Odyssey to the Gallows

She said to me "Let me put a spark in your smile, and paint whispers upon your lips Paint sweet whispers of who we might yet be." The dawn looked beautiful draped upon your skyline Your liquid frame, your seamstress eyes... And so you spun into the night, spinning your tales amidst the streets, your mark left as a sting "O', Scorpio, your kiss is but sweet surrender unto these fire lit skies Take me to the land where all is without name." A rose lays with her now And all things lead to here And all ways lead to here The old way lies torn asunder, a cloak of crimson is creeping in And all things lead to here Where the fissures and your sorrow heals But only in time He said to me "There is a frission, there is a motion There is an elegance at work." So delicate her porcelain frame, I wish only to see her safe... Safe within these iron walls, of whom nought but I create And though I know this is all wrong... I resign her form to sleep, to wait until the dawn A cocoon awaiting yellow morn to steep in her pearl-essence. And how could I condemn her? O' God... How could I condemn her...? Too still to stay and too pallid to leave! O', your frailty makes me ache! O', how your frailty makes me weak... My back will surely break beneath the weight of our regress O', how your grace it towers before me! O' how it looms, a monument of flesh and of flame Destined to lay ablaze until my eyes are left as ashes So then who am I? And what would I be if I were summoned before your smoulders To seep unto your resting place, to weep and to falter? O', how did this all come to pass? These roads are seldom trod upon, these paths are not yet cleared And I, too, run the risk of losing face whilst I wrestle with the glade And still I tangle in your footsteps A chase so rotten and forlorn that only a fool would run So heady, with their wits between their legs to guide them to their birth And return they do in droves and flocks Bleating merry abandon, stripped at their Shepard's hand Bid me then wake from this sordid sleep, fair one Bid me an end to this desperation, o' fair one! For this sickness is a slumber from which I cannot wake! A fever dream, a pox, a plague And still I cannot shake it! The many ends in sight yet still so far to fall before my reach Everlast and ever doomed to sleep Betwixt my pale of sins for which my countenance is all too steep So pray tell I leave, pray tell I stay? In my exile, pray tell, what would remain? For falling trees amidst the woods might yet cry in vain if not for human ear O' crystal mirror, blackened still, pray guide this waking dream In stone and silver I confide my weight, I confide my pain! And in return I receive from thee, a fateful gnostic fit to face A circle drawn in sands by those who walked before The other ones who laboured here in the service of the all And how could I forget you, O' my love, O' my darling fate?! My faithless frame befit to rot upon the mount until my lesson is learned O', and how cruel your lesson is... Your tempting steel lays here to plunge into my chest To pluck my beating heart still raw from an ache so heaven sent So God, damn you to your glory! And glory to his name! While a thousand sons still lay alight in torture and in shame O' Father, won't you lead them to your holy mount? Won't you lead them to your grace? Won't you lead them, o' so reticent as they accept their fitful fates? Leave them shaking in their wilderness Leave them shaking in their tortured dreams Leave them shaking 'til their angel comes to guide them to their feet Guide us witless to the gallows, lead us gutless to the wastes Where the gallows men still fan the everlasting flames of discontent Lead them not into temptation and lead them not into sin Pray, lead them solely evermore into the great within! O' fitful sleepers From whence your epilepsy crags, your fissured scabs pour forth your weathered epithet Still so plagued with such contention as to summon forth a blackened sun! And O' how they shall weep! And O' how they shall cry! As their very sun is blotted out by locust swarms, swallowed in their shallow vision Their very nature dooms them all to piss into the wind and choke Upon their tepid waste Poured forth from gall and bladder, drenched in bile and drenched in scorn Invoke the very Blighted Ones upon the babe newborn Mourning chalice, poison in their cup to grasp To drink so merry feckless in their perverse delight O' Wretched Ones! O' Defilers Great! Bring forth your misery, spread forth your putrescence! Excrete your waste unto these dying lands To leave their seeds bereft of benefit beneath thy noxious bowels Let them become Sick O' Succubus! O' Devil's Whore! And the Men shall know not Women, and Women shall know not Man Only pale and stricken thus, shall sombre effigies conform Dripping sick and blighted cunt to lead a labyrinth of wonder To the core of rotten alchemy, genitals transmute to lead In Saturn's stride pray sit, passage splayed forth man and child Suckle from her wretched teat and drink deeply of her sordid milk And be poisoned by her Sex And Man shall clash in Brother's arm, in sickness and in health A war machine, perpetual, their hearts a burning red And drip their matter does unto the Moon until it cries To hypnotize these Brothers all and captivate their minds O', God of War! O', Blessed God of Madness! In seat of Mars may pillars burn of towering flame! May the very ground be scorched, until the crops shall grow no more As the Moon cries Blood And know they shall of Gaia's wrath as the Earth rebels in its repulse In rivers and in drops, such sweet release from weeping seed Lightning struck and liberate the eye To pour forth a great and mighty river, so humble and so strong Pray, lonely poet! Give thyself so whole and plain to raging waters' song Sing to them your malady to guide them to their birth O' Great Leviathan! O' Waters Vast and Strong! Pray, illuminate with waters blue, befall us with your tidal wrath! May your fevered rain in torrents fall, to flood the streets and rot their wood May it pour... May it pour... May it pour fourth and everlast before the Weeping Moon! O' how dreadful this conceit O' how woeful they become When the Gods abandon mankind Know ye Pilgrim's, stead and swift of Greater Works reside To hold his presence, steady still and always at your side Cast forth your blackened curtains, all! Illusory at most, they hold away the light and rains that shall purify your host Your frame, your vessel forged of light! These gifts to thee bestowed in light to counsel through your shame "The Sword that is not a Sword The Sound that is not a Sound The Face that is not a Face" O' Westward Men! O' Faceless Men! O' Men of Race of Rose! O' Darkened Souls still yet to come! Walk all ye one and all ye same to tread your sullen path Until his breath amidst the winds, until his sound amidst the trees Will all things lead to here and all ways lead to here Where the fissures and your sorrow heals before His Holy Mount Summoned thus through shadow, a task so Heaven sent To venture here through guilt and shame to heal our discontent And until the morning comes, here is where I'll wait My death, a seed from which to birth another pilgrim's light ~ He awoke with a start, upon a bright and newborn day And shook in his spite, cursing that day its very name Overcome with a nostalgia for a time and a place That was not to be and never was "O', the injustice!" he would cry to himself A silent plea for his dreams to take flight And come to life before his very eyes O', how he cried... His vicious tears befalling but a bitter stance to take A scorn mislaid amongst the grass He left it there betwixt the blades To find its own way back

Submitted by johnmansley — Feb 21, 2026