Immortal Musings
Immmortal Musings
Immmortal Musings
Midpoint
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Immortal Musings
Bard Constantine
Copyright © 2013 Bard Constantine
All rights reserved.
Dedicated to the loving memory of my grandfather, in whose mighty shadow I gratefully stand.
Lightning flickers in the dark…
Be still, the beast within my heart.
The Immortal
If I could die, I would die
to your laughter, fly to your
polestar, float on your fingertips
to the edge of the cosmos where
stars burst like fireworks, and
flames roil like waves across the
silver-chased sky; where
molten gold and crimson-colored
suns set in the eye of a
basilisk, the inferno steaming in
the waters of an amethyst ocean.
If I could see, I’d see fathoms
of suspended moments, petrified
happenstance, and unrealized
intentions fall
like diamond dust across
skies of frozen amber, glowing
fireflies that drift slowly
into darkness, wings whispering
softly as they expire in
eternity’s cavern.
While the sky rumbles louder, and
the storm meets the sea in
a clash of elemental fury, the
sun softly kisses the faded
scars on your skin.
Your eyes speak of pain and joy and
sorrow and triumph, the
ghosts of dead dreams sparkle in
the scorn of your gaze, and
if I could change I would
change for your smile; and
if I could die I would
die to your laughter…
Reign Fall
Outside my window clouds are weeping;
their tears slide down the dirty glass.
On the concrete drive they shatter;
like crystal droplets of my past.
I open up my door to witness
how the world gets washed away;
how the colors become muted,
dimmed into these shades of gray.
I let the torrent carry me
into the sea of fools and kings;
into the fathoms of the ocean,
where I can hear the sirens sing.
These are things that I dream of
in the night when I am sleeping;
when my ears capture the sounds
of clouds outside my window weeping.
The Dirge
Upon a rock amid a stream;
the lass sat down, her face serene.
The wind toned down, the birds fell silent;
the wildwoods waited, voices quiet.
Her hair rippled and flowed like fire
as she sang sweetly of desire.
Her voice like razors, slicing deep,
so that the sky began to weep.
Her song was thunder in the rain
as words of sorrow she then sang.
Her fingers bled upon her lyre,
and swiftly set the world on fire.
Then at the last note of defiance,
the sky sagged in relief of silence.
And as the distant fires died,
the sun shined on a girl who cried.
City Heights
They wash the streets.
Disinfectant foam carries the scum,
the blood, the filth
down to the underbelly
where the rats and disadvantaged
lay their weary heads.
But the guilt, the
menacing intentions, the
apathetic, misinformed zombies
stay afloat, supernatant.
I tire of the city streets
where cowards run in packs
like dogs;
but seeing a wolf, they cringe aside with
tails between their legs.
Graffiti-ridden buildings
are marked with faded runes,
warning of a destruction
that falls upon deaf ears.
Where children once skipped carefree,
the phantoms stand on corners
bartering their poisons
to those whose only wish is to
float to their extinction.
I am but a ghost,
a refugee from madness,
looking at the city heights
from the sea of bodies
unable to escape…
City Heights II: Uptown
The train is packed with sardines
in business suits and crisply ironed blouses.
Styles differ, but the faces remain
analogous,
cloned at the source
of conformity.
The Inner City beckons, whispers
assurances of wealth and fortune if you
circumnavigate
the industries that collapse while the
architects drift away under golden
parachutes, sipping on martinis.
Towers of glass and concrete loom like
surrogates for the grandeur
of mountains; metallic forests or
prison bars for giants.
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
I sit at a cafe and view
the woman across from me who smiles
demurely at the slick gent
with the Cheshire Cat grin, and
eyes of perversion.
She is careful, less her smile mar
her Botox-injected face, the only
addiction she has besides
heroin.
In disgust I walk away into
the windswept streets,
where every smiling face is a
mask
and every whispered promise is a
lie;
further into the city heights where
the highways are littered with the
fossils of those who paved them,
forgotten by the multitude
that trod upon their grave.
City Heights III: The Skyline
Steel clad giants whisper in their
misery, groaning in barely audible murmurs.
Secrets they have, knowledge of
rising hopes and forsaken dreams.
Ascend, they whisper
rise to the skyline, and see;
see the true face of the city.
And so I climb
like Jack, except my beanstalk
is of fiber-optic cables
that gibber with a million tongues,
like
the populace of Babel.
Braving the wind, I sway on the edge
of chaos and order, of triumph
and destruction.
Phantom figures flit about,
borne on wings of bone and gossamer.
They tell me they are the spirits of
hopes, of dreams that were born
only to perish before their time.
Now they wander like the homeless,
like hermit crabs
seeking a new shell to inhabit.
I clamber atop the Everest of steel
and observe the city,
the collapsed veins of
the addiction to transportation;
the shadows, the stalkers,
the dreamers, the lost wanderers
seeking new lives in a maze filled
with dead ends.
As fire in the sky descends, the buildings
; shimmer;
towers of molten flame.
And I see beauty, the kind an old man
might see as Death approaches.
The city is painted red,
tints of hellfire and blood
before night sweeps over, and the
neon and phosphorous shine
blindingly,
glowing like stars
that the walking dead
are unable to witness.
Christine
Your voice was honey, wrapped in silk, and
draped upon the beautiful songbird
that lives in your throat;
and when you
sang,
I knew that crowds would weep, would
bravo from the floor to the rafters, would
celebrate the confirmation that
angels truly do exist, that
miracles actually do occur, and that
you, Christine, was their herald, the mouthpiece
of Heaven.
They can never know that the Devil, the Phantom, the
lord of the stygian underworld had
nurtured your skill, instilled in you the
confidence, the conviction to be the
Goddess that you are.
I love you more than they, far more than the
golden, shining man-child Raoul,
(Who must die should he get in my way)
more than all the words
in all the books
ever written about love.
I feel you in my chest, my thoughts… my
accomplishments, my deeds, my genius
is nothing, less than the dust that is swept
from the floor of the stage
if I cannot possess you, have you
completely, utterly mine.
I sin with my lust, my jealous
rage;
though surely I deserve this one
moment, this one opportunity at what was
denied since the day of my birth, the
only time I have ever envied these
mortals, these spineless bleating sheep,
who all have at least the chance of
claiming what I cannot:
being loved.
And so this time I will not be denied; I will
kill
for you, I will steal, I will
turn my back on the God who long since
did the same to me,
if it means I can win your love, your
affection, if you can look upon my
death mask
of a face without screaming, with
adoration, instead of pity in your eyes.
Only then can I go to the gates
of Hell with a smile, for no
torture can be greater than my life, no
torment worse than being
untouched by love.
From the belly of darkness
I come for you, Christine.
I rise from the depths,
a mask on my face;
a crescendo of music in my
mind, my opus, my final performance;
tonight all my demons will sing
in a chorus:
Don Juan Triumphant!
Don Juan Triumphant!
Black Rain
Black rain fell from the
sky today;
I stood outside with
arms outstretched,
to feel the pain from Heaven.
The taste on my tongue was
bittersweet, the tang of
good intentions gone awry;
misdeeds mingled with regret.
The world is filled with
disheveled ravens
holding on to the
hope, the undeniable promise
of the fall of man.
But I, I have already
fallen;
therefore the deeds performed
for the sake of greed and
the empty words of
false prophets with voices like
sunshine
are of little concern to me.
What should be told is
already known;
the future holds no mystery.
That is why reality is
no friend of mine, I
drift away
on razor-edged wings
toward the striated darkness
where the dark deluge falls;
my arms outstretched,
to feel the pain from Heaven.
Wilderness
Lonely seas see seizures of
depression in my head;
demons take their chances,
chance of living amongst the dead.
Deadly consequences quenches
thoughts of dirty deeds;
weeping willows winnow mournful
tears for the bereaved.
Reaver’s whispered ruination, four winds
carry out the call:
Freedom is but promised, but not
guaranteed to all.
All always herd together, gather
targets for the cue;
amass our mass destruction,
fire magnifies the view.
View of retribution
spews across the blazing sky;
sky-way to tomorrow, sorrow
blinds immortal eyes…
Autumn Leaves
The leaf turns shades of gold and
crimson, blending with its brethren…
The little boy runs in the park, laughing
while pursued by autumn leaves…
The leaf is touched, softly, slowly, the
wind caresses it like a lover…
The confused boy looks out the window as his
home recedes into the past…
The leaf and stem divorce; released
on the sea of wind it dances…
The frightened boy sees the monster coming,
a heavy tree branch in its grip…
The leaf revolves slowly, a nomad
drifting without a care…
The defiant boy runs through the forest, his
imagination running wild…
The leaf spins a final time, before
collapsing on the ground, forgotten…
The restless boy roams the streets, his
dreams escape his grasp like mist…
The leaf falls at his feet, a token
reminder of his future…
The somber boy lies in the plain,
enclosed by autumn leaves…
Lord of Winter
He sat alone on a throne carved from
hoarfrost; his breath ghosting from his lungs in
blue-tinted billows.
His arctic abode was vast, and at times
haunted, so he believed, for
surely he was visited by the ghosts
of Misfortune and Regret sometimes, though
he had long banished them from his glacial realm.
It is better to live in brumal exile, he told himself,
than to suffer the foolishness of
Dreams, which splinter and crack like
thin ice when I approach, and seek to
collapse and drown me in the dark,
chilly waters of Despair.
So he built his fortress in the Alps of
Solitude, with walls thick enough to
defy the sun, a hiemal tomb for troubled
emotions that he no longer wished to
be troubled with.
And from his vantage point he could gaze
with his cool, dead, distant stare; looking upon
those who frolicked below in the fields still
green, as though Winter could not touch them.
He curled his bloodless lips in contempt, and turned
back into the gloom where he would lay upon his
frosty sheets and dream forbidden dreams of the
warmth of her touch, an
d the
sunlight in her eyes…
Spring Away
Spring came to me with
lightning eyes and flowers
blooming in her hair.
Across the budding fields she’d
dance
and laugh without a care.
A winter child she’d call me, for
my soul was cold and gloomy;
yet she would take my hand
and let her eyes
and mind consume me.
For she was wind and water,
rain and roses in the morning;
her arms outstretched
without a care, one
leap and she was soaring.
And my delight was in the
gentle thunder of her laughter;
the way we’d talk as if we’d
live to see forever after.
But when June came, her
disposition cracked and rudely
splintered;
until the day she fled across
the other side of Winter.
Brambles
He was lost…
somewhere between the price
and cost; the brambles in between
her words, inaction in the
face of verbs.
She sang of pain in pleasant
voices, showed him
scars born of her choices;
borne on her shoulders was
the beast, the indecisions
that would feast upon intentions
in the past, the hopes she
shattered,
brittle glass was less fragile
than all her feelings, her history
of double dealings, the
complex weaving of her pain,
her unshed tears would
make the rain
jealous if ever they
would fall, if ever he would
hear her call
his name in love
he’d sell his soul, to no avail
to no control, for she was like the
fickle muse, her words were
weapons, were her ruse, her
means of dealing with the
pain,
she stabbed him
time and time again, until
at last he turned away, he
blindly staggered toward
the day, the light that she