It is hard to say,
Whether the future is set in stone
Or malleable as pastry,
Indeed there are predictive methods,
Warnings of impending strife,
The portents,
But do they speak true?
The winds of chronology are fickle,
Any sage could attest,
But our threads may yet be seen,
Be it calamity or fortune,
So what do the tarot cards signify?
Do you see it in the tea leaves?
What does the crystal ball show you?
Come in from the rain,
This is a shrine of Nigi-Mitama,
You are safe here,
We are protected by our Komainu,
Our stone canid sentinel,
Our leonine hound in pride of place,
He ever watches over these steps and pagodas,
Keeping yokai from our door,
In his mossy coat of armour,
He has stood here for eons,
The forest too accepts his stewardship,
See how the fireflies dance about his maw,
Daunting he may be,
His form is that of a predator,
But he is a guardian,
So kneel by his side,
Feel the fervour within his jasper eyes,
His glower won’t allow the dark to chill you,
His roars shall stifle even the tempests,
No evil spirit shall touch you,
His growls shall affright even them,
You are welcome here,
You may remain under his gaze,
Until the sun sees fit to guide you on.
In life,
She had been maltreated,
Abused and beaten,
Betrayed and scarred,
Cruelly slain for another by her husband,
A sakura petal singed by life,
But she came back,
Revenge being an ironclad anchor,
She walks the world again,
Animated by rancor,
Snow white skin,
Black hair like a frayed funeral veil,
Draped in ivory kimono,
That which began as hatred for a husband,
Is now hate for life itself,
She’s no longer finical on her victims,
She’s now a dark spirit,
They say she stops hearts,
She will find you,
Crawling from under the bed,
Bones cracking and rasping breaths,
Eyes wide with spite,
Her breathless stare shall be your last sight,
And her vengeance be done.
Have you heard of me?
They call me Dullahan,
I was once a mercenary,
But grew too impetuously ruthless,
And the headsman brought on this curse,
Have you seen my head?
It scarpered as if on the breeze,
So now I must search for it,
Or a substitute at least,
This Jack-O-Lantern doesn’t cut it,
I ride every October,
On a nag of pale flesh,
My sabre has taken many potential proxies,
But they just don’t seem to fit,
Or mayhap I enjoy cleaving them free,
Be careful child,
During this season of the harvest,
When I take to the gallop,
And that nape lies exposed,
You just might lose your head too.
I took a walk with the fae last night,
Not a moment past midnight,
They stole me away,
Upon sorcerous wing,
To play in their viridian realms,
A rabbit hole in my dreams,
A place akin to madness,
Enchanting in its wrongness,
Passing sylphic springs and gingerbread cottages,
The path was like a forest unrestrained,
Ferns and oaks and elementals,
Brambles and Seelie and redcaps,
Unseen by mortals,
Where all kinds of impossible things reside,
Somehow greener than green,
More wild than any notion of nature,
It left an imprint on my mind,
A gift from fairies,
Perhaps a key to visit again,
And even as I awaken,
The dreaming remains,
And my footprints grow ivy and fungi.
I once waltzed with feminine regality,
A radiant image of Cinderella,
Yet at the strike of a funeral bell,
Our Bal Masque was over,
And she fled,
Her carriage whisked aloft on the stars,
All pumpkins and fairy tales,
Leaving a glass slipper in my hand,
A reticent crystalline reminder,
Perhaps ensorcelled,
Or a talisman of a some Godmother,
Carved of pure diamond,
A spot of wine on the pointed heel,
It reflected my visage,
I was never a prince,
More of a goblin king,
A lich,
A villain of a Grimm tale,
And like a mirror,
Laid bare were all the reasons she left,
And who she was.
We were thrust into the blue,
Our galleon lost in a dalliance with the kings navy,
Its back broken by carronade,
All seemed lost,
The stormy seas sang our funeral rites,
But a vessel emerged from the deep,
Its jaws cut through the surface,
Like a shark seizing prey,
Accompanied by a chorus of the damned,
Flaunting a figurehead of death itself,
This was a corpse of a ship,
A grim omen given form,
A hull of rotted wood and barnacles,
And sails taken from the skin of humpbacks,
Dimly illuminated by wisps in lanterns,
We look up fixedly in abject terror,
Bleary yet distinctly inhuman figures stood on deck,
Gawping down with eyes of rot,
A raspy call goes out,
A ladder of bone and tendon reached down,
I knew in that moment,
I would serve before the mast,
Come hell or high water,
For all eternity,
But still I reach up.
So human,
You intrude within our sylvan lands,
To take with hatchet and brutish man hands,
Your kind are not welcome here,
So out of our wood should you steer,
Err into our glade,
And there’ll be more than green for shade,
Arrows will come,
Thorns and poison on some,
There will be no end to your pain,
In comparison hell will feel tame,
Your wives will wail in their beds,
And once you’re all pierced and dead,
We elves will descend from our tree,
And dance upon your corpse with glee.
Men before the mast,
Harken to me as bosun,
We give those crags a wide berth,
We are in treacherous waters,
Have ye not heard the tales?
Here be monsters,
A foul song haunts these reefs,
Feminine wiles on the wind,
Soft hands I’ve heard before,
Look not starboard lads,
Listen not to that tune,
Those fair forms are lies of flesh,
Those lips do not long for you,
Your loins be telling you false,
No pleasure will be found o’er there,
Only a dance of blood and sharks teeth,
As surely as the fog cresting the waves,
That song will be the end of ye.
WorldofHarley 