LOST REALMS
by RE Slater
I no longer see the world as it once appeared now that misery has come home and men appear more monsters [a'thirst] each other's blood. ...And I, a miserable watching spectacle of wrecked humanity pitiable to others and intolerable to myself. - Mary Shelley, p.135
a treachery too long suffered,
curdling the blood and quickening
the heart; a treachery so foul as only
betrayal may give; striking the soul
with a darkness grasping the
demented heart held insanity's
hate, or gripping one's greatest fears
within the pummeling swales
of black night befouling awakened
souls desperate redemption.
With such treachery no reconcile
can be met, nor payment made,
till foul depravity is rooted out,
pulled forth, burnt to ash in the
stark wake of day's light
beheld it's befouling stenches
not unlike mine own darkest
demons striding the wretched
watches of hot sulfuric fumes
lighting both night and day,
twilight and morn, or the heart.
Nor may cursed rest so bless
the dead's shriveled souls their
befoulment riding upon the
cruding airs silenced heaving
breasts in the benighted, lurid
breaths become stillbourne like
the startled bursting song of
lark's winged rise 'oer glowing
fields; so all is stilled before the
gathering grievous storms of
the latter days fixed incestuous
word and treacherous deed.
These words and deeds composed
in monstrous affinity attaching to
all beating breasts clasped on
waggling tongues unquit their
larcenous words, their fell deeds,
seated as rotting corpses 'neath
fawning crowns abusing, ruining.
No such pious sanctuaries stand,
nor altar's sacred requirem cited,
the burning remains of irreverence
to memory's fallen appointments
having engaged the living dead
that revelled it's shame and lust
like night's lost tendriled paths
'neath bawdy god, or goddess,
whose woeful incense befouled
the nostrils and gleaming eye
lost all hope or recompense,
where once in the depths of time
twining paths fey littered the
straggling tares, the suffocating
weed, till naught grew apace.
Such abiding treachery as these
of ill repute, as demons crawling
earth's terrestrial soils unstopped
proud eyes and hearts unfearing
neither God nor fated henchmen
bestriding this earth o'er hearts
carrying no bliss nor heavenly
blessings, quit and free of haughty
imperious heavens bereft any
earthly paradise where souls but
go to ruin without thought, having
abandoned selves to wicked world's
ways and cares, strickened any
divine fellowship but self love.
Damned souls armed hypocrisy
which clokes the miens of all
fallen men with ruining
disappointment, bethinking
what truly is required is living
well and happy, never ensuring
their fellow man may be truly
well and happy as themselves.
Then flashes of lightning breaks
harsh across deep night's lowing
thunders rumbling o'er the
darkening pales and wooded
bowers transfixed upon sizzling
atmospheres withholding rain.
Herewith lie villainous sneers
of many a treacherous soul
beholding their ruined vanity, yea
bethinking themselves sculpted
limestone halls of languorous
beauty, deigning any thought only
this life offers to chance atoning
resurrection of world, of soul, of
one another; lost eons earlier to
Adam's first fall begun on a
newborn day filled with promise
till all crashed by feeble hand
reaching to understand but not
of wisdom; quickly covering
naked body in remorse but not
penitence; become broken,
unhealing souls of discontent
unable to rejoin self with self
lulling on wings of betrayal for
lost realms of glitter and gold.
R.E. Slater
July 21, 2024
edited July 25, 2024
