Vast, Loathsome

Pale chalice before me, oracle or orifice / Cold blood stirring on the damp side of the glass / Pale sheets and knotted limbs, the light a yellow haze / I see rows of crosses kneeling by tendrils of grey // That which is broken of spirit shall ever fractured be / That which is bent ever kneel before the scythe / Smile and grasp the knife as the blood pools, an infinite well / A certain death, an endless hell // I recall this house at the edge of my perception / A blanket of lead draped across my sodden shoulders / Is this the place where the fog parted in my nightmare? / The place of the pines—blighted, bent, conjoined like frozen limbs // Fences coiling, ensnaring their surveyors / Trapped like ships between the tides / Slipping downward, broken on the great wheel / But at the surface the fog is lifting / Wade into the yawning gulf / Wrest me from the jaws of sleep / Speak into my mouth // Face up in a loathsome dawn / Days pass, wracked and endless / Sour thirst thick upon my tongue / Last breath a pill I dare not swallow still // Face down like a wounded rat / Crushed leg dragging ever greater circles / Grasp the knife as the blood pours still / Vast wound, infinite well / A certain death, an endless hell. ... "Era inútil golpear con el dedo en el cristal, delante de sus caras no se adverti a la menor reacción. Los ojos de oro seguían ardiendo con su dulce, terrible luz; seguían mirándome desde una profundidad insondable que me daba vertigo."

Submitted by VladTheImpaler666 — Apr 26, 2025

"One characteristic of hell is its unreality, which might be thought to mitigate hell’s terrors but perhaps makes them all the worse."

Submitted by Nargaroth — Apr 26, 2025

Cold constellations / Pale, leering and eerie / In their streaming vault of ichor / Green, loathsome, now growing too close to be denied // Wrenched through the canvas / Into the maw of winter / Howling its sharp dismal terror / Tossed, blown like leaves before a cosmic gale // The pass, place of ill omen / Girded in obscure tongues / Gather your ashen cloak / Weaver of mortal thread / We, the oblation upon your slope / In blood beneath the starlight / Nine throats that whisper as one / Arrayed here upon you in caskets of ice // None shall thaw // Some pages once written can never be erased / Some words once spoken can never be unsaid / Some blood once spilled can never be cleaned, never made whole / Some doors once open can never be closed again. ... "Just before dawn Arcturus winks ruddily from above the cemetery on the low hillock, and Coma Berenices shimmers weirdly afar off in the mysterious east; but still the Pole Star leers down from the same place in the black vault, winking hideously like an insane watching eye which strives to convey some strange message, yet recalls nothing save that it once had a message to convey. Sometimes, when it is cloudy, I can sleep."

Submitted by Nargaroth — Apr 26, 2025