The Garden Path Collage
Tag: kingdom
Fading the Day
Walking away
Into shades of grey
Walking away
Light fades to night
I imagine you there
Never turning to see
Even as the horizon
Blends earth and sky
A dream was all we had
And now even that has been taken from us
Nothing is real
Not earth or sky
The nothing is real
Not you or I
Nothing I feel
Makes any sense
The nothing I feel
Brings back the light
I remember the days before
I remember the days before pouring through the breach from Saudi Arabia into Iraq.
Months sitting idle standing guard, repairing equipment, training over the same lessons.
The season changed but the looming doubt and fear never did. Each day built upon itself like the ever growing dunes that piled up at the tent flaps.
On occasion some other units would become fully activated and ready. The dynamics of our purpose would change. Tents would be pulled down, moved a few hundred miles, then once again assembled. Each time the burm would not be built up so high or as wide. Each trench dug a little shallower and shorter.
We knew. Soon those protections against the world would only be a hindrance in the final day before the breach.
Live or die, most were ready for what outcome there was to be.
You see, those enlightened few had already experienced death, that blissful adrenaline rush over the edge of reality, and now only moved by muscle memory. We knew what we were to do.
Kill and die, live or die, stand up, move again, rinse, repeat. Everyday was the same day. The only difference was the sand and dirt that piled up at the door.
Soon it will be time for those that don’t know to shake back your own tent flaps. Step out into the reality of an endless day, and fight a war you did not prepare for. Those people will believe in Hell that day…
And us devils who know will be there to show you the way.
Across the Table
Thoughts of you lay concealed hidden by secret doors and curtained rooms.
Stranger things and stranger lies gather dust just beyond what seems real.
Where wooden gavels mark the minutes, and the guilty sit in uneasy repose.
Waiting there for the call of our name.
Before us all is laid bare to answer for and be fairly judged.
May wisdom give favor to the words we use.
An Anchor in the Deep, The Book of Pat
I have been here always. Knelt before the same wooden altar. Bathed my mind beneath the ever shifting light of stained glass. I have read and pondered the stories that remain framed within those panels of glass.
They are glittering jewels that dazzle the eyes. Drawing the mind into the inner light that radiates out filling the void of the room beyond.
Marble floor with the patterned grain of darkened stone tracing out it’s ancient markings from time long lost beneath the sea.
Here in quiet remembrance the candles burn, and none but I know why.
The Watcher sat just beyond the doors of the great hall.
The large metal rings which had been fastened as the doorhandles and knocker lay flaccid against the ancient wood.
Their immense diameter and thickness making anyone’s hand look childishly small.
No one as far as the Watcher knew had ever tried the rings to gain entrance to the rooms beyond.
He had though witnessed the rare occasions when those within had swung open one of the doors to come out.
Usually they emerged suddenly and in silence. The great doors hinges effortlessly giving way, and then with little effort reversing back to the closed position. It was during those random moments the Watcher was able to see the doors construction. Thick as a man’s forearm, and framed with metal bracing within. Definitely stout enough to slow any intrusion of people or sound.
As for the room beyond it was shrouded in an eternal darkness, but at the distant end one could just make out a sparkling of jewels upon the floor and a dazzling wall of colored light.
The Watcher imagined that between the brilliant glitter of jewels and blinding light a dark figure knelt silently. Any certainty on exactly what lay at the far end was to never be known by the Watcher. Some places he knew well enough to stay clear of. It’s just the way it is.
At the Beginning of Each New Day
Along the waters edge where sand and ocean meet
The worlds first words are spoken
By the soft and whispering breeze
It speaks of the many kingdoms
and of ageless palaces carved of stone
All the chambers filled with musical laughter far below in the surging sea
The echoing ripples flowing
Splashing playfully upon the distant shores above
Alas the people of the land no longer remember the beauty
Nor can they walk the halls
Time since it has passed deep beneath a sea foam gray
Softly the wind summons back the memory
As the crabs solemnly standing guard lament
And flying high overhead seabirds call out a sullen praise
There at the waters edge where sand and ocean meet
False Promises Nouveau 