Nathrangking

Poem# 35

Remember

Waters crash against one another clashing in a battle that threatens to smite the entirety of the mortal world. They strike everything rising above the shores that would hold them back and interrupt this battle. The Earthshaker himself is tossed about by that which has shaken off the chains that he used to bind them. Groves that the hands of Arachne’s bane blessed vanish beneath a hail of most punishing blows. Zeus in his rage calls the forces of the skies magnifying immeasurably the carnage. Dirges don’t even have the time to arise before their singers are drowned out and escorted to the realm of Hades by a deluge of rent souls and bodies. The lord of war calls his legions as magics flow from the hands of the one who is three. All of their weapons and expended power shatter Gaea. These deities earn split and spilt ichor when the waves backhand them and rake their flesh. Arrows from the twins sink into the diluvian landscape creating vast fields of boiling steam. Even the stars are scalded while Demeter and Pan flee to the forge within Etna. 

When even the gods despair now and lay down before that which now ascends into the heights with lusting hands divine foes tremble. Thrones eons old crumble and fragment as the cosmos shake apart, but from their debris, something else comes forth. Angelic being cannot describe this warrior that wrapped in a cloak of music descends from a place between realms. Blades of silver song slash the conflicted brothers silencing them for a moment and making them scream out as the death of all planes. Together they turn on her expecting her to turn away in fright or beg for her life. A storm of glorious sound paralyzes them and as a viper plunges its fangs deep into the cores of their beings. Chaos shreds them and returns the remains to the borders from whence they came to do that which none before was able. Burial takes hold at the same time that the fates do their work. No name is apt for the musician who with her mantle reweaves the very fabric of existence itself. Groves erupt from the ground beside cities reconstituted and repopulated by the fallen in the span of a breath. Her memory chimes calmly in the air for all time even when the vision of her fades away. 

Wayward

A lone flickering torch casts a shadow over the whole of the world that swallows everything in its path. The deities that rule on high watch on in shame as a place consecrated by their hands birth an unquenchable thirst. Diana and her brother fly forth and loose waves of arrows that vanish into the void without ever drawing blood. It reaches out with claws as jagged glass and arm formed of the essence of the nightmares that haunt gods. Ichor flows freely and waters the ground while they fall and are lost in this spreading maw. Jove and all of his forces are pulled from the heights despite the way that the earth is obliterated. Armies die in silence, weapons meaningless and prayers wasted as none remain to listen. Cities crumble and nature itself halts in a vain attempt to escape the wrathless wraith that simply obliterates without care or desire. 

From among the stars comes a single voice that pierces the silence and freezes that which has blanketed most of the mortal and immortal realms. Blades of almost joyful music cut into the soul of this apathetic creature making it cry out in distress and attempt to flee. No matter where it goes the tune follows it and rings out in its mind. Corruption retreats and shatters chased back to its source. Shield and sword clashes with the most graceful warrior that has ever existed, their tools of battle splitting the air with the ferocity of their blows. Spirits of nature join in, flying from hiding in beauty and swarming the ebony beast. Stumbled step after step pushes it back and it begins to cry in agony as now it bleeds. One final breath fells it and frees all who were swallowed by its depths, casting them back into the world. Terra takes this errant child back into her arms and a new deity softly extinguishes the flame that called it out and ascends into the clouds to watch, protect, and let her music fill creation once more.

Poem 33

It has been a while since my last poem. However, I'm back with more stories to tell. 

Nightmare Ascendant 

From the center of a wood blessed by the hands of the divine comes a creature loosed from the deepest void. Eyes setting the earth aflame as it glares at all that it will take for itself, this anathema spreads death into the bones of Gaia. Its teeth of broken obsidian shards poison everything as they drip the essence of Thanatos. As the tempests that tear humanity from this mortal plane, it flies forth leaving nothing whole behind. Shattered cities and temples of worship are painted scarlet and pitch. Typhon and Echidna rise when this threat strikes blows at the rulers of Olympus and shrugs off the chains from above and below that rend the very fabric of reality. A single blow cuts away the serpents and drops the banes of the gods into darkness everlasting. All deities hide waiting for death to take them.  This storm only grows, reducing mountains to dust in moments and draining the sea as it steps into the waves. Into the heavens goes its gaze silently vowing to consume the stars and return all to endless night. 

Horror fills it when a corona of light explodes from nothingness and envelopes the realm in the folds of her cloak. She grabs its claws as it lashes out and she sings a haunting elegy that shakes this monster. Struggling as it might in its attempt to spill her blood it cannot sink claw or tooth into this warrior. Instead, it flails and tires while her hold and music intensify in might until the cosmos joins her. The maw of the deep opens and takes back its creation when it too begins to feel the power bearing down upon it. However,  whatever chaos birthed the destruction of the world is cast into the fires that scarred the mistress of the earth. Rains from beyond the ken of even Zeus quenches the infernos that decimated all that was sacred. They do not recall the dead, but they heal all else as a new protector begins to rebuild from the bones of carnage. Ousted sovereigns kneel and by her command begin resurrecting a new world.

I find myself being swallowed by guilt that I may or may not have earned. In the short version I had a falling out with someone years ago. I had considered them a friend for years. 5 years ago I discovered multiple times that instead of communicating with me she preferred to play the victim whenever I would try and get a handle on our friendship. See I though I had a crush on her and truth be told our friendship was tenuous. I later realized that this was not the case. However, she was dismissive of me and what I had to say. Things eventually boiled over and she said things that attacked me. This pattern proved so toxic that I blocked her and moved on. Early this week she messaged from a new social media account. I deleted the message and blocked the new account. Since then I have felt partially guilty. Maybe I was right maybe I was wrong, but my guilt seems to linger.

As always thanks for listening.

Well, it is that time of year. I have been a member of the shard for 5 years half a decade of my life has been spent here!! 

This last year has been more unusual than most even in the Covid years. I moved abroad and was stuck in a situation that Odium would have been proud of. It was a dark time, and I leaned on all of you, especially @Frustration and @DramaQueen to get through it. That took me time to get through and when I came out the other side well I was changed. I RP'd with new friends like @The Wandering Wizard and others and old like @Channelknight Fadran. 

I was published again after I had given up any and all hope while the rejections continued. I will be reaching out to Tor this week to see if they will have me and the saga of authorship continues.

This year has been a journey that saw me date and break up in a traumatic way that almost had me believing that I should not even bother trying to find love. Then 10 weeks ago I met the woman that I fell head over heels in love with. That got me writing poetry inspired by her that I have been posting. If I really broke down everything from the past year I might be here until the next.

All of you are as far as I'm concerned friends and family in a way though we have never met. Keep being awesome and let's make this next year more incredible than the last!!!

Poem 32

Living?

Shadows as vultures swoop down and tear at the ruins of a realm little more than mounds of dead and unmitigated destruction. Oceans of ruby cause the earth to drink until Terra is sickened by the glut of life draining away. This terrible paint is like libations to gods who long ago gave up hope for mortals and abandoned them. Even the most benevolent shutter their palaces that they should not witness the world die an eternal death. From the heights there is apathy and the depths will not comfort them or accept new souls. Spirits haunt this realm and bring horrific nightmares upon those who hide in the rubble waiting for their ends. There is nothing here for any, but forgetfulness and a journey into an eternal abyss from which there is no return. What can any do, but allow their tears to slide down emaciated faces that are skeletal and hope that soon they will sleep and be assaulted by wraiths no more. How they long to be unable to suffer any longer without even the strength to pray prayers that they had long ago abandoned and forgotten. 

Existence weeps, but all goes still in the midst of the slow descent of humanity into void and where there was weeping a comforting voice resounds. As the most magnificent nightingale’s song a tune is born from empty air. Stars start moving about in unrestrained dancing while the birds of prey are driven off. Polluted waters are crystal while the dying rise up from where they sit in concealment and throw off the shackles of weakness that dragged them down. Though they have not consumed morsels they grow haler by the moment. Those who were locked in the mists damned to wander are given passage now into the realm of the living. Deities hear the sound of joy and in confusion emerge back into the world. Signs of power are stripped from them as they become that which they ignored while their fortresses collapse into the aether. She who pulls all into an unnatural light gazes upon all kindness suffusing the cosmos as her endless beauty names her queen over those whose tears she wiped away. Her reign begins forevermore not from on high, but among her people on the earth below.

I apologize to those who await my poems for missing a few. Life was bit hectic over the weekend. Without any more delay #31.

                                                 Starry Descent

River weeping beneath the light of the fallen huntress, your tributaries out to the sea are the ambassadors of all of the world. The broken kingdoms desolate and filled with only crying and the corpses of endless fallen are what remains after the madness that consumes those who lust for dominion took hold of so many deities turning them against one another. Oceans of blood ran through all of the realms sparing none and shaking the universe until it was ready to come apart. In the lower realms, even the vastness of the void is consumed by slaughter without end. Spirits sundered stare sightlessly into the darkness. Temples torn to the ground and reduced to little more than mounds of shattered stone and ash sigh in their final throes. Up in the heights palaces of those deities whose realms looked down on humanity are twisted and broken in ways that none will ever be able to heal. Those three who spun, measured, and sheared the fate of all of existence are lost forevermore. Primordials destroyed as they loosed all of their might in a war of carnage lay where they fell unburied and forgotten. Not even a proper dirge remains to mourn everything that is gone from this plane.    

On high a single star burns where shadow has covered the heavens in an impenetrable shroud and seems intent on smothering all below it. However, that fire grows more intense by the moment, and with it comes not an elegy for the dead, but something that brings with it illumination. A divinity aglow in ways that have never been known before descends. Her touch revitalizes earth and oceans fallen into melancholy. When she raises her voice in song the cosmos joins her in rising from ruin and despair. Denizens of the forests, mountains, rivers, and wilds wake from their nightmare remembering all that took place. Their wounds close and all is cleansed from the signs of war. She does not nor can she recall the destroyers, but into the tune, goes a strain that holds them as memories. Where they were she washes away the corruption and appears to humanity when life returns to them behind a veil. They hear the song flowing outward and ask what worship she asks. In silence, she returns to her watch, and in silence, she demands that those so harmed by those that they upraised not bow. Truest sovereign who will rule for all time your crown is this music that penetrates all souls. 

Poem 30

Divine Drought 

Waters flowing from rivers that feed and nurture the highest of worlds are stopped up before they can rain down on the mortal realm. Wellsprings of power are deserts that deprive regions of life itself. Carnage tears down city walls leaving all exposed to legions that are hungry for everything that they can seize for themselves. Families are torn from with and without until all that is left are roving bands of marauders. Beasts slaughter each other without purpose or desire leaving oceans of blood and rotting flesh behind as almost morbid sacrifices. In the oceans predators of the deep destroy each other without hesitation. Plains once lush are now decayed and little more than desiccated deserts. Madness strips away the wisdom of all of humanity that knows not how the gods have withheld all that once crowned this reality with glory. None can hear the laughter from on high where the sovereigns of this place rejoice over conserving for themselves that which they never needed. Unrelenting greed casts the darkest of shadows over existence shrouding it in misery of the purest sort. 

From the heart of the tributary that has been held in its course and prevented from keeping the cosmos in balance comes first a voice. The sweetest of songs ascends stopping the betrayers wherever they are. Sound becomes a warrior cloaked in the light of the stars wielding music as the weapon by which she will pass judgment. She gazes into the distance and sees into their minds discerning even those things that they hide in the depths. Tears trickle from the eyes of those who wished no harm on reality. These hear the wordless tale and understand so much so that they cry out in anguish. Evil is smitten and these scream in agony while they feel all of the destruction that they have inflicted fill them. Ichor is an inferno and bones knives that show no mercy. Creation wavers, but then the dam erupts pouring the might from above down below as an unstoppable deluge. That goddess who still sings guides the restoration and makes humanity forget, but those who are truly privy enshrine her as monarch now and forever.

Poem 29

Declarations

A castle overlooking a vast plane once verdant and the heart of a whole realm can only cry over the corruption that has turned all into a pit of tar aflame from both within and without. Skies whose stars can gaze no more upon this accursed hell flee away before they can be dragged down and slaughtered to deities that lust for the cosmos to bow before them because they are divine and for no other cause. Oceans become silent and dead devoid of even waves stirred by a lightly breathing wind. Cities so proud are hovels of murder, theft, and anarchy that emboldens the vile poison to descend and destroy whatever remains of the way things were. That fortress is crushed into rubble and the kind rulers of this place are immolated where all will hear them beg and then scream until the heavens rattle. Children are now the sport and acolytes of the newest masters of existence in all of its glory.

New trembling takes hold of the realm and wakes all who were sleeping in this seemingly eternal nightmare. An aria that permeates time itself calls forth the hidden mistress whose power was meant for only battles where hope was extinguished. Those who took this place for themselves find nowhere to hide when the music haunts their every moment. They are chilled with the mightiest form of fear. Bones become brittle and fall to dust when they so much as take in a single breath. Mighty ones find their strength expended and their minds cast into a light that pierces them until nothing remains, but a bitter memory. Constellations dance about now and nature is revitalized while the healer of reality plays the tune first upon a glowing silver flute and then allows her voice to resound in the hearts of those who were so close to falling into the abyss. Nevermore, will the corruption rise as the pure tone coronates a protector both revealed and at the same time concealed.

Poem 28

Stolen Aria?

Monsters whose cultic worshippers are stricken by the carnage that burns across the mortal realm reduce the highest mountains to less than a handful of dust. Warriors wielding unrelenting storms, plagues, magics, and horrors reach for the crown that makes one a deity among deities. That song of creation that shaped all of the cosmos hangs on the precipice. The empress by whose will this tune plays keeping the universe intact watches the destruction and sends forth mortal armies blessed with the power to pierce primordial souls. All of these are torn apart as if by the wildest of beasts. Ever more powerful legions are lost while anarchy boils the seas and uproots all of the world. Weeping deafens everything and stars on high begin to burn themselves out until the anathemas that seek power smother everything shattering the hold of the sovereign whose incomparable countenance is ashen.

Upon a chariot drawn by the weakened music that she now sings with closed eyes, she descends to wage war. Flashes of light and power emerge with greater strength the longer this composition floats from her depths. One by one those who lust after the ability to be a deity among deities is incorporated into that which they would destroy. The darkness deepens the complexity of the weave that makes up the realms. Rot sublimes leaving no scars as all of reality awaits her rage to call down devastation in retribution. However, no more devastation is visited on those who cried until they could find no more tears. Laughter roars as all is restored to its former glory as though nothing had occurred. In the heavens, constellations are brighter than they ever had been before this nightmare was visited upon all of humanity. A smile and the lingering strains of eternity follow her to her throne overlooking a new age.

Poem 27

Undying Vision 

Upon the cliffs overlooking the violent seas that wage a ceaseless war stands a star plucked from the highest of heavens. She sees the carnage that sweeps across the world, the death that has fallen to the realm of mortals smothering regions, and so many unanswered prayers ignored. Twisted mountains and forests filled with the breathless taken into the darkest endless abyss. Children weeping over parents who will not stir or comfort them. Horrific wraiths with teeth of jagged razors dripping with poison fill her vision when they take up residence in this place that they claim for themselves. Markets once boisterous are silent such that even the winds do not sound to break this awful curse. Kings and kingdoms are no more now all that remains are the spilled tears that feed the gluttonous hunger of these unholy abominations. Slaughter is that which these dream about when they rest.

Now the mistress of the most sublime of worlds begins to sing a song that drives itself deep into the soul of the cosmos. Those waters so contentious and full of strife, calm even as the light of day bursts forth from hiding. That shroud which took transforms into the finest powder and restores vigor to all that have died. Sadness is forgotten when joy takes root among the creatures that corrupted this plane. They have nowhere to flee to because of the tune that grows louder and chains them in place. Trapped monsters give strength to the breezes that they may join in heralding the one who has saved indiscriminately. Rulers bend the knee and hand their crowns to the most noble queen whose light makes all stronger than they ever were before that scourge stripped them of even their humanity. Eternity is yours to command as now you heal and renew existence as the sovereign whose equal will never rise. 

I have to apologize, yesterday was nuts and I was unable to write anything at all. That said here is Poem 26

Splendid Sovereignty 

A city hidden in a valley home to temples of ancient heritage now burns beneath torches that seek to wipe it from the face of the earth. Primordials do not rush to aid those who for centuries kept their charges as most sacred writ. Palaces built to honor not mortal flesh, but the power of feckless immortals become killing grounds for priests and scholars. The fields run scarlet as any who rise up with a weapon are silenced forever. Neighboring lands rush to aid the fallen only for the carnage to spread as a plague of the most horrific sort. Those deities who would intervene are chained by their fellows who see humanity as slaves and providers for their desires. Cursed earth grows as even the most corrupt soon see their kingdoms crumble and all that they have vanish as the most fleeting memory. Soon an empire drags down those who did nothing and bends their knees and slaughters those weakened ones who would have acted. 

Then comes a haunting song from the west as the night begins to fall and a single mighty star falls from the heights. From its illumination comes the greatest of the luminaries in the heavens her music upon her lips as she dances among the enemy and smites them without a weapon of steel or iron to aid. No blade cuts down her foes as she sings and brings silence to all of the worlds both above the captured realm and below where the dead claw and beg to return and have their vengeance. Where she goes there is only a light that immolates those who wrought anarchy in the name of dominion. When nothing remains of the foul scourge all becomes as it was save the impotent fools whose crowns were ground into powder. They are taken away on high to serve a guardian whose eye strays not far and whose radiance adorns the upper worlds as a warning and monument to the sovereign of the mortals and divine.

Poem 25

Flight

Gates aflame with fires gathered from the very pits that Hades created to punish the wicked groan and splinter. A vast metropolis smokes as it is smitten by the blows of armies cobbled together from the edges of the mortal plane. Temples are filled with worshippers begging the masters and mistresses of the cosmos to come to aid them. The winds do not even stir as the road to the realm of the dead is overrun by defenders, innocents, and invaders alike. Plagues spread out as even children wander the streets foraging for crumbs to fill their skeletal forms. Families turn on each other and callously the gods do nothing. Those who are upraised watch as this last stronghold of wisdom and freedom is assaulted and broken. From the barred entranceway comes a roar as the enemy comes pouring through weapons thirsty for a glut of blood to feed both themselves and the earth. Left and right mounds of corpses rise into the air as an obscene offering to those uncaring deities who reside in the upper worlds. 

A clarion rings out now from the heights as a lone figure descends upon the notes of a song and freezes the invaders where they stand. Weapons turn to dust and a dread falls like the heaviest of shrouds over those who relish their killing. She comes now driving light and wondrous sound into defiled souls. These attackers fall to their knees when she approaches not even daring to gaze into her eyes that lead to another realm. Violence bleeds away when her music fills the air and clothes hearts in something like the warmth that comes of true love and the knowledge that one is no longer alone. Primordials come to praise her while she resurrects the city through the tune that flows from her lips, but in their shame, they flee. Empress and savior, they name her though she asked for no crown. In the heavens, hers is the brightest of stars and on the earth, her name is a spell of salvation. All is restored and her capital is the illumination that purges corruption from the very blood of the world.