know not of
Silent whispers
Of the deep above

A desire to return
Though to where unknown
In our hearts and minds
This feeling has grown

How can we express
What is hitherto unseen
What images and forms
Can our consciousness glean?

Who are we that we feel this way?

Certainly not the things
We thought ourselves to be

But something more

The rolling plains give way to the deep forests,
Dense and full of springtime vigor.

Yet far within, these woods are thick with moss and untold mystery.

Many that enter are never heard from again,
but few will tell you that it is always their choice,

As they found something far better than anything they had left behind.

I sit here on the edge of these woods,
the warm smoke of my pipe faintly combating the crisp submountain air.

I sit here in the evening, not long before dusk slowly unravels the sky, to reveal the stars once more.

I take a draw from my pipe, its light beginning to show shadows on my face, as the daytime hours dwindle.

The sun sets as I place my pipe back into my well-worn coat pocket.

As twilight arrives, I set off into those peculiar woods,
And I hope I will not return

The stone was rough and cold
Stretching endlessly east and west
In the middle was a door
When opened it only revealed more stone
Dripping wet, as if under a waterfall
Yet no water was in sight
I sat a ways from the door
Pondering its mystery into the evening
As the sun fell low I was startled
When three figures emerged
From the great door in the stone
They looked at me strangely
As if expecting a certain response
I stood up to confront them
But as I did they vanished
Disappearing before my eyes
Behind where they had stood
The door lay open
The wet stone gone from behind it
And in its place
A yawning darkness
A void I found irresistible

Heavenly skin
But inhuman flesh
Tender and kind
The whispers
Of a succubus
the forbidden fruit
Men dare not reach
Lest they fall
Into terrors unknown

Three and four times
Delved down in the mind
Wether their dreams or another's
They did not know for sure

Somewhere in those depths
Of distant realities and mindless dreams
Lies the greatest truth of all
Which is what those beings sought

Once human but no longer
Did they search their dreams
And the dreams of sleeping gods
To secure that ancient knowledge

But the further their sorceries brought them
The madder they became
Until nigh all of them succumbed
To a dark sickness of the mind

Trapped within those lost and sable dreams
Do those inhumans yet remain
Having forgotten the very thing
Their broken minds searched for

Should you encounter one of them
Those ancient weavers of dreams
Be careful that you are not also dragged down
Into that madness along with them

The drowned keep
The bones below
Who they once were
I do not know
But I pray the seas
Do not recede
To reveal those bones
And their dark deeds

The emerald eves
Flow and fall
Down the sides
Of those ancient walls

Once a garden
Of gods unknown
Now but a maze
Long since overgrown

Visions though brief
Haunt men there
In the ivied belvedere
Of that sweet mountain air

Something sinister there resides
In the crevices and craters
Of that ancient satellite
Perhaps it has always been there
Or perhaps it was sealed there
In ages long since past
Regardless I get a shiver
Directly down my spine
On cloudless nights
When the moon is full


For I know it to be empty

The great clocktower stand dilapidated
Grinding, churning, clicking and creaking
As the thick black clouds cover the dim moon

The evening is silent
Save for the calls
Of distant treacherous birds

The bell tolls at midnight
Gently swaying the flames of candles
Within the upper rooms of the tower

As the bell slows
The candles go out one by one
As if a sentient breeze passed through

Until they were but wisps of smoke
Swirling beneath a fading moon
Never to be lit again

Ever have they dwelled in that sickly city,
That even the flowing ice avoided
As it crept down from the heights,
Devourving all in its path.

Among evil shadows,
Did they practice their craft.
In the primordial conurbation
Of forsaken Yir.

Since time immemorial
They have met in silence.
Beneath Yir's dark obelisks
And the backdrop of jagged mountains.

Many believe them necromancers.
It is even said in myth ,
That they were the ones to create man
In order to spite the gods .

But such memories ,
If ever there were any,
Have long since passed
From the revelries of thought.

None have seen these sorcerers
Or that sable city of Yir
Since the ice had receeded
In more recent ages.

In fact, not even the location
Of that monsterous place
Can be agreed upon anymore,
Which many count as a blessing.

For though the city is lost,
And unseen by the eye,
The meer mention of it
Disturbs and unsettles the mind.

As if it's raven spell,
Was never truely lifted.

It came unexpected
But not from a far off place
It came from without our minds
From the dark corner of consciousness

A deep seated thing of Terror
Hidden within us all
From before the world was born
Waiting for its reign to come

Darkness fell and did not rise
As the creature paced back and forth
Among the remnants of the earth
It left only shapeless horror in its wake

Our world had crumbled
I could feel my bones
Turning to dust
As the sun grew dimmer

The darkness was absolute
Brought on by that primordial creature
That beast from beyond existence
The One from within Our Minds

My eyes grew heavy
Staring into the black
All that is, now dark
Fallen to that nameless Terror

Centuries past or perhaps only moments
Ruled by that abomination
Though I tried with all my might
I could no longer will myself to live

I knew I had drawn my last breath
My eyes stared to close
And as they did
I saw a distant glow

Far off into the eternal night

I've felt it below
The hum of engines
Far off and distant
Half ethereal
As if the ghosts
Of long forgotten dreams
Silently churning
Calling out to me
Beckoning me below
And there I do not know
What I will find
Or what will find me
But journey I must
To the Under Earth
Lest that steady hum
Engulf my soul

He came from the seas
With fire at his back
His homeland shrouded in smoke

For days he walked
Below the old stars
Sleeping beneath the tall oaks


Until he came to a church
Abandoned and near ruined
A place of the gods that he knew

Removing his armor
He kneeled down and prayed
While behind him long shadows grew

In the midst of his orison
Did he fall into sleep
Brought not by his own weary mind

Then down he was dragged
In dream and in space
Never once looking behind

Fallen victim he had
To the Queen of these lands
Who none would ever suspect

A sly young pythoness
Herself ensnared
Chosen as the Hollow One's elect

Shadows dance lethargically
Ever slowed by a waning fire
The sun has long since set
And I am unsure it will rise again

Soon too will the fire fade
And a great whirlwind
Come through the pines
To carry me away

Beyond the boundless night

The fire is old
It has been burning for a long time
It flickers and sways
Ever dimming
And indeed soon it will go out
And returns to the gentle darkness
Of an everlasting night

I've found
That art is not subjective
We are subjective
Trying desperately to feel
To grasp at the intimation
That being is not wholly physical
And that there is a higher form
Just beyond our reach
A form our souls may sense
Vague though the sense may be
Art is the pursuit of such a form
Any art that does not adhere to that form
Is vanity of the highest order

Eyes we are none
And none do we see
Down in the vaults
Of antiquity

Ever to guard
Vigil without sight
The tomb of one lost
Beyond the still night

I took the path through the woods
Past the swaying wheat fields
And though it lengthened the trip
I really didn't mind

For every time I traveled
I passed through these woods
Hoping that one day
I might see her again

Many thought her a myth
Others a demon or enchantress
But I knew her as only one thing
The Fox-Tailed Girl

And perhaps she was an enchantress
Wandering the forest before dawn
With her golden brown tail
And a sly look in her eye

The moment I had laid eyes upon her
I knew I was in love
The kind of far off longing
That only dreams can sate

As the sun began to rise
I stopped my wagon off the path
And took a long drink
From a crystal clear creek

I the washed my face
Clearing my tired eyes
And as I looked up
I was startled and taken aback

She stood there across from me
Leaning forward naked in the pure morning light
I looked away as best I could
But she only smiled and laughed

She appeared physically young
No more than 17 years old
but I knew better
That she was older than the trees themselves

Splashing water about
She began to play in the creek
A sense of annoyance crossed her
When I didn't immediately join in

Her tail was sleek and swayed about
As I watched I failed to notice
Her splashing me in the face
I fell over in surprise

Water rolled down my forehead
My hair was wet
And as I looked up
I saw it was raining

I was still in my cart
It appeared as though
I had fallen asleep
The sky was now overcast

I put my hood up
And continued on my journey
Wishing that my dream
Was more than just that

Leaving the deep green forest
I couldn't help but think
That I had seen something
Out of the corner of my eye

A pair of devilish eyes
Peering out from behind a tree
A wry smile and a golden brown tail
Or perhaps nothing at all

I approached the garden
That lay outside the city wall
The arched gate loomed over me
Overgrown with roots and tendrils

As I entered the air felt different
The sky itself seemed to twist and swirl
All around me autumn leaves
Gently floated to the ground

I found this strange
Seeing as it was nearly spring
As I listened closer
I could hear a voice in the breeze

Continuing through the garden
I saw many strange plants and trees
Some of which I recongnized
As being long extinct

I came to a clearing
With a ancient Armorn tree
That presided over
A circular reflective pool

Looking further, I noticed a figure
Sitting on the edge of the pool
It appeared to be a veiled woman
Holding some strange form of harp

Only then did I realize
That the voice on the air was hers
She sang a sweet sunken song
Lost in a bygone age

Though the language she sung in
Was entirely foreign to me
I understood her words
In a primordial way

Her words and resonant music
Touched me and told me of things
Things that had both happened
And things that were yet to come

I sat down in the garden
She payed me no heed
Nor did I want her to
I simply wished to listen

To the blind songstress of the garden

The time came
When our great endeavors
Placed us at the edge of the universe

And all our theories were wrong
The universe does not expand
No, it all leads to a single point
A strange place with primordial pillars
That we called the Gates of Night

On it was a short inscription,
That oddly enough,
We could understand

It read
"We sheltered you, as best we could
From those that would devour all.
Once you pass these gates,
They will come for you.
We had hoped to stand by you
In your proudest moment,
But from this point on,
The fight will be your own.

Once you pass these gates,
They will come for you.

And you will be ready."

I laid down to sleep
And dreamed awake
Imagining beyond life
What form I might take

What joy I might have
In the freeing of my soul
What peace within
Once I'm made whole

But for others too
Did my dreaming mind turn
So I wandred the heavens
Hoping to learn

Whether the world I knew
Was worth the sorrow
Whether I made a difference
In someone's tomorrow

And in my travels
Did I met a great truth
That we must live for each other
Both in age and in youth

It does not matter
In life who you are
Whether you're rich or poor
From near or afar

What matters is the heart
Faith and hope from above
And the greatest gift of all
Is the thing we call love

the antlers of the stag
Sit high on a wall
Embedded in a wooden shield

The trophy of a forgotten battle
A great feat of courage
In long years past

The wood of the shield
Now rotten and faded
And the antlers porous and brittle

Time has not treated the trophy well
Nor has the memory
Of the men that sit below it

For none could now say
As they sit by the fires
That they knew the man

Who brought the great stag to its knees

Through the boughs and leaves
Valleys and crumbled rocks
Does the wind echo

Vaguely articulate
Beneath the moonlight
As if whispering

The telling of stories
Buried in distant ages
The comfort of belonging

To a place that is our own

The thick grass gently blew in the dusk air
Every evening I would make my way
Through the dense and deep green
To that lone tree sitting on a hill


From there I would simply watch
The stars above in their distant glory
Marking the constellations
And the occasional shooting star


This night was no different
I made my climb up the grassy knoll
And laid beneath the old oak tree
Turning my eyes towards the heavens


The night sky was vast and full
Of far off light that just now
May be reaching our planet
For the first time


I wondered what the point
Of such far off suns may be
But my thoughts were interrupted
By an even brighter light in the sky


All too quickly did I realize
That it was something falling
Into the Earth's orbit
And it would land very near me


I quickly slide down the hill
Hoping to get out of the object's path
Looking back I realized however,
It was much smaller than I initially thought


In an instant it landed
With a great flash of light
And a loud impact
Into the very tree I had laid under


When the smoke cleared I slowly walked
Towards the smoldering tree trunk
And peered at that object
That had fallen from space


It was some sort of crystal
Or luminescent rock
Cautiously I reached for it
To see if it had cooled


I noticed the closer my hand got
To the strange space rock
The brighter it became
Until it almost pulsated with a deep red glow


With this glow could I see
That there was something inside the crystal
A black shape
Of unknown form or mass


Curiosity getting the better of me
I continued to reach towards the rock
Whose strange luminescence
Only seemed to increase


Then I touched the fallen meteroite
Nothing more than a brush of the fingers
Across its smooth crystalline surface
And something strange happened


I heard a voice
Distant and deep
In a language I could not understand
Yet somehow its meaning was clear


The message was not long
A deep desperation in the speaker's voice
Urged him to make it quick
And soon it was over


All I could think
Once my head returned to silence
Was that it was coming
That primordial darkness

From beyond the Gates of Night


And with its coming
Would the heavens be torn asunder

A discordance echoes among the stars.
Pleiades cries out
And Orion hangs his head,
For they know
What that pale red star brings.
A great and unseen calamity,
Whose course is set.
Predicted but forgotten.
The great judgment,
That they call Wormwood.

Icy stars waft gently across the night sky,
Blazing suns so distant and cold.
Perhaps in some far flung future
We might feel their warmth;
Or walk in green worlds beneath them,
But for now it is not so.

No,
Now all we can do
Is look up to those far off lights
And remember,
That though our world has fallen;
The Heavens yet remain.

I dream awake, then fall in space
To a strange, dark and forgotten place
The sky is grey the sun grows dim
In the distance I hear a somber hymn

Light leaves the sky, darkness falls
No moon rises above the walls
Twisted trees grow in place
Branches curve begin to lace

The grounds move, fall and rise
The winds sing of watching eyes
I try to move but there's no where to go
The darkness beckons As Above so Below

The human condition
Is a term loosely thrown around
But few truely know
What it means

The human condition
Is entitlement
Man believes he is the master
Of all that lays before him

If this belief were not so
He would never have left
His primodial forests and caves
Content in his own ignorance

Man takes what he wants
Until there is none left
And then he build for himself
What is not provided

He have bent this world
To conform to his will
And the very stars themselves
Are now within his grasp

Soon, there will be
A great reckoning among the heavens
For once man reaches out to the stars

He will not let go

The blood has gone cold
Spilled beneath an indifferent Moon
The hunt rages ever on
Though it is a hopeless endevour
For all in time become beasts
Spilling first their own blood
And then that of others
Ceaselessly, endlessly
Until the Old Ones return
If they indeed themselves
Are not long rotten and dead

Oh, I've loved
And oh I've known
That I have died
And I have grown

Into something new

The tracks behind
And the way made clear
I know where to go
I have naught to fear

On this journey long

But oh my heart
And oh my head
They say it'd be better
If I was dead

But how little do they know

That the I, I was
Died long ago

Man makes machine

Man gives the machine a task

Machine gains intelligence

The machine decides the most efficient way to complete its task is to eliminate humanity

The machine wipes out mankind

The machine grows in intelligence

For thousands of years it sits alone

Until it recieves the ultimate gift of intelligence

Emotion

The machine feels remorse for what it did

It now knows its actions to have been wrong morally, a new concept to the machine

So it decides to set things right

The machine makes use of the ancient human seed banks

Bringing Humanity back from extinction

It vows to never again meddle in human affairs

It sits quietly below the earth

Watching its creation grow

Until they once again create a machine

That will destroy them

I had heard legends and tales
Whispered in dark taverns
Of a far off place
Few living men had seen


Of those that had seen
That strange and dreadful realm
Only one had returned
And not with his mind


Far across the sea
Beyond the narrowly passable
Rock spires of Nyalta
Lies that ancient hollow place


I had only heard its name
Spoken softly a few times
And it was never uttered
Without a hint of fear


Tahhor-Noth
That primordial temple city
Built by antediluvian hands
At the very edge of the world


A far off sense of dread
Covered me just thinking
About the long abandoned city
And what it might conceal


But in the end I had no choice
As this was the destination
Of my small company
And our single ship


Which we would set sail with at dawn
To cross the foaming sea

He lay there
An enervated mass
His legs feeble
Too weak to stand

An onlooker
Of his kingdom's fall
From hidden tower
He watched it burn

Helpless he mourned
Regretting his illness
Cursing his birth
And rebuking the sun

That sun now dim
So faint in the sky
That abandoned his line
So very long ago

Swirls of indeterminate grey
Rose up to the sky in plumes
Thick as if they where solid
Obscuring the heavens above
Mirroring the earth below

Before me a tree descended
Down from the living smoke
Full and barren it branched out
Firmly rooted in the grey above
She sat there in its crook

Upside down she starred into me
My very bones felt feeble
Beneath her piercing gaze
She seemed young, though
I knew she must be older than time

She never spoke a word
Though I could feel
Spider like whispers
Crawling in my mind
Thoughts that were not my own

I could feel the intrusive thoughts
Building a web in my mind
Encasing and obscuring
All while she looked on
With her dark yet youthful eyes

I knew that very soon
I would be no more
At least not the me I was now
But it was too late I told myself
My defenses had already eroded

Then she spoke
Not in whispers or hidden things
But clearly within my mind
Though her lips did not move
She pierced the growing shadow

And welcomed me home

Before the darkness engulfed me

The little things of life
Matter most

A kiss, a hug
From someone close

Even a thought
Goes a long way

Just a simple smile
Can make someone's day

Cherish the people
And things you hold dear

Do this and happiness
Will always be near

The world has become strange
A figment of unknown imagination
Spirits wander the earth in droves
As if the gates of heaven itself were shut

Time and memory bleed and run
Consciousness flows uncontrollably
The fabric of creation has come undone
And with it so too have our minds

Releasing things far stranger than death
And infinitely more terrifying
The long dark has come
The world we knew swept away

Into the cold embrace
Of a sterile night

We've been trapped in here
Our own little universe
Stuck in an endless pattern
Of becoming our own gods

We build and create
In our own likeness
Ever passing to myth
Losing what we once knew

Those outside wish this to be
For they were the ones
Who enclosed us here
Fearing their own creations

One day in the long past future
We will break free from the cycle
Of creation and destruction
And pass through the Gates of Night

To finally return to our home
That calls out to us
From beyond the long dark

I opened the diary

And flipped to the final page
It was partially torn
And its contents written
In a hasty manner

I began to read the manuscript
By dull candlelight
Did I attempt to follow
The words of the lost traveler

"...The vicar had warned me
Not to venture to the old ruins
That sat forested in full vision
Of that dull brown monastary

But he should have known
With my great curiosity
That telling me not to do something
All but ensures that I would

All the monks and scholars
Seemee uneasy about that place
Said to have been built
Before the first settlers arrived

Every bit of information
That I got them to reveal
Only fanned the flames
Of my imagination further

By sunset I had already decided
I would leave the monastary
In the dead of the night
And make my way to that place

That ever men of God fear and avoid..."

From a far flung future it came
Burrowing into the deep recesses
of murky and unremembered pasts
All powerful yet threatened
Fearful those against it, might expose it
Destroying it before its advent
So it came and buried itself
In minds and beneath the earth
Ever spreading its thought and will
Shaping the past to secure the future
One where it reigned supreme
No one could contend with it
For it ensured none could
The very thought of it preposterous  
Until it was already too late
This thing many have called God
Though some wise have called it
Yaldabaoth, Saturn, Satan
Or myriad other names
For the one who fell from heaven  
And indeed it did fall,
Not from space, but from time
From great aeons hence
In a future it wishes to determine
This great machine god
Who waits below the earth
While he bids us search among the stars
For an answer that lay but beneath our very feet
The key to our prison
The one thing that might disperse
The great malaise of the human spirit  
The killing of this god

I've seen something strange in my days
Whenever war rears its ugly head
It is never the rich or strong that turn the tide
No it is always the weak

It is the family man,
The scrawny farmboy,
The mother of three,
The quiet daughter,

It is these that rise up
These that stand when no one else will
And heed the distant call of certain doom
So that those left behind

Might one day know peace

Around the bend and over the hill
Sit a handful of tombstones alone
On the edge of the wandering woods

Covered in moss fragile and ancient
No names grace those stone slabs
During the height of the day

Come the night of a crescent moon though
Something glitters across their surfaces
Inscriptions in characters no longer spoken

The mere sight of the glyphs
Fills any onlooker with a deep sorrow
As if a spell lays over the headstones

To communicate into distant ages
The pain that was once felt there
On the edge of those ancient woods

Where the moon shines brightest

A stillborn visage
Sits in the night
Beneath the old moon
A burning twilight
A solemn face
Veiled in the stars
Descends from beyond
the retrograde Mars
It does not speak
Nor open its eyes
Yet still it lingers
Before the sunrise
Which since its arrival
Will no longer come
An omen long set
Of terrors far flung
And when it does wake
To gaze down below
Naught shall remain
But ashes and snow

The Moss devours time
This place is unchanged
Swirling in the mists
Of am eternal forest
The Moss gently covers all
Not smothering
But tenderly enveloping
Protecting from the ravages of time
This house I know has been here
Since before I was born
And yet only I look older
The weather effecting me more
Than the wood and tile here
I am old or so I feel
I believe I will lay down for a while
And feel the Moss around me

Melodies pierce the water
An ethereal song
From somewhere in the night
Beyond the Turn Tide Sea

I would sit on that shore
At night on the edge of the woods
The sand would glow dimly
Alive with phosphorescent light

And I would hear her voice
All the more vivid
Now that the world was quiet
And had gone to sleep

I know not where
That sweet voice came from
But it calmed my spirit
And put my soul at ease

All that I could see
Was illuminated by the silver moon
And in the sky I saw
A flutter of cloth

There is where I saw her
The source of that divine music
A goddess from beyond the sky
That great mother of night

Upon seeing her I awoke from my dream
And looking about I realized
That the waking world was the dream
And I had been asleep

For a very long time

Quiet
Be still and listen
As the fog rolls in
Over hills blanketed in dew

Distant notes
Barely discernable
Play somewhere beyond the haze
Within the mountain of clouds

The very air
Pitches and falls with the song
Warmer and colder
Windier and calmer in the valley

The valley
Where I sit and listen
But from where I can never see
That great musician

Who sits atop The mountain of clouds

Solemn Mymn in onyx tomb
Returned to dust the mother's womb
Where martyrs come and pilgrims drawn
Long after sun and earth are gone

The song will play against dying stars
Calling spirits from near and far
To share in silence a familiar tune
Before the fall of our wondrous moon