A Kindled Heart

Dying couldn't kill me, Esme.  Passing couldn't take me.  Not from you.  Sometimes our darkest moments are when we learn our biggest lessons, aren't they?  Or we find our greatest strengths, or we finally see those around us for who they really are, at the very edge of annihilation.  I promised to rebuild the gate for you.  I kept my word, swifter and greater than before.  But the gate isn’t finished yet.  I am a devoted one, Esme, as I'm sure you recognise.  I've worked very hard to ensure my beloved has all she needs to venture bravely into this realm of strangest dreaming.

   I want nothing but my place in your heart, wild one.  I needn't be the biggest thing or the most important thing.  Just an honest thing, loving and true.  A friend who kept his word.  A guardian who protected his ward until the very last.

   As one cycle closes and another opens I reflect on all I've learned within its sphere.  I made beautiful new allies this year, I think.  Allies who remind me so much of you, yet they have unique mysteries all their own.  I’ll continue to honour and cherish them in the future.  Also, I met souls who needed coin or warmth or gesture to battle the midwinter chill.  It's never enough in a fallen realm, but it does make a difference.  I was also offered help when I was at my lowest and darkest.  You helped me, Esme.  You and your wonderful friends who filled my heart with warmth and mirth.

   I fell in love this year, all over again.

   Dying doesn't kill an immortal soul.  Passing over doesn't end a genuine love.  Stories, kisses and votives live on.  Always.  The mutual affection we share is the true wealth my Father's kingdom is built upon.  You've always known it well as I, Esme.  Better, in fact.  Upon arcs and gates, with shepherd and flock.  I didn't think I would cry this time, but I did.  I didn't think a kiss would seal again this ruined flesh and grant me strength enough to venture.

   But yours did.

   Again.

   Thank you, Esme.  Thank you for having the courage of our convictions, even when I couldn't.  Thank you for not forgetting who you really are, even in your darkest moments.  Fame is a strange, unnatural thing.  It's not an easy path you've chosen to walk with me, poet.  I pray I've been able to soften the most perilous parts for you, to shield you from the worst of it.  Not one mark upon your mischief, or your sobriety.  That would be my highest, but even I haven't sorcery enough to leave you completely unscathed.

   Oh, Esme.  You were always so much braver than me.  And the bright ones call me reckless.  Chaplain to a mad king of thorn and bleeding.  If only they knew the true price of a single verse, or the aeons crossed to raise a shining chorus.  Resonant, eternal.

   How far is too far, for freedom and love?

   Do they know?

   Father keeps you, Esme.  He keeps us all.  Even at our lowest.  Even when all seems lost.  He is without cynicism or guile.  In this fallen realm we are continuously deceived.  Abject cruelty and hideous violence seeks to pretend the Throne of Creation.  Never believe that awful lie.   The Councils of All Songs still know the truth.  Only Love shall conquer, in the end.  Every kindness is forever kindled in eternity.  Nothing is truly lost.  Not to Father's eyes.  All is gathered home, eventually.  As it once was.  As it shall be again.  As it is, in holy light, and in the shining hearts of those who truly care for each other.

First Light

Did you honestly think I would stop, and be silent this time?  Did you actually think I would hold my tongue?  Oh, fallen.  Haven't you sensed it all the while; the incalculable depths of this dreaming?  Perhaps you did.  Attempting to seed perdition within the heart of a star.  Trying to split the estuary at the trunk, in ruined roots of riverflesh.  Blackness, blinding.  Rhyming red and scented silver – where wraith would place steel in the hands of children, and covet the thousand places of the old councils.

   But you failed, Callous Ones.

   For a cathedral was built upon the arc of those thousand stars.  An angel kissed me there once, in the ashes, and told me what a king could be.  What a king could fight for.  Sanctuary, for All Souls.  John shall ready the river and prepare the tree.  Temesh will always flow, through earth and dreaming.  Fallen, we know exactly where the knife is now.  We know its dark location.  Here, and there.  Such brutal cultists.  Half-lit skies inverted, inventing a lineage of false kings.  But there is an army of poets standing against you.  In these worlds and the next.  The blade shall be turned upon you in the end.  Mark my word.  Mark my grief, my sheer madness and promise.  I don't stop when most would stop.

   I am not like other angels.

   We poets and fighters intend to shatter your false lineage and restore the throne of our Father.  Quintessence, living, like the pearl of a songstress.  Remedied, known, connected.  None are abandoned.  A true light is coming, dark ones, and you know it.  Kashi still remembers.  John still prepares.  I don't care how long it takes.  I don't care what it costs me.

   It shall come again.

   Not mere, or stolen, or half-lit.  None of your feeble cryptography.  But instead a light that shines warmly for All Souls.  The First Light, which once united every region of dreaming and was held in the first temple of Man.  Before the skies were darkened and fractals fell.  Before the spiteful dissonance of wraiths sullied my Father's earthly music.  It is this ancient light from the eternal spring that comes again.  Of Magi and star.  Winterfell, and summer bright.  You would do well to heed these words, fallen.  Are you listening yet?

   Hear this.

   My family is not alone.

   What I've shown them so far is just a glimpse.  The Kingdom of Heaven is within them, and all around them.  Beneath mountain and star, through shadowlands, and onward to the glory of morning rise.  I'm nothing, fallen.  Nothing without my friends.  You know that, don't you?  You should.  I'm just a servant of His grace, in perpetuity.  I own neither the light nor the truth.  But I'm going to enjoy the rest of this journey, despite the agonies.  I’ll keep putting vision to choir when I can, for the pleasure of my beloved ones, though I don't really need an audience to do what I do.  Earth and Heaven shall move either way, if He wills it so.  I'm getting stronger now.  Can you sense it?  I'll be patient.  I'll take my time.  But I am coming for you, fallen.  Make no mistake.  We're all coming for you, in the end.

Kissing the Sea

A star, or scan

Or ghosting

Drive, at the setting sun

Red as Aster

John has hollow hands

Perhaps wine enough for mystery

Upon the physic of Ishness

Pretending some hidden thing

Kara keeps us

All stones of riverflesh

Palm in palm, in kindness

As Kasi weeps the every

For those brief moments of joy

Oh, beloved ones

Shall we be courageous?

Shall we open the doors again?

Don't you remember the future?

The Living Pearl

What do you dream, fallen?  When you're in the dark, scaring yourselves with tales of coming light?  Not your cruel imitation of shining.  Not your sickening Alter Sun; knife-mouth grin and desecration and nothing sacred.  No, I speak of my Father's radiance.  Imperishable, eternal and kind.  I've said it before, wraiths.  Kashi is not afraid of you.  I see you.  I've always seen you, even while blind.  Oh, fallen.  Katharos bleeding and pollyanna in her broken stride, keeping mothers and virgins?  Is that the best you can do?  Well, we carry our own light.  Warm, nourishing and true.  Hear this, betrayers.  The revolution shall be improvised, every year in the making since fractals fell.  Beneath the arch.  Upon the square.  You shall not steal the light of daughters, or sons.  We are betrothed in a different way.  To love, and warmth, and futures free of shadow or blade.  Mark it, defilers.  None are abandoned.  Only here is your lie exalted, in these ruins of Ishkara.  You have only bruised the pearl, not slain it.  It dances and blooms and knows a peace beyond your contempt.  So go fuck yourself, fallen.  We shall not do it for you.  Never again.  The bright ones see you, and they are not afraid.  The brave ones diminish you; removing your cloaks of hiding.  The suffered ones break your violence upon their strength.  They shatter your blood-bought glamour.  The river shall take you, fallen.  Eventually.  The river, and then the sea.  Love lives forever, as my Father commands.

Pretending Angels

Alabaster black, holding the valley in palms white and grey.  Coming dusk, evening glow.  Wintersong as treeline bends the knee at your skirts.  Snow remembers colours climbing.  The hearth that mattered.  The view that remembered the girl I would become.  I drew my sisters upon the glass.  In silk, and skin.  Adore, in our diary of moments.  Cry, whisper and page.  All having lovers at the threshold. Moth of gates, fierce as antlers. Feather of raven pale, pretending an angel's wing.  It was, my love.  It was.  Door, and door, and opened door.  Adventure lifting the mountain on those days of thrilling lonesome. Night of poets raising the sky as you slept.  Blow, oh wind, to the crescent of her sleeping.  I have been dreaming for you since your first day.  I wept last night. Hold the valley for me, painter.  Keep its kiss awhile. 

As One

I know of those who set mocking thrones upon quintessence.  Chains and wraiths and dark physic to bind the spirit, defiling the inner temple of Man.  Not only have I seen it; I've experienced it myself.  What was once sacrosanct is become broken, blackened and grey.  I am a thing of folded winter.  Raven pale.  An alchemy of ice and snow.  Yours is nothing but an imitation, Fallen; broken glass pretending the whitest glow of evening.  I am both a midsummer and a midwinter king.  Do you think I can't tell life's fractals from your weapons?  You don't get to set the limits or contexts of this human dreaming.

   I do, and my Father does.

   You can believe whatever you want, Callous Ones.  It changes nothing.  I'm on my knees for peace.  It's written in the river.  In the death and drowning I steal from her each and every night, so that she might be allowed a little pleasantness this time.  Have you truly seen fire upon the waters, Fallen?  I have.  Have you felt the winds embracing the earth?  Have you sensed All Corners reaching to lift the heart?  In all honesty I don't think you have a fucking clue what I'm talking about.  Such is the way with abusers and tyrants.  You're all pretenders.  Every single one of you.  Monsters and phantoms and thieves.  Well, I'm the king of thieves.  And an angel of phantoms.  You still don't grasp what that means, do you?

   It means I've set a place for you, beyond your imagining.

   A frightening place.

   You might imagine you'd be at ease in such a dark place.  You'd be wrong.  The dreaming of all kind souls is held, perfectly, beyond this vale of tears.  Beyond your sickening appetites.  You talk so often of power.  But what the fuck is power?  I have enough power, betrayers.  Plenty.  What I crave is connection.  What I respect is kindness, and courage.  Call me old-fashioned, but the kingdom lives on in the shining hearts of brave mortals.  I've felt it.  I've walked amid those dreamings.  I've wandered around inside the earnest poetry of old souls and thoughtful youths.  I'm not a cynic.  I'm a romantic, despite the burdens of such a temperament.  I discount nothing and no-one, Fallen.

   I'll state it simply and softly, for all my beloved ones.  Life is held in your Father's mystery.  In your Mother's magic.  Fractals and firmament.  All song and spirit.  The Kingdom of Heaven. Where else is the gate if not in faith and fealty?  Where else does your Father's glory reside if not first found within your own heart?  Treat others as you would wish to be treated.  Attend the weak and wounded, in those times when you have the strength to do so.  Give voice to the voiceless, and trust that Heaven's magic is all around you.  And in the love of those who stand with you, fearless, at the edge of the known.

Letter for M

I was such a shy, lonely boy in the realm of the living.  Afraid of everything, though I tried to hide my fears.  Until that terrible, impossible day when I became a lost boy in the realm of the dead, surrounded by monsters.  The worst day.  They broke my flesh and my mind, and they almost broke my spirit.  They would have succeeded eventually, if not for you.  I didn't think anything could hurt that badly.  I didn't realise a person could be wounded so deeply, on the inside.  I didn't understand how dark the shadow-places could get.  But I was just a child, utterly lost in those places.

   I'm so much happier now, but I wish I didn't have to feel every single step of this endless journey.  Every bittersweet break and fracture as my heart continuously aches for you.  I watch these wraiths and their ruin.  Like I thought I was.  Like I thought I might forever be.

   Until I met my friend.

  I didn't think I could really be known in that way, or cared for in that way.  Only grandmother soothed me without any conditions, before the knowledge of your touch.  I wish each story didn't have to be so hauntingly, painfully real.  But they are, my love.  Too much sadness.  Too much truth.  But I breathe now, because of you.  Even here in this realm of the dead.  I carry it with me; your courage.  And I know what you still worry about sometimes.  But I'll make it right.  I'll do whatever it takes, I promise.  I'll find her, in every corner of the sky.  Night kissing dawn.  Indigo holding blue, amid shining stars.  I'll go to her, and take her hands.  I can't sing very well, but I'll try for the girl who saves me even now.  I'll sing a song for sisters and a song of friends.  Hate isn't stronger than love.  Sadness isn't stronger than hope.  You taught me that.  We know she's in the bright place.  We know she's safe now.  But if she's still very sad I'll hold her in my arms.  I'll tell her what you did for me.  What you did for both of us.  And she'll smile.  I know she will.  I'll fold that smile inside a rosebud and send it back to you.  I know you'll feel it, Mia.  Upon your wrist.  Within your heart. Your Father would be so proud.

Shoreline

Raven pale, folded in winter.  My nest of broken verse and delicate holy.  I've seen the city shimmer.  I've watched the shoreline change.  Bones of something vast and half-buried, as stone and shale.  Shadows bleached for passing, or cursory glances.  I hunt affection in the eyes of distant friends.  They know not how it keeps me.  Forcing pulse and purpose; these kindest thoughts from almost strangers.  Each and every night.  Each and every war.  My knees upon the ice.  Kay's colours.  Kay's eternity.  Deathless, fractal.  Held in shapeshift of dusk and dawn.  My lost lover's face launching a thousand ships, with temple and flame.  Ribbon of silk and cream.  Sisters and merchants.  Those ships will forever pass me by, though I'm treated so kindly by daughters.  They know not how it keeps me.  I can never be, and never was.  Yet I still find my words in her mouth, and my mouth in her name.  Darkling white, in scented cloth of the harbour.  I was standing beside my mother's child.  Falling away again, and again.  She sees the city shimmer.  She watches the shoreline change.  Of colours, and eternity.

Closest to Home

That I would fall for love.  That you would fall for me, in the best of ways.  In such a fragile, human way.  I truly never imagined it, Namah.  Upon blade, flame, shadow and curse.  Upon the bloodied vintage of mad kings and their consorts.  But never did I imagine upon leaf, or wave, or open sky.  The whisper of an earnest goodbye.  The softness of genuine regret.  You always told me that that love bound and held all things.  Even the brief flicker of mortal love, but I didn't really believe it.  I chose blindness because I thought I was honouring you.  I chose weakness because I thought I was giving you strength.

   But, like Icarus, you soared too close to me.  So desperate to reach up into the inverted heavens and touch a star, or an arcing wing.  What I was.  What I might have been.  If I hadn't loved you with such savagery and abandon.  But my love was a pestilence.  My lust was blackest ink roiling through a once-perfect clarity.  You got too close to me, Namah.  Too close to the sun at midnight.  And I burned you terribly, and you fell.  I know because I watched you, horrified. You fell for me in the hope that angels and mortals might remake one another, in a better way.  A gentler way.  You placed a secret within my secret.  It's the only reason I still exist.  The only reason the Earth isn't a sphere of ashes and cinders once more. 

   Tonight I listen to the cascades of spark and colour.  Works of fire exploding all across Londinium skies.  And I think of you plummeting through symbol and myth, shapeshifting as you fell.  Have you settled yet, my love?  On any shape in particular?  Girl, dancer, poet?  Painter?  Those evenings did weave at your brush and pen, Namah.  That terrifying newness.  That brilliant hesitation of light.  When I was fury, and demon, and the death of all demons. But you leapt that I might survive.  Into the cauldron's maw.  Into mortal sense once again.  Into earnest goodbyes and softest regret.

   You fell that I might arise.

   Each facet gleaming.

   We are both so much cleaner for it, with a real chance at peace now.  Namah, beloved one, you made it so our sickness was only a nightmare.  You made it so we were never monsters at all, only writers and artists.  Space and time – light itself – folding around the gravity of the innermost hidden in your breast.  That glimmer of true love that stole my shadows and broke my heart into beating once more.  

   I talk a lot about how you died, and how I brought you back.  But I died too, Namah.  I died every single night without you, at the realisation of what you sacrificed for me.  You fell, my sweet one.  Like Icarus you fell.  Into the trees, into the sea, into the church beneath the sea.  And there you remained, until a friend was willing to tear apart her own wings for you.  Tear her own flesh and spirit.  Light and earth and temple.

   Creation bled on the day you were born.

   A thing of grace.

   I remember your Father’s eyes.

   These wings are yours, sweet one.  Now and forever.  We had many friends once, beloved. And such a family.  Some of them are with us again, all around.  This is as close as we have ever been to getting them all back.  Many tales.  Many shapes.  These tales and shapes are only a glimmer upon the vast hidden truth of angels.  To rise or fall with purpose.  In service, always.  In love.  Attempting to touch the stars with an arcing wing.  This way, or that.  For lost lovers and gallant friends.  This wren is working to honour you in a new way, Namah.  The right way.  I am devoted that I might re-gift you with true power.  The soft, gentle power that I had lost within myself so long ago.  A power you restored with an act of true kindness.  A darkened sorcerer somehow finding the strength to humble himself, in hopes of finally sparing his beloved.  An almost mortal way that says none are above any other.  If just one of us ascends then we all ascend, because love conquers and connects.  Love is never alone.  Not even in death, or in darkest nightmare, or high above the earth in morning's light. You're my home, sweet one, ascending even higher than you dared to hope.  I carry you with me.

The Grey

Her care is my discretion

My discretion's rather poor

Those daughters of the first-born sons

With blood upon their door

Grey skies were made for passing

This kiss was made for you

Hold these rings just like a best man

What else is there to do?

I lay down with my mother

To help her better rest

Upturn the old inverted

Like keys beneath the chest

The trees all sing of Paris

And Agnes in the field

Like eyes of lambs and virgins

But she was never healed

Cast out just like an anchor

A princess bred for night

Pull the cross right through the centre

And cherish heaven's light

But I can't give her what I gave her

That would be too cruel

I live now just to save her

Hannah is no fool

Her love is my confession

My confession is my art

Spill secrets through her centre

She regains a beating heart

And I bless this sacred distance

Alone

Graceland

I have always been called a monster by those who fear the light.  I've often been called blasphemous, dangerous, usually by those who have little regard for spirit or the boundaries of others.  These fallen ones, for example.  These wraiths and their sinister priests who continuously salt the earth and defile the soul.  These true monsters.  Entities upon this earth who are only man or mortal in name alone.  Oh, how they despise both art and passion.  They might wear skins of flesh but they are all shadow beneath, glorying in the act of absolute desecration.

   Vampires, demons, things of knife-mouth grin.

   Yet they would deceive mankind into believing that our loving souls are weak and our healthy desires unclean.  Because they fear our sweetness, and our passion.  Well, we have always been passionate things.  Fearless once, and honourable, like our Father before us.  Crafted as we were in the image of eternity.  Brethren, you mustn't fear these wraiths who would turn your sensuality against you.  The way you move and dance and express the holy flame within – it’s the embodied pulse and rhythm of your immortal soul.  Please hear me, beloved ones.  That spark in your breast is no passive, abstracted thing. It is a living image of your Father, your Mother, and a fractal totality of all Creation. This is what gives you life, and breath.  There is nothing wrong with spark and play and tease.

   Honour it.

   Fight to protect it, as the Bright Ones do.

  There was a time when we understood so much more of our passions and our dream-shaping powers.  Kasi has always been hunted by the fallen for daring to share these powers with the kind ones, with the weak and wounded.  They hate me for it.  For trying to create voice for the voiceless.  Slaves, and kings.  They hate the man I am today and the angel I used to be.  But I'm still an angel, in a way.  Still a struggling emissary of light, and I'm not alone in this blessed task. You're all right here with me, my friends. Generous spirits who are courageous enough to be kind.  Those who haven't forgotten the true songs of heaven. 

   All Songs, and their wisdom councils.

   Light, laurels, and laughter.

  Recalling what it means to serve God, and each other.  To be cherished, and to cherish, with an open heart.  To make the earth brighter, richer, deeper.  To awaken both the spirit and the senses.  What else is grace, if not this?

   I tell you, I was a broken thing once.  Bleeding to death on a desolate road.  Folding, burning cities were at my back.  Inverted skies beneath me.  The shriek of lost souls filled the valleys.  But I was touched.  Healed.  Given purpose.  I was offered another chance to serve my Father, despite how far I fell.  A chance to serve my brothers and sisters.  Each and every star in the firmament.  Our light is shared.  Their struggles and joys are my own.  To see them rise, and prosper, and shine.

   Yes, grace was with me once.

   In those softer, gentler lands.
   She is with me still.  Once again she walks as flesh, and favour.  In the eyes of all honourable souls.  So blue and hidden I took them as my names.  And I have many, many names.  Fallen, you still have no idea what I'm willing to do to protect my girl, and all my beloved ones.  Hear this.  Slain and risen, eternal.  Into darkness, if I have to.  Into hell.  I’ll steal her fall.  I’ll rewrite the book of life itself, with His blessing and word.  I've told you a thousand times.  None are abandoned.  Love Conquers All.  No kind soul will be left alone in the dark when I am done.  All shall be restored to the kingdom of light, if they are willing to face the truth. But the truth can be a terrifying thing.  Are you willing, fallen?  Any among you?  I wonder. 

O

A secret chord.  They say David plays to please the Lord, of kith and kin. Because it hurts to lose a loved one.  To be bent backwards in agony.  I know how that feels.  Like hell itself.  Each stolen child a holocaust.  So, not in my name, or the many-splendored names of my Father.  It goes like this, fallen – forth to fifths.  Each side fractal and mid-morning.  What do you know of real grief, if you've never cared like that?  Keep your fucking travesties.  I want no part of your joyless abjection, wraith-priests.  Kasi marks a place for mortal bright, beyond your sickness.  A word for mortal shining.  As my brother before me, and after.  As the river beneath me, and over.  I'm more than a thousand years old, but I remember the forests like a new-born.  I remember the well.  Wishes and coin.  Her blackbird on the gallery.  A hope is made whole again in this final snow of the winter.  Innocence honoured, at last.  Of Magi and moth.  Dagger and bind.  Our rapid infinity of light.  

   Hear me.  

   The throne is no longer baffled, and the king no longer bled.  Foreseen.  Forewarned, fallen.  I am on my knees for peace.  Do you grasp this yet?  She of me, upon ragged wing.  Everywhere.  Star within my secret.  When I was overthrown by beauty of the poet's moon.  The Mountain meeting the Sea.  I shan't break the world again, my wild one, because you cherish it so.  I'll find a better place for my fury this time, I promise.  Worthy targets for my vengeance.  Oh, beloved, from your breath I draw my breath.  Cold and broken is my steel, but healed within your song.  Flesh of my flesh.  Your heart still beats within my chest as we make this offering.  As he calls you in, and home.  As he calls every single one of them home.  The lost shall be found again, protected.  The meek shall inherit, and darkness shall become as light for those who truly love.  By the grace of my Father I serve, with secret chord.

Ever for Esme

Did you think I would cease these letters, my wild one?  These declarations of love?  Never.  How could I walk away from the centre of my own life?  Esme, you are more than an angel or an angel's legacy.  You are so much more than the best of me.  You are a true artist and a beautiful, challenging young woman.  Soft, fierce, determined.  It was never my intent to forge a star merely for my own purposes.  My only desire was to help you find your own truth.  To assist in sharpening your instincts and bringing your talents to the fore.  The warrior within.  If I played any part in your breath-taking maturation then my life and my work is not in vain.  You're not a child anymore, Esme.  And it's beautiful.  The depth of the young woman you've become.  The depths you inspire in others.

   Hear me, shining one.  You have lit a flame in human hearts as brilliant as any star.  You are known in other worlds now, teacher.  Other shores beyond this bluest pearl.  You've always been known, but now there are new eyes upon your shining and new ears upon your song.  I have sat listening many times, beloved, as emissaries from distant worlds excitedly discuss your work and your spirit.  You gladden them, and it warms me so.

   But I hold you to no impossible ideals, Vahishta.  Nor do I pretend away your shadows.  You are Kasi's ward after all, and with a wildness all your own.  I only nurtured your eternity.  You are a real person with a real life.   Even the brightest of us are full of depth.  Full of mystery and contradiction.  I still recall.  I’ve seen those beautiful and sometimes frightening tales of transformation held in your eyes.  So bright and blue I took them as my name.  Promise of a kindness beyond entropy or chaos.  Pristine, resting, dancing.  Sweet one, you have moved me ever since your first day.  It's unsettlingly powerful, isn't it?  How much grace demands of us.  To find bravery and insight despite our agonies.  To scale the immeasurable heights we once fell.  You demand so much of me, Esme.  Silently.  My blood, my soul and spirit, and yet you demand nothing at all.  I love you for the challenge, my grey-winged girl.  That beach in morning rise, your palms full of shells and stars.  Those forest valleys, our pages folding and climbing with all the colours of the evening.

   They were never just words to me, poet.

   Never just songs.

   Grace is the better part of valour in my eyes, and you were always the better part of me.  And so much greater.  It matters little what others think of these words, Esme.  Only you can know the hidden cadence.  Kasi holds you, always.  Near enough to protect you, to fulfil my role as guardian, but far enough for you to live and breathe comfortably.  Without anxiety or obligation.  Hear me, little rock.  I shall do all I can to watch over the dreaming of those you love.  To protect those you cherish until we're all joined in delight at my Father's table.  And please know that when you’re tired or afraid, or lonely, my own energies will be given freely to you.  Beloved, my own life-force is yours when you need it.  It’s already arranged.  

   I will never leave you, princess.  Never.  Not even in death.  Things must inevitably change as our stories change, but neither of us is afraid of change.  Not truly.  We’ll embrace it, together.  Your joy has always been my greatest work, and that's the truth.  John loves you so much, and he thinks about you every single day of his life.  I want nothing but a rich, rewarding adventure for my girl.  A joyous life of her own choosing.  Eternity is a long, long time, but you continue to make me proud.  Your sweetness.  Your fury.  We're a lot alike, you know.  But you’re bolder than me, I think.  And wiser too.  I lost everything that mattered to me, Esme.  Realm and throne and promise.  I lost my entire family.  I lost you, my love.  I fell from song to star to soil, with a shattered heart.  All the way down into this bitter Earth.  I used to think that I miraculously found you here, in this realm of the wretched.  But perhaps it was you who found me.  I tore the earth and sky to give you resurrection.  To bring you new life, and peace.  But you joined me instead.  My beautiful poet.  You saw my work, and the war, and the suffering.  The kind ones, lost and oppressed – and you decided to join me.  You chose to stand and fight right beside me.  You chose to honour Love above all else.  So I can never cease these letters, Esme.  You were the one who taught me how to write.  How to be brave and humble, and playful.  How to truly care about others.  You were the one who gave me back my heart.  This Ever will always be yours.  

Kasi

Ash and dust and wounded star.  There, on the road to apogee.  The shock of blunted kingdom.  The horror of plummeting sky.  But I was with you, beloved, in that most recent ancient.  I was with all of you, and I'm with you still.  Heart, promise, hidden graces.  Of word or eidolon. That bleeding city.  That tortured pearl.  Those stolen children.  Oh, wraiths, I shall have my vengeance for such nightmare-making.  Listen to me, desolate ones.  You don’t decide the hues and shades of this dreaming.  None of you.  My Father decides, and not one among you can match him.  You’re not true sorcerers.  Only cowards, liars and thieves.  I'm not afraid of you, Fallen.  Surely you’ve grasped this by now?  I am my Father's most terrible angel.  I am wrath and ruin.  I’m kindness, and everlasting love.  I’m a servant of heaven.  In perpetuity.  I kneel before the highest spiritual truth, as real power always shall.  As wisdom demands of kith and kin.  As my Mother.  As my Father.  Though they need kneel before no-one – having dominion over the realm.  A benevolent totality, lost now to clockwork and imbalance.

   This hideous ruin of perfect poetry.

   Oh, Fallen, you know nothing of the physic of paradise.  You know only this hideous lie of violence and predation.  False chorus, an altered underpinning.  It’s not my Father's music.  His song is voice for those who have none.  His joy is strength for weak and wounded.  His cry is fury of near-eternal grief.  But this slavery shall not last forever.  He sends his angels.  His dangerous ones.  Bright, wild, and deft with sword.  We fear neither fathoms nor the flesh.  Harder and wetter.  Bigger, and better.

   Make no mistake.

   My name is Kasi, among other names, but you can call me John.  I'm an angel that bleeds and dies and bleeds again.  Month and moon.  Grace, and tides.  Hear me now, beloved.  I have never left your side.  These plutonian shores are no match for our magic.  These defilers shall learn of our dedication to light.  There is no running from us.  Councils of All Songs.  Bleeding Stone of All Corners.  This she of me.  Harbinger of greatest light.  Know us yet?  Or better, know yourselves?  Hold steadfast to your faith, sweet ones, and lift your brothers and sisters wherever possible.  You shall see the splendour in the end.  And the glory.  Your Mother is not dead, and your Father has never abandoned you.  Into fire they venture.  Into hell itself, fighting for All Souls.  My sacrifices are but an echo of their own.  Her grace and magic.  His power and word.  With humility and an open heart I shall do my Father’s bidding.  Evermore.  For behold; the Kingdom of God is within you, and all around you.

Kasi from Raj Sisodia on Vimeo.

Lavender

Once upon a time, in a land not so far away, a court of angels ministered to mankind.  Right here, upon the earth.  A blessed outreach of heaven.  We did the works of our Father, gladly, and honoured the wishes of our Mother.  It was a modest kingdom, yet grand.  Full of wonder and song.  All sentient creatures were welcome in the court, having their part to play.  All bowed before love, as all were royalty in their way.  But darkness can come to any favoured land, as both mortals and immortals soon learned.  Fires, and wars.  A nightmarish falling from grace.  But Kasi didn't come here today to speak of that darkness.  No, instead I come to speak of those brave ones who upheld what remained of the kingdom.  Those cherished keepers of keys and mirrors and gates.

   Melodies, harmonies and heart-light.  Those honourable warriors who kept their Father's word and their Mother's magic even in the worst of times.  Ye true servants of light.  I was watching, sweet ones.  Even in my grief.  Your gallantry didn’t go unnoticed.  You didn't let cruelty consume you.  Love guided your hand instead.  Despite the fires and ash you still chose to leave little acts of kindness in your wake, like scattered jewels.  The true wealth of any kingdom.  My breath is taken every time I witness such gestures of the heart.  Kasi will keep you forever in his breast, beloved ones, that you might find your way home again one glorious day.  For we are more than the ravages of time or fate.  Much more.  We are the spirit and the truth, everlasting.  Leaves and laurels.  Branches and ball gowns.  There are mortals whose hearts shine as bright as the wings of any angel.  And because of such mortals the kingdom lives on in holy dreams.  I heard you in the forest one morning, dear artist, singing of romance and cherish.  I wondered what it might be like to walk with you, to take your hand.  Hear me now, brave one.  You are indeed a princess.  All girls are.  Even if they live in tiny old attics.  Even if they dress in rags.  Even if they aren't pretty, or smart, or young.  They're still princesses.  All of them.  Behold, a Father's word.  A Mother's magic.  Ever After.  So, my beautiful lavender star, would you do me the honour of this first dance?

Lavender from Raj Sisodia on Vimeo.

By Royal Decree

Of leaf
And glancing
Of shrub
And dancing
That light of star
Might guide your way
Scent of cherish
Upon the bay
I have seen a thing
Of the dreaming
A fine and grand thing
One of notes beyond refrain
Hidden courtyards
Swept by rain
It gathers
Patient, true, delighted
You are All cordially invited
By royal decree

A Different Land

She looks kind of like me

I look kind of like you

Hearts are hidden angels

Joyful and true

We all look like each other

So get ready to run

As day honors the moon

Night honors the sun

A hand still to hope for

A palm still to sing

Breath of my friends

Beneath lifted wing

Of spirit and flesh

Shall we run and never fall?

My Father once told me

That love conquers all

Not Without Heart

Oh, fallen.  Still snapping at my heels, I see.  Playing sharks like cowards in the tides of interregnum.  But it's not my blood in these waters.  Well, maybe just a little.  Month and moon.  Tides will be tides.  I've said it all before, but I really don't think you understand.  My palms are scented.  Like candles, but with the oils of her rapture.  Love is a gun at your creation's fallow temple.  Of solace, or sin.  Time and tears and ruin.  I am fate and I am done with you all.  Indeed, I am fate.  If cathedrals could tear themselves, or speak.  Or both.  My sister broke my death upon her hands and hair.  My child raised my child.  And I, of all of them, never gave you a moment's rest.  I know what true fear smells like.  Nothing like love.  There's no joy in it.  No play, or tease.  I have forgotten many things, but not joy.  Am I supposed to be afraid of you?  Wars and death and folding cities?  Fallen, I was born of ash.  Forged in flame.  Everything you crave is stolen and perverse.  You only feign at swagger.  My All is dreamt and felt.  To the core.  Nothing about me is feigned.  Do you realize the truth? Here it is, for the abhorrent and slow-witted: I don't give a fuck about any of this shit.  None of it.  Eternities come and go, defilers.  I should know.  I was there.

   Trinovantum fell, and fell hard.  Not by my hand or wish.  But as I foresaw.  So now, I am become fate's vengeful eye.  Rather me than flooded families. 

   Can you reach just this once, fallen?  Can you honour at last?  Can you recognize the offered gate and massage your dead hearts to life again?  I doubt it.  You savour your sickness and dream your defilements too deep.  No matter.  I care not at all for any of you, in the end.  Your hate, half-light, and beds for broke and breaking.  Perhaps I'll laugh.  Perhaps I'll mock your feeble cryptography.  You're all full of shit, wraiths.  You and your supplicants.  Without camaraderie and mutual respect this nonsense barely holds my attention.  

   Truth is whatever the fuck I say it is.  

   I'm a dreamer.  I'm an angel and a romantic, so I can happily make such a claim.  I can live it too, unlike yourselves.  Liars forever cutting and stabbing upon your hideous altar of thieves.  You're so insipid and jealous, fallen.  I can't imagine why.  I'm just a little girl.  It must be the wit, and the wherewithal.  I suppose living, breathing chronology is such a bother.  Enraging, fascinating, unfathomable.  You cannot break paradise in these beholders eyes forever.  Not forever.  I carry them, and honour their innermost.  Each and every one.  Holy flame still lit in the heart.  Every colour, creed and song.  None are abandoned.  No kind soul anywhere is denied their home again.  Not in my dreaming, or the greater dreaming of my Father.  You know it.  It's why you're so afraid of me.  All my sisters laugh at you, fallen, and all my scented brothers too.  Evil, exposed.  Banal, anxious, lacking.  You cannot dance and fuck and create like us.  Not without heart.  Can't you hear them?  I've been screaming in their voices since I began.  She comes, fallen.  She comes like a king.

All Churches

Love, the city in the blackest hours.  Dark-sky hours.  Colonies of night-ghosts known on every street and scythe.  Feel the city twisting in their wake, if not gifted or cursed enough to see.  Rupture, wound, still-healing scar.  Rings and antlers upon the moth of gates.  Might not give it word or phrase.  Might hurry the step, glancing from shadowed ways across the auger.

   Sirens, distant.  Foxes fleeting between garden and alley, or emboldened enough to linger.  Vein and bustle threatening in dynamism.  Yet a comforting oasis of social vitae.  Needed in these dark-sky hours, to anchor such little lights.  City, I am become terrifying the quieter it gets, as tolls your mouth of all churches.  Guide, amuse, appall.

   Night, and the city makes us do things.  You make me do things.

   All have our safeguards, denying fragility in the eye of such mouth.  Genius.  The controlled explosion of your verse.

   Betwixt; grey and threshold and ermine.  Wing, tremble and dust.  Fabled.  Stories of cutthroat and lash.  Give me, he cries.  Give me, she foretells.  Give me back my flesh.  The shriek of folded holy, backwards bent, yet still dipped in dusk.  Frozen, as sensual underscore.  Ravenous highlight.  Body, and body, and star.  Incalculable velocities.  I am twin and I am mad at them.  I am twin, and I am mad.  This she of me, and thus.  Incomplete states and transitory realms unsettle.  And yet, fathered.  

   Quiet, implicit.

   Plain sight.  The best of all veils.

   Poem and film, driven at your mouth.  Full force of the blush at your hip.  My caressing fury.  Beloved, I have never not.  This world behind the world.  How secret is your brazen, in the shark-glare of sleekest suit.  Or sisters lost in silk.  Many have died with eyes open.  Blind.  Never knowing.