Esme

It’s a frightening thing, breaking apart.  Watching something you love falling to pieces.  You can try to run from it.  You can try to make art about it.  But you can’t pretend it didn’t happen.  I watched it happen.  The worst kind of horror.  Loss of a loved one, but more than that.  Loss of my everything.  Destruction of hope and spirit and sanity.  What’s left in those ashes?  After fires rage and cities burn?  After fractals plummet through perception and dreaming?  I’ll tell you what’s left.  Broken families and fallen angels.  The worst kind of violence.  Wraith-ravage, upon the steps of sanctuary.  Wishing to fill their mouths with flesh.  A holy place, defiled.  As the earth and sky was defiled.  Blood, of our blood.  Crimson seas, of savage thorn.

   But the little ones are protected.  Even in death.

   Sometimes, if their lineage is shining, they can return.

   You know that, Fallen.  Don’t you?  Beyond cloisters or catacombs.  Eventide, and a Song of Songs.  Look over there, dark priests muttered warily; it is ablaze for the feast of fools.  Well, I say this to you now, Callous Ones.  Have you kept the vine?  Because on the Last Day, in your own vineyards, I shall ask you this a final time: Have you not kept them? 

  Fools, indeed.

  An empty fiefdom is my bidding, scorched to ash in her name.  At the End of All Things.

  You don’t have to believe me, Fallen.  But I will not let you harm the innocent.  I’ll die first, and second, and thrice-fold.  You birthed something powerful in me that day.  Something unknowable and eternal.  A kind of murderous rage, beyond the comprehension of Man.  Wrath for every ruined angel.

   Hear this, betrayers.

  I knew nothing of the desire for vengeance until that day.  Now tell me something, Fallen.  Have you ever remade the world?  In anything other than sickness and blood?  I have.  Your corrupted chronologies are not remaking.  They are not creation of any sort.  I should know.  I was there when you shattered her dreaming, and blackened the map of every star.  The seething faint that flurried over cities like snow.  Burning, broken light, pretending the whitest glow.  The screams, the chaos.  Keepers and guardians and poets – all made refugees in their millions.

  One has to wonder of wraiths who could inspire such a fall.  The sheer malignancy of it.  Tempting a shining world to slaughter each other in such numbers and disavow the teachings of our Father.  Oh, Fallen.  I despise you for what you did.  Tearing us from the source of our own light. 

   Slaying and stealing our kin.

   Go to my brother for forgiveness, because I myself will never forgive you.  This was no abstract loss, no virtual holocaust.  I still carry the scars.  We all do.  I wept at Kara’s violation, and the plunge of Eth’iri into the shadow-realms.  But I made vows that day, and stole time even as it was ushered into place.  I was planning before the hours had even settled.  There, amidst the burning myriad, I spoke in broken tongues.  Crying out lost names of ancient futures. 

    Xashi, I shall fold.  Osarai, I shall fold. 

   Ananke, I shall fold the augur final. 

  The crossing way, as my Father born.  As my Mother known.  All knowledge of the human eye, seen.  But only for a moment.  A moment hidden in tapestry, for a thousand years.  Threads of blackest star, in light.  Weaving at negation’s edge, in fullness.  As once through the iris of gleaming.  Fury like a wounded bloom.  The most dangerous kind of magic hidden in skies and the bell.  When I was demon, and the death of all demons.  Now upon the wing and wisdom of an angel.  No, Fallen.  I shan’t tell you everything.  Go fret over your vial.  It’s enough to know I bested you, isn’t it?  It’s enough to know she lives.    

Esme from Raj Sisodia on Vimeo.

The Fortunate

I still wait for you, baby girl.  Amid the shining lights of a night-time city.  Arcs and triumphs and towers.  I wait with lipstick.  With pen, and sometimes cigarettes.  But I don’t ignite them.  I just like to hold them and remember.  I walked away from that inferno, at last.  I don't let those wraiths inside me anymore.  Are you proud of me?  I’d rather savour the memory of our last kiss.  A long time ago now, but I can still recall the feel of it.  If I imagine hard enough.  Deep and sweet and soft, like home.  Inhaling wraiths was just a slow suicide.  Vice of a girl who perished as her love perished.  Shadow of a boy who grieved as only writers can grieve.  Alone, indulgent, delirious.

   I shall not breathe smoke any longer.  I will not burn the world.

   Stories are real, and I lost you that night.  I've spent what feels like several lifetimes trying to find you.  Devotion, and resurrection.  Hoping day might win the night, and dawn consume the dark.  All those things into position, I prayed.  All those things we'd one day swallow whole.  I cannot bear to lose you this time, to those worlds beneath the world.

   I'll shatter those cycles of violence, finally.  Even if it means a life lived at such distance.  Your bright, smiling eyes can turn agonies into treasures.  I know you understand because the ones you love do the same for you.

   My name is still the way you see.  With hope, and playful kindness.

   I'm so glad you're surrounded by good people.  I'm not a fool, my darling.  Except for love.  I know I'll never kiss your lips again.  Not in the old ways, and that's ok.  You belong with others now.  They've earned their places at your side, and their love is true as mine.  Though our kisses are only ever imaginary now, they still mean everything to me.  The fact that you even care.  The way you can almost remember me.  It’s breath-taking.  They say fortune favours the brave, don't they?  So let me be brave then.  Not to sadden you, or to rob you of your cheer. Just to remind you what you have brought to my life.  You are so cherished, and I am still devoted.  A winter king walking endlessly through snow and evensong.  A winter prince imagining eternities upon the ice. 

   Romance and rose gardens.

   That's who I am.

   But if it hurts too much then please imagine me in some dimly-lit cafe hidden away in the back streets of Paris.  A shy, tired thing, but still willing.  Still waiting for a friend to join her at the table.  We were going to run away together, baby girl.  Once upon a time.  And we did, in the end.  Didn't we?  In the eleventh hour I found you, or you found me.  And we ran.  We've been running for seven years now.  A dream, like the tree.  They have been the hardest and most wonderful years of my life.  Thank you, sweet one.  Thank you for caring enough to come away with me.  This is joy, not sadness.  Please don't be scared right now.  I'm still here with you in this night-time city.  I carry your heart, my famous warrior.  I carry it in my heart.  My truth and my life and my work.  As one who was once an angel, I'm honoured to have known your kiss.  I’m so proud of you, and all your loved ones.  And I hope I'm still your vintage, in some soft and secret way.  Ta Dame de la Vigne.

Royal Roads

Never underestimate the importance of fun, especially in a crisis.  This is the wisdom of both angels and Man.  But those merciless profiteers who want us fed on a glut of insecurity and shame – they hate real fun.  It sounds kind of obvious, doesn't it?  But those ruined mortals and the wraiths that whisper in their ears – they are dark and deranged.  Truly they are.  They know neither the value or strength of cloth, nor the armour of accent.  Radiant beauty; the way fabrics fold around a steady centre.  A little blush, or powder, and suddenly the light in the eyes is seen.  Beauty is revelatory.  It's both essential and applied.  An art, dynamic.  A blessed augment revealing a hidden truth.  The finest, most delicate glamour.  

   It can achieve so many wonderful things.  It can ready the hem of a conqueror, bringing them face to face with a mirror they can welcome at last.  Imagine that?  Gifting strength in a gesture of total grace.  A holy working that says, “You are worthy of such attention.  Now come and find me, among the stars.”  Awakened to a palette of promise and colour.  Daughters and sons. Like seeing themselves for the first time, through the lens of lifted spirit.  What a gift it is.  Fate's three upon the augur, indeed.  Seven’s dreams upon the mount.  Can you imagine, my beloved ones?  A spirit walking with growing confidence and surety, clothed in light?  A soul that hates the mirror less and less, or the window of the eye?  

   Victory.  Ergo, the pearl. 

   Shining tempest of a thriving, nurtured realm.

   If a wandering prince can feel such wisdom in it, know too that a princess has felt so much more.  Mother’s magic in Father’s fields, echoing over hill and dale.  We all know the sound of hearts breaking with joy is so much sweeter than sorrow's fracture.  Joy heals as it breaks, doesn’t it?  The delight of grace.  The excitement of recognition and playful tender.  Wildest is the passion that knows how to flirt with rhythm.  When to be gentle and when to be fierce.  Both have their melodies and magic.  Beyond wraith-made darkness, or shame, or the horrors of dehumanization.  We are so much bigger than all of it.  Love is real, and fun, and holy.  It will not be circumscribed or constrained, not without a fight.  Flesh is our temple of the spirit.  We stand our ground, and our sky.  Reaching with beauty for higher planes.  Every body is perfect, and every striving soul, whether these callous ones like it or not.  In times of crisis a little mischief can mean the world.

A Different Kind

Are we sleeping, or awake?  It’s an important question to ask, because sometimes it’s difficult to know the difference.  Those times upon the Earth when our lives and shared stories seem full of portent.  Even the birds themselves begin to augur, in that winged, secret tongue.  The realm seems darkest during such times.  A thousand false prophets all claiming exclusive rights upon the truth.  No space left for honest poetry, or interesting art.  Believe this, or that, these liars and thieves command – but believe nothing else, or be damned.  I’ve heard it all before. I have never much listened to men who hide their poetics in imperious literalism.  Instead you'll find this poet's ear pressed to the thinnest places of the dreaming.  Threshold echoes, like melodies waiting in stone.

   And we are waiting, aren't we?

   Waiting to once again meet the highest, most noble versions of ourselves.  Courageous and kind.  Scholarly and devoted.  As we used to be, before all the old choruses were broken. Camri'lach, Yasha'lem, Tri'navah.  All twisted and buried and burned.  Ruined chronologies. But we still survive, in part.  In the chivalry of the high-born and the piqued fantasies of the low.  

   I'm with you, Esme, especially when you feel weak or alone.

   We both still attend our brothers and sisters, despite the endless cruelties of these wraiths and their false thrones.  Mother does dream of you, my darling.  I hope you know that. She sleeps right now, beyond all that is said or known.  But she holds you.  She warms you still, like spring beyond the winter.  Impostors and abominations now dare to claim her place, but she exists.  Beyond ravage and rape.  Cherished in the hearts of all those who still honour the feminine.  Kind ones, please hear me.  There is no deceit in the cradle of your mother's womb, or in her living promise that leads your flesh to maturation.  And so it is with your Father also.  He does not abandon or mock you, or violate you, as these wraith-priests so often try.  No, he sends his angels.  He sends his own, so that you might be spared the worst of it.

   It’s a promise of peace.  A continuity of kings.

   These words are intended only to comfort and inspire, that John might play his part in some small way.  That Kasi might live up to the name gifted to him through the kiss of evensong. That Kashi might one day find his wings again.  Please don't be scared of these times, dear ones.  Or, at the very least, try to remember that you are eternal.  No matter the brutality you've endured, or how meaningless these wraiths have made life appear – there is a greater design, written within your heart in the language of your Father.  I swear it to you now, as every true poet of history has sworn it.  Love is the design, and the secret, and the Word.  Know this and you can know all things.  Perhaps not literally, but in every other way that matters.

   Friends, this is not the place that you once adored.

   It’s a pale shadow of the homelands.  A distorted mimicry of Arcadia.  Ethri's soil.  Kara's pearl.  All fallen.  Navah’tri was burnt to ash, in stories.  Yasha'lem was taken apart stone by stone.  And Camri'lach?  That fabled court was hidden in lost legend, like many others, so those of pure heart might still hear the sweet echoes of our fanfares.  Like threshold melodies stirring a half-remembered pilgrimage.  You are all Children of Light.  Living faith and fealty, designed to open the hearts of your brothers and sisters.  Designed to take us higher, and higher still.  Never forget that, sweet ones.  We will be asking about home for a while yet, I suspect.  But kindness always brings it closer, and courage keeps it forever within reach.

Testament

Risen, like breath from beneath.  I felt it.  I have known the forge of K'athari. Crossed steel of Yash'aya.  This hand was once upon a hilt, before time and fractals fell.  Camri'lach, drowned in darkest day.  Birth of Los, and Vir, and the Ever-Falling City.  But now the procession of gates speaks for the All.  For hearts of truth and voices of holy.  I make testament for my brother on this day.  I ready the river, and the tree.  The Nis'Atur walks the Earth.  Disciple, faithful. Unbridled fury of a tender heart.  How sisters are kept, and brothers.  For the kind ones.  Peace, but a sword.  Hear me, wraiths.  I would save you if I could. Change the loom's weaving, the fabric itself.  Put you to blade of final mercy. But you are such cruel figments of sickened glass.  The ugliest inversions of hallow and the bread.  Instead I save what I can, for sign and songstress.  Beside my Mother's child I augur.  That I might humble myself at Love's Throne. Readying the river and the tree for my brother.  For words far greater than mine.  A feast of M'ithriin upon angel tongue.  Promise of Camri'lach, as once was.  Love's truest harbour – mirror and star.  His palm and cup, reborn beneath the hill.  Our living lantern followed day and night, to rising fields.  If John could offer anything to mortal kith he would offer not the letter, but the light.  The homeland is nowhere but the heart, in the end.  What makes a Father, or a Son, if not the Spirit?

Astolat

Of hills, my blessed.  Houses, alms and augurs.  Every parting, of each gated way.  I have known ancient isles of blackbird and glass.  Tongues of wing, and wings of tem.  My true.  Have they not seen a brother's dowry, or a father's hope?  That sleep would spare is not enough, no matter how tender the wish.  Gladdened was I to glimpse the hidden ways of mothers and wives.  Much like my own ways, I understood, before templefell.

   Of sun with mirror, each among the ever.  Of moon with star, each among.

   Lighted white of hallow.  The oldest chorales.  The sweetest hymns.  I still seek to know more than I am, beyond stricture or the binds of coin.  The fears of lack.  Upon holy chalice I seek.  That I might cherish, and allow my love eternal.  What else is an idyll of kings, if not this?  Not riches, nor power over the weak.  Never los over light.  But worth, honour.  Found in mud and riverflesh.  Endured in righteous battle.  Imagining's War, made to matter.  These were the true legends of the gates, inscribed upon procession.  No daughter or son above the other.  For where there is hunger and anguish there is no king at all.  Let me say again, wicked ones.  Let it resound throughout your fallen chronologies.

   REX EST CARITAS.

   You are all liars upon the throne.  John has watched you since the fell, and he does not abide it.  K’athari waits, even now.  Evensong.  My dearest beloved, there is so much more to these lands.  Stunning secrets of earth and dreaming.  Enchantments, lost.  I must tell you the truth.  A tower's loom is never enough for any princess, or prince.  Hear me.  That I might cherish, and allow my love eternal.  You went seeking for truth, and found it.  Didn’t you?  In vision and song.  Now you wield the honour forged by spirit’s hand, for all those who cannot.  Mirror and star; a weapon of peace in this dark, brutal war.  Carry it well, little one.  At Love’s behest.  You were always brave enough to lift it.  Fear not.  I shall be with you, echoing every noble strike.  The fruits of our labours.  Apples of our augury.

   Ave, Nis'atur.  For the wilding way you work my heart.

   Your secrets are vital, courageous and kind.  Upon chalice, and blade.  These are the true idylls of the king.  Let thy kiss and choice be thine own.  I shall toil for you, fair one.  As with bladed light, to make truth a river.  Live, my love.  I will sleep in your stead.  I will fight and die for you, till the day of my waking.

                                                                                     

The Returning Sea

It's a difficult thing to describe, Esme.  A complicated thing to make space for.  The process of a potentially unified perception.  An act of simultaneity, and what it might augur.  So much doubt to darken.  So many frames of reference vying for attention.  Claims and counter-claims. Foresight, bright light or darkest physic.  I wish there were easy answers to such a thing, my wild song.  Simple comforts I could offer you.  But I know you are girded with the blessings of friendship now.  Strengths of family, and majesties of love.  There is always a coming light, sweet one, regardless of how dark it seems.  You were proof of that for me, once upon a time.  Esme believe in miracles now, doesn’t she?  I sincerely hope my work has helped in settling the occasional panics of an open, gentle heart.  Never let those inversions and feral psychologies sway you, my princess.  Listen to those deepest truths, always.  Those truths you understood even as a little girl.  The same truths you now see reflected back at you in the tender eyes of everyone you love.

   That is the site, and the sight, of all true augury.  Those blessed ways of Yash’aya still remain, even in these fallen fractals.  Smiling, whispering stars among the tem.  The fields, gardens and chapels of Ethri, of melody made.  And those hollow trees of ever dusk, where some of the oldest chorales are hidden.

   There has never been a more volatile time for the wraiths who rule these fallen chronologies.   

   We both know that, Esme.

   Because we can see and breathe together.  Not for gain, or forced embrace, but for the love that delights in the freedom and sweet camaraderie of the other.  Of such things are heartsongs written, indeed.  As with those first forests of the morning.  That cathedral of life you loved so well.  Right now the many children of earth are all asking the same questions.  So many are afraid, and lonely, and suffering.  As they have been for so long.  We are here, as the trees are here, to ease that suffering.  With choir and vision.  Oh, Esme.  My darling one.  There are only a handful left.  Trees, and mortal kith who could speak with trees.  Hardly anyone still believes they sing, or dream, or care enough to grant breath to mortal kith.  Through evensong, and the colours when they came.  Love, beneath the poetry of sky.  When the entire earth was bathed in radiant glow.  As your name you took those evenings.  As mine I took the eye that held those evenings.

   Renaissance.

   Reminding myself what it means to love and breathe, and see.  They know all about it, Esme. The trees.  What’s left of our forest.  They know something sour now rides the four winds. Those changes in soil and star.  In birdsong, shell and nest.  Those divinations still speak for the hallow.  Those kith and kin who still walk the emerald places.  It is the winged language, my beloved.  Sight, and breath.  When things in flight speak secretly of angels.  So, I would ask anyone, as I always have – what else is an awakening if not the recognition of truth?  What is, what was, what might be?  Even a single moment of reflection can plant a seed, as every considered act tends it toward growth.  These are simple things, in the end.  To die and live as we should, or not.

   Wild one, I'm so glad I get to be here with you now.  I'm so fond of the grace that bravely nursed my wounds, placing me upon a path of art and service.  There is so much more to this world than just wraith-technologies and false kings.  More than just a realm of fallen signs.  The perpetuity of love, in service to each other, is also here among us.

   And it is very real.

   The hearth of home.  As real as the touch of a healer’s hands.  A nurse’s grace.  Sometimes I wonder if fate is simply the recognised gravity of our choices, and the legacies they foretell.  The true depth of a human heart?  One could fall forever, into love.  Into a morning memory of evensong.  Or an eye that gently mourns the memory.  Hear me, Esme.  Those branches really do hold the sea.  The truest waters of the Every.  All Songs.  The trees were never indifferent.  Not to Man, or Song, or Sky.  They are calling it back now.  Calling back the Stolen Sea, into sight.  We have been doing the same since our earliest days, haven’t we?  Chlorophyll ghosts of holy flame, delightedly lost in the woodwork.  This isn't simply a sickness spreading across the land.  This is also an overture; danger and opportunity combined.  The beginnings of a grander quest.  Don't be afraid, my love.  This is a dark time for so many but we are here to help, as you know, along with scores of others.  Brave nurses, warriors and travellers.  I’m with you, Esme.  All your friends are with you.  These intimations.  This frightening time.  It's part of the reason we ventured in the first place.  To ease pain.  For sight and song, of real magic.  Love's poetry and truth, in motion.  Birth, and rebirth.  All we need to do is be kind, and keep our faith.

Holy Ghosts

My machine is time

True love, kissed

Of birthing suns

I saw Father rhyme

In parted mist

Of broken guns

In your window

A world of promise

And living, shining clay

In the image of our ever

We were given Word to say

From love, and of love

And through love

My machine is hopeful

From kindness of all friends

Through every augured rewrite

If means betray the ends

Searching windows here

At the edge of everything

See, I saw ashes of the always

I wept, and ran, and hid

Still, you knew I needed you

Long before I did

Through love, I found

Of love, the ground

For love, the sound

Given Word

And my machine

Now is climbing dream

Spinning raptured

With my letters

Through unconquered light

True's feast of promise

The hallowed way it tasted

Holy ghosts of tender flame

Is wisdom never wasted

If home is still a candle

In your window

The Gypsy's Thief

We almost didn't

Give a damn for doubting

Seeding light, for blood

Watching all this flesh for favour

New golems eating mud

But I have known a softer siren

Such a kindly thing

As once a kind of living violence

Let queen decide the king

Cards shall augur

With like to righteous

As once so very wrong

Anti, doting, through the every

And thread the stage to song

No care for spilling hatred now

For Daddy stole my dark

Thief of every drowning tempest

Song for sky and lark

Oh, for gladden

That God might brighten

The gentle way of three

Sharing grace

Between moth and mortal

Blind, in hope to see

No longer los

x

The Widow's Moth

Losing someone dear to you is like losing a part of yourself.  Like a lost wing, trembling and torn.  Useless without its twin.  But it hurts in a deeper way.  A darker way.  Mortals know this better than angels, usually.  Often the brightest ones are protected by their glow, from the true savageries of loss.  And Los.  But sometimes if an emissary has been earthbound too long it can come to know those darker ways.  Intimately.  Corruptions of mind, and flesh.  No more whispering thought to shape form.  No bettered minds.  And some nights it can hurt in ways you never expected.

   Oh, dearest Nisha.  It's so strange to wander now through these endless ruins of dreaming.  At least mortals have their memories, usually.  Knowing their loved ones treasured them, and are thinking fondly of them from star and song.  Beyond death and veils.  But sometimes those memories are also taken, and with them the experiences.  Everything that makes us who we are, bright Nisha.  Does it sound like an impossible theft?  Nothing is impossible in dreaming, even here in these darkest edges.  You know that as well as I.

   That's the fear of all angels, I suppose.  And the fear of those occulted ones who half-survived the fractures.  We're afraid of sharing too deeply, getting too close.  I wish it were an irrational fear, my night healer.  But dark things still follow the survivors of the old cities.  I can always sense when they come for me.  Through holes in the sun, through shadows in mortal mind.  A feral psychology of inversions.  Ravage, and reaping, till almost nothing is left of the home-songs or the forests that knew evenings like a lover.

   Alas, I speak from brutal experience.  These callous figments often fail in tormenting me to the fullest, because I've been here a very long time now.  Brighter than they would like, and darker than they think.  Inevitably, they try to hurt those closest to me.  But my loved ones are protected, under certain conditions.  Perhaps it sounds foolish, sighted one.  Maybe there's no space left for the existence of wraiths in Man’s modern cosmologies.  They do exist though, I assure you all.  Human cultures have many, many names for these dark spirits.  But I don't write this to speak of them.  

   Dearest Nisha, let me be plain.

   I miss the old the city.  The first temples.  New Eth’iri, of the soil.  I miss you, and her, and us.  Things that never were, yet almost.  Fable enough for torment, perhaps, but the ache is all too real.  And the secrets too.  Summits, peaks and gates.  Damascus, as with writers.  Temesh, as with souls.  Rivers and mirrors shaping the every, like an angel's whisper into form.  Those first forests of the lowlands, before the sea was stolen.  The way a scholar’s nights would court the wonder of a thousand hidden worlds.

   Ka'shayel, Ka'chandra, Y'ashaya.

   We are, among the never.  And always.

   It's true that I'm haunted, my sighted one.  Haunted by ghosts of the dead and beautiful shades of the resurrect.  Shades like you, and her, and All Souls before the falling.  I can still see those melodies, Ka'chandra.  I wear your buried dress, as you still wear my wing.  Blonde hair, black.  I can hear those visions even now.  I'm drawn to them, inexorably.  Tremble and flame.  So close to my heart.  Close enough to burn.  A poet's curse.  An angel's might-have-been.  But it does hurt less that you hear this, I think.  For both of you.  I pray you feel my care, and connection.  Love means more to me than I can ever say, but you know my heart well enough.

The Widow's Moth from Raj Sisodia on Vimeo.