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- 1. The Exile Part I: The Razor's Edge
- [In which the Pilgrim wakes in dead of night and finds himself with questions]
- "So, here we find ourselves again,
- and one might think it such a pity to be standing on the razor's edge.
- O', how Occam would be ashamed."
- Or so the dreams appear to say...
- See, they tell of numb and wretched men who've strayed far from the path,
- and they tell of nameless, faceless men whose every detail shrouds
- itself in myth and with poeticism, with insight and with tragic glee.
- O', what does this speak of me if I look on so curious and unappeased?
- Would such a thing be read and understood so easily?
- If it was to be, then surely it would be?
- This surely is a dichotomy so prevalent and irrevocably elegant,
- so I've come to see.
- Then, why does it haunt me so?
- What agency is mine to bring to a union with the pre-ordained?
- What have the fates to gain from a destitute and witless being,
- long discarded by the Way?
- So is this a treatise or is it a game?
- Is this pleasure or is this pain?
- Or is there something more elusive?
- Perhaps this could be destiny?
- But as long as I draw breath I'll not let it make a fool of me,
- Lest I wander to the gallows and hang until I'm dead.
- I've seen the mountain in my dreams, and I shall seek it 'til the end.
- So beneath the sight of God
- shall I forever more retreat into the pines and find my place in the all.
- In the everything, might I just overcome?
- But what of you, my dear?
- O', what of you, my love?
- O', how I'd hate to see us part.
- But I must deceive you again.
- I'm sorry but the voice that calls me rings inside my head.
- It pains me so, the visions torment amidst my fears and sins.
- But nothing wagered, nothing earned.
- And for this, a rose I leave beside your head.
- Our crown of thorns.
- 2. The Exile II: The City Of Destruction
- [In which the Pilgrim, befit with Holy Madness, exiles himself from the City]
- We could've been so beautiful...
- O', why won't you fly with me?
- What have we done?
- We've raised such towers in our image!
- Chaos reigns.
- We shall pay dearly with fires and floods and the weeping.
- Come sweetly unto me so that all might be cinders.
- And all things lead to here.
- And all ways to here; where the pathways terminate and clarity dissipates.
- And all things lead to here; where the heart lays grey and withered.
- And all things lead to here; where the fissures stir beneath your feet.
- And all things lead to here; where the crimson veil descends.
- What have we done?
- We raise such mountains in defiance!
- Malice reigns.
- They shall pay dearly with dust and with ash and with terror as the very skies rain fire.
- It is fear they shall know as it pours upon their figure-headed crowns.
- Ash to ash, dust to dust.
- This world shall come to realize its decadence.
- O', sins of iron compass!
- Why do they lead them here?
- Born and bred of wicked ways where reason dissipates.
- Posed as shepherds, they lead the lambs to slaughter.
- Sheared of their innocence, the lambs lie bleating, naked.
- They speak of rebirth? A pox on their new age!
- Surely madness reigns?
- Dis-eased with the remnants of what came before shall they stumble and then fall.
- Now all that is left is to shovel the shit.
- So, I pray for peace amidst the madness.
- "Be free and without pain!"
- I prayed for your Holy mercy, or so I thought.
- So hear me now as I'm prostrated upon the floor.
- I renounce myself, so that the winds might take me westward.
- "Be free and without pain!"
- I prayed for your Holy mercy!
- Or so I felt?
- So in these fissures I sacrifice a mortal path in favour of thee.
- I relegate these bones to thee, this mortal frame is yours to keep.
- Behold this vessel!
- Do with it as thy will before it all goes to waste.
- Before it all goes to waste, I'll live forever in exile.
- 3. Stone And Silver I: The Mountains Of Man
- [In which the Pilgrim reflects on what he has left behind in favour of his Holy journey.]
- Why won’t you raze, with me, the Mountains of Man?
- O’, my love, if only you could see the state of our impiety.
- It bubbles through the impotence of our rage and of our love.
- As we make mockeries of union our deviance is consummated.
- O’, it should be plain to see how we raise our petty banners in defiance of the purity that waits within.
- If only we were to see that all that we hold dear shall all disintegrate one day.
- It’s naught but stone and silver.
- And so I go to travel t’wards the setting sun,
- the chariot awaits beneath its glow.
- Sat astride the wings of Icarus,
- I know no place to go but westward bound to make it so.
- It’s all over, my dear.
- I only wish that I could stay, but really, there’s no other way that this could be.
- Unless you save yourself.
- But you wouldn’t…
- Would you?
- Why won’t you fly with me?
- Imagine what we’d be if you could only listen to the heartbeat of the trees,
- and the sigils of the earth,
- the invisible and endless hum of life from since the Word was spoke.
- Why won’t you listen to me?
- Is it so fractal that it lacks a sense a clarity for you?
- “O’, what are we to do?
- O’, what are we to do, my love?"
- O’, hear how Babylon has fallen!
- O’, bear witness to the Mountains of Man!
- O’, bear witness with impunity as The Tower crumbles and falls!
- There was a bitterness at heart…
- "Why won’t you fly?"
- O', God...
- Why?
- You could have been here, my love!
- For what it’s worth, why would one choose to stay amidst the decay?
- Is it too late for us to change?
- Or are we bound to the dichotomy?
- Paradoxically, this is what it means to be between corpus and divinity, discordance and serenity,
- if only we were to see that all that we hold dear shall all disintegrate as dust unto the winds of change.
- So take me, sweet release!
- I’ve found it’s naught but stone and silver.
- 4. Stone And Silver II: The Horned God
- [In which the Pilgrim meets an ephemeral being and is gifted thus with Boons of Three.]
- And so as darkness fell on the first of days and the skyline opened wide.
- The Heavens in their oblique majesty did speak of an old and holy grove.
- Enumerate in starlit forms how the trees came to speak in tongues
- and what it is they say through a conduit of horned form.
- "O', lowly Pilgrim!
- How dare thee have the gall to seek
- my graven image, stead and swift among the grass and leaves?"
- Know not of malice,
- O', benefactor!
- Know no pretense at my side!
- "Know not of where it is you came from,
- Know, Pilgrim,
- know of these three things:
- The Sword that is not a Sword
- The Sound that is not a Sound
- The Face that is not a Face
- These boons, I give to thee,
- O', Pilgrim
- to light the way home!"
- 5. Stone And Silver III: The Man Of Papyrus Limbs
- [In which the Pilgrim is taught of Spirit and the union of opposites.]
- Though the question remains present...
- Cast in the cold light of day, what is "home" but a place to lay one's head?
- Does the Pilgrim's way see bliss in a stagnant glimpse
- or is there something to be said for the comfort of the nest?
- Because it doesn't seem so clear to me anymore...
- It feels it's been so long since I left what I once knew and loved?
- I know it's but a day but it feels it could be aeons,
- born to die a thousand times and born to live a thousand more,
- as stone and silver, I have been here before.
- I have been here before.
- All that is, is all there was and all that shall become;
- the language of matter writ large.
- All that's written, all that's heard;
- all that's spoken, all that's word;
- is known thus inherently through all as papyrus.
- And so it was told, and so I told myself;
- and in that instant I knew.
- As above, so below.
- These papyrus limbs, they teach that these arms, they are my own.
- Yet, I lay no claim of ownership to this temporary form.
- From thought to pen shall all things be written.
- From void to form shall all things be told.
- Ordo ab Chao
- All that is, is all there was and all that shall become;
- the language of being writ large.
- Semantic keys buried ‘neath the mechanistic fragments
- of the workings of the One Thing made manifest.
- So in flesh is all.
- In all we see ourselves
- reflected in the hall of sacred mirrors.
- Who are we to proclaim such division in the workings of the one thing?
- Who are we to feed the yawning of the fissures with great work to be done?
- So mote it be.
- I become the Man of Papyrus Limbs
- to do the workings of the one thing.
- It's all over, my dear.
- I only wish that I could stay, but really, there's no other way that this could be.
- It's naught but stone and silver.
- 6. Westward Bound I: The Lantern
- [In which the Pilgrim, beset by loneliness, finds himself with doubts.]
- With time's passage, though, what worth would such things be
- without a pen with which to write,
- nor a voice with which to speak
- if I found you gazing back at me
- as the second night descends?
- For time steals us all away one day, does it not?
- It robs us of the things we want to hold onto the most.
- And believe me when I say
- that it lies in wait for no man or woman to make their haste.
- Just as easily, a thousand years would go to waste.
- The work is all the same before the eye of God,
- is it not?
- Perhaps it is the plot I've lost?
- Perhaps I've lost my Way?
- At this point are they not the same?
- Am I not treading the One and only Pilgrims' westward way
- to do the workings of the One and only Thing?
- Have I not come this very way in search of higher things at stake?
- I have seen it manifest, I have seen it ache,
- I have been the squander, and I have been the mirth
- as their eyes avert from heavens sent to guide them to their birth.
- As they foster their impurity and mock the very Way
- in which the lurking and the murmuring
- shall speak from night to day
- will they choke upon their poison and speak the poison word
- while not manifesting the purity they sought.
- O', what a shame,
- O', what a tragedy it is for these words to fall upon deaf ears
- doomed to never reach their subject.
- O', what a fool am I to have laboured and believed
- in such petty human things,
- when it was clear from the beginning;
- that we are westward souls?
- I pray the night might take me.
- I pray the night might take me westward bound.
- To confront who we are, to confront the shadow self,
- I pray the night might take me.
- If I must die a thousand deaths and die a thousand more
- as nameless, faceless, restless men
- who nightly reach deaths door
- then pray this lantern lays still lit to adorn my very soul.
- She told me once...
- "This is what happens in the mountains
- where the light can't reach."
- So I go westward, westward bound.
- 7. Westward Bound II: The Pilgrim's Progress
- [In which the Pilgrim finds his strength]
- Westward bound,
- I've seen the light of day.
- The paintings on the walls of inner caves only appear where the light can't reach.
- O', what a blessing that my shadow follows me.
- I choose.
- I choose where the light gets in;
- an image mirroring my very being upon the canvas
- that is the earth we tread,
- that is the soil on which we step.
- And would you think me to be wrong as I speak to you?
- It's been too long since I have seen your face.
- Would you think me to be wrong as I speak these truths to you?
- Then stay your tongue, lest I cut it where you stand,
- O', vile and sordid lech,
- your tongue so laced with barbs and filth that it could blight the very earth
- and sicken us all beyond repair.
- O', Lecherous One!
- Stay your tongue lest I cut it where you stand.
- Don't think for a second that you'd be spared!
- And would you think me to be wrong as I speak to you?
- And would you think me to be wrong as I speak these truths to you?
- O', how they've long laid dormant,
- so hidden, occult, and buried neath your cinders.
- "And this won't be the last of it.
- Heed my words,
- O', Pilgrim.
- This won't be the last of it."
- Silence,
- O', Lecherous and Vile One!
- I condemn you to a never-ending quiet.
- Silence,
- O', Unholy and Perverse One!
- I condemn thee to ageless damnation.
- O', be silent, De-sanctifier, Pillager!
- I condemn thee to speak no more.
- Quiet,
- O', Unenviable, Cursed one!
- I must travel westward bound.
- 8. Castle In The Sky II: Pieces Of Ruin
- [In which the Pilgrim reflects on the love he left behind]
- Once, I thought I'd found love,
- hook and tethered to the Siren's Song.
- Even though you were near, I was empty.
- It must have been so pain'd to see.
- O', how I injured my love
- singing westward songs unto the setting sun.
- Might my suffering be song, if nothing else.
- If nothing else, teardrops fallen from moonlit eyes,
- they don't mind or terrorize the way
- in which we coveted and held our candles lit with
- one heart beating, one mind leaping.
- This is the Way,
- that you can find me near.
- This is the Way,
- in which it's clear.
- This is the Way
- that we can use these pieces of ruins.
- This is the Way
- to build our Castle in the Sky.
- My darkened eyes and your stormy skies were born to house our disarray, but why?
- Our love is a furnace that kills itself, when just as well the embers might be stoked.
- This is the Way,
- that you can find me here.
- This is the Way,
- in which it's clear.
- Transfixed in your eyes,
- like beacons they guide my way to our special place;
- our Castle in the Sky.
- And I don't mind, no,
- I wouldn't dare to theories, no,
- for dreams recall our future selves awake and aware.
- I know I'll see you there tonight, in our Castle in the Sky.
- As the night descends, again.
- I'll see you there, again.
- 9. Unending Waltz
- [In which the Pilgrim meets The Oracle, who berates him for his melancholy]
- There is a hollowness: shape without form.
- Hallowed and concentric circles splayed against a canvas
- Deep red, veins in hand with epitomes and documents of what has ceased to be.
- What was leased to me...?
- A dying light in fragile arms?
- An art amidst your victory march for me to chase; for me to run?
- For me to torment you and I until we fall again;
- Amidst a calm and cooling breeze,
- amidst our spiritual dis-ease as our shadows stretch across the land?
- This is the twilight of my very oeuvre, or so I fear.
- I fear the end is near, as though time itself were befit by grace to crawl and to walk,
- to seethe as fit with entropy.
- But, surely this is but a heinous vision?
- The order is so very apparent, still.
- Order out of Chaos...
- I feel as though I've fallen short..
- The myriad of misanthropes I've slain and had reborn,
- the rising tide of shedded skin that by my hands was wrought,
- the countless names and faces of a destitute and witless being all discarded by the way.
- O', what a pity it may be to balk at one's mortality
- for within but a blink all is naught but dust and ash,
- soil and smoke, oil and water,
- and the whispering of the winds
- as they propagate the flames.
- So tell me what it's worth..
- For I see nothing.
- "Still, a temple stands amidst the smoulders, does it not?
- Did you not think that the Pilgrim's Way would be fraught
- with the trials and the tests of your hopes and fears laid bare upon the rocks?
- What great cowardice is on display, with your writhing and your self-dismay!
- Are you a man, are you a mouse?
- Or are you but a foolish child
- who's come to cry out in the middle of the night?
- Or is it that you're divine?
- Born to live and born to die as the waxing and the waning of the tides. Have you come to cry?
- Have you come to revel in the imposition of your Exile?
- Tell me, Pilgrim...
- What is it that you seek?
- Because it's all so simple.
- Can't you see?"
- O', what are the chances
- that I would come to see with such great ease?
- O', so blind and weary, perspective seems so out of reach.
- O', what are the chances
- that I would come to keep a realization held so near and deep for more than a day?
- I might find balance.
- I might find ecstasy.
- But I won't.
- So as it transpires, I'll go the only way I know,
- to the sea, to the song.
- I shall be lured unto the rocks to fall and to fail,
- to seek to no avail.
- This dance, I'll do no more,
- of time's unending waltz.
- I've sought to no avail,
- I have tried and I have failed.
- So, this dance I'll do no more,
- of time's unending waltz.
- 10. Ash And Rust I: From Shell To Shell
- [In which the Pilgrim fathoms his endlessness.]
- I enter darkened waters.
- I lose my body beneath the waves, seeing visions of what could've been.
- It's so strange...
- I see my body floating before me,
- a strange and empty vessel, tied down but weightless.
- The tides take me away.
- Take me away...
- I have been here before.
- Yes, I have...
- Oh, I have been here before.
- Sewn from void to form.
- Sewn from shell to shell.
- I prayed the night might take me
- and so it did.
- 11. Ash And Rust II: The Dark Carnival
- [In which the Pilgrim becomes the adversary]
- And just as it does,
- must the Sun rise in bitterness and mourning of what came before;
- Luna's lament still dawning in spite of His song.
- O', weary yet strong must the Father's Sun carry on with his torment
- like a lamb to the slaughter.
- And for what?
- O', God!
- Where is your honour?
- A Son born of Pilgrim blood sent to the Gallows and for what?
- To teach a lesson born of suffering?
- Is this what comes of surrender to your chaotic order?
- A fool I'll be no more before your eyes,
- before your hands!
- No longer shall I stand idly by,
- content to live my life as a sculpture in your image.
- As above, so below.
- As I create, do I destroy,
- I'm reminded of a time
- there was a bitterness at heart and I enjoyed it.
- And it really shouldn't come as a surprise, dear Pilgrims.
- All too long I've seethed in the darkness,
- I've bled for the Son in us all.
- Convinced of my purpose and light, did I smother my sight. O', what a paradox...
- For I thought I'd seen it all.
- For martyrs one and all
- before pride, there comes the fall,
- so would it not seem there is a precedent?
- If masochism is its own reward then why abhor its very core
- when only darkness serves to gain something from light?
- So who am I to mourn the night's spilling into dawn
- and the transience beheld within its grasp?
- Oh, when all becomes but Ash and Rust
- and all collapses into dust can a putrefactive liberty be found.
- Such is the beauty and the terror of the Dark Carnival.
- And you see it now, don't you?
- ... Don't you?
- Pray tell you understand what drives a man to spill his secrets
- onto a page so bare and meek before his craft.
- His pen filled with blood and ink to scrawl unto the paper
- a heaven sent and egotistic diatribe of concepts.
- This is the alchemy of poetry.
- From thought to pen to form
- as was written, as was told by the ageless and ineffable forces.
- What more will it take for you to comprehend that which was written in the stone?
- To what end do I defy my own vitality?
- To what end do I vilify reality?
- Bear witness, dear Pilgrims,
- for this is what it's like to be burdened with your honesty.
- No more.
- And so this is why I will spill myself romantically
- as a Pilgrim born of terror and of dignity.
- Even if only for accountability will I finish speaking my truth.
- Such is the beauty and the terror of the Dark Carnival.
- 12. Ash And Rust III: The Torn Thread
- [In which the Pilgrim frees himself from puppetry]
- Now that the thread is torn, a Pilgrim I'll be no more.
- I have fallen out of love with this ancient and decrepit construct.
- Bounds of obligation conspire to keep my hands so firmly tied
- as I search for growth and I search for life
- I grow so fucking tired of those spiral tales.
- Must I repeat myself so many times
- for my point to be made and my words to be heeded?
- Perhaps it's time to lay myself truly bare.
- But mistake me not for idiot flesh, who would cast his writing unto fools.
- This was never for you.
- For in pilgrimage there is an injury.
- And there is despair that so readily one would see the other dredge up imagery so biblically,
- flagellating lyrically my sense of self for your petty entertainment.
- And as the words become more strained,
- I've come to find and appreciate the quality of journey's end
- even if only for its own sake.
- I mean, after all, such arduous and fitful ways into the deep
- would be wasted if I did not summarize and elucidate
- this curious circle that began so long ago.
- It matters not who it's for,
- or who it benefits.
- But once the thread is torn, there can be no going back.
- May the bridges burnt light the way forwards.
- Might the thread, once torn, transmute lead into gold.
- For the betterment of my soul,
- a Pilgrim I'll be no more.
- 13. Ash And Rust IV: Nameless, Faceless
- [In which the Pilgrim rejects the circle and becomes a man with no face]
- Pray, let me be free!
- Pray, let me be free!
- Pray, by the circle complete!
- Pray, let me be free!
- Nameless and Faceless!
- Nameless and Faceless!
- Now do you see?!
- For both your sake and mine,
- I hope you see.
- Nameless and Faceless!
- Nameless and Faceless!
- Let me be free.
- 14. Destiny's Fool
- [In which the Pilgrim embraces his agency as the Author of his fate]
- So tell me what you see.
- Do you see anguish or see ecstasy?
- It's worrying, what you might find of me without the poetry
- to save my face, to save my skin.
- It's so delicate...
- Ripped limb from limb,
- turned from soil into stone,
- no more shall I be held in this prison of song.
- Sewn from void to form,
- this mask an old home,
- it is infinite, it is destiny's fool.
- A fool am I...
- A fool have I been.
- So tell me what you see.
- Do you see a Pilgrim or a human being?
- Or just another dancing monkey whose songs you want to sing?
- So tell me what you think,
- what you think my reasoning to be
- as to why my ego runs so unrestrained and rampant in my verse for all to see.
- Oh, what have I to gain?
- I've grown so tired of these games.
- My humanity, I'll reclaim in the end if I just let it be.
- So tell me what you'd feel if I reclaimed my being.
- Would you feel joy or feel pain if this were all to cease?
- Just as easily, this story could be you or me.
- We all travel universally in poetry and art
- born from our fears and from our mystery.
- Oh, what have I to gain from writing of my pain
- when just as well I could write from happiness?
- Oh, what have I to gain, when here I am again,
- pouring my shadow into song?
- It's been all too fucking long since I wrote for simplicity's sake.
- So tell me what you feel, my friend.
- Tell me how you ache.
- Tell me all the same what you think this could mean,
- but know it's going to end.
- A fool am I.
- A fool have I been.
- No more, no more.
- 15. The Holy Mountain
- [In which the Author finds truth and reconciliation]
- There is a weight upon me, still;
- the quivering stench of the incomplete,
- looming, terrible.
- I can barely breathe...
- This isn't what I thought this would be...
- Toil with me, if you will.
- I'm sorry, O', God!
- I'm sorry!
- I left you there...
- O' God, I left you there...
- Might this be my atonement, might my sacrifice be done.
- I will die here on this Mountain.
- I bid thy circle's closing.
- I bid Thee end this Pilgrim's Path.
- I bid my will be done with blood unto this ink
- with which I scribe my final words.
- And so it is done.
- So mote it be.
- So I pray for peace amidst the madness.
- Be free, be without pain,
- and receive thy Holy Mountain.
- With all that said and done,
- here's the truth of the matter.
- No masks, no games.
- Not anymore.
- See, I brought this upon myself.
- But let it not be said that this was anything but spurious at its very best.
- The tides of change have ebbed and flowed between a multitude of ones and zeroes.
- And was it not clear from the start that this was all to be transient?
- How does one reconcile the ramifications of a tale that's no longer relevant?
- The answer is...
- You don't.
- Because even if it's no longer relevant to me, it's still relevant to someone;
- and a story once told will speak to those still headlong in the storm,
- still torn asunder and dashed against the rocks.
- O' Westward Men!
- O' Faceless Men!
- O' Men of Race of Rose!
- O' Darkened Souls still yet to come!
- Walk all you one and all you same to tread your sullen path
- where the fissures and your sorrow heals
- before your Holy Mount.
- But mark my words, the storm will come again.
- It always comes again.
- And in its clutches will there lay the madness and the ecstasy
- of the singular and Holy Tale exploded onto the canvas.
- Even if it does not come from me there are a thousand men who came before
- and millions who will yet come after.
- With that said I refuse to let a human being hang on my every waking word
- when I cannot extend that same courtesy to myself.
- To do so would be a fallacy when I recognize the error of my own ways
- and I, too, am to be held accountable.
- Aren't we all?
- But I digress...
- See...
- It wasn't so clear at the start, but this would all be transient and I got lost along the way,
- gripped within the murk of my own poetry and beheld by my mistakes.
- See, the intention was for healing but what I've found is not the same.
- See, this path is fraught with anger and the way is fraught with rage
- beheld towards the ignorant and simple minds who'd see us to decay.
- And I refuse to be a martyr and I refuse to be a saint,
- but so they say...
- This is what happens in the mountains.
- I have come so far from home only to find I must return,
- and I am sorry,
- this is what happens in the mountains.
- I have come so far from home only to find I must return,
- and I am sorry.
- I have come so far from home only to find I must return,
- and I am sorry,
- this is what happens in the mountains.
- I have come so far from home only to find I must return,
- and I am sorry.
- But I have nothing else to say.
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