Still one of my favorite poems I’ve ever written — gotta include it!

Fracture

In a world of glass

we fall

endlessly – a rock waiting, fearing only

impact; for a

cold, brutal shattering of the illusion,

the fragile porcelain that contains us.

Cracking like our sanity,

the mirrors will snap with unholy glee,

rejoicing in the cruel parody that, they will showcase…

the horror of reality:

creation warped and twisted,

forced to appear as it really is;

no Eden, this world of ours,

though shade-like remnants of such a time

drift through our “civilization,”

forever doomed: caught between un-death and not-life.

These shards of what came before

echo through the ages like lost Lemuria, like

visions of Atlantis long since crumbled

beneath Poseidon’s fury. They scream

with rage and hatred, but also with

mourning, for

memories no longer remembered can experience

only sorrow.

For unto the corners of all worlds is granted the ghosts,

and the lone guardian, Charon the Ferryman,

who listens to their gibbering even as

he carries them to rest.

These forgotten fragments appear with frightful mist,

swirling about,

sucking the warmth

and life

from all who enter it.

Why would one enter such horrible blight,

all instincts screaming that doom is all that awaits?

The mirror is all that protects us

from scornful inversion:

terrible glory with only contempt for man,

soon ruling all; and humanity, which thought itself

powerful, progressive, and wondrous –

we shall become the shards.

So when that glass breaks,

when that illusion shatters,

and the mist comes forth…

will the horrors from beyond consume us?

The magic…the legends were laid to rest for a reason,

the ancients said. They left us ways to deal with

the few who seep through the cracks,

the impacts that trace a cobweb

across the once smooth surface

of what we perceive as real.

The shadow falls long on the mountainside,

and the cold creeps more steadily.

We turn to the twilight, blazing sun streaking orange

and red and yellow, glorious taint on the night sky.

And the hills ring with a crack,

a peal of thunder without a cloud in the sky;

a toll echoing hauntingly

as the grey, wet shadow fills the valleys.

“Will we be free one day, will our turn come?”

we shout, raising our desperate hope to meet theirs.

Even as liminal moon rises and the voices fade,

somewhere, through the mist

and fog and time

a whispered voice croaks in the darkness:

“Nevermore.”