Soulwork

Like our frames of flesh,
Our souls can sustain dents and cracks,
Harmed by barbed situations and jagged tongues,
Our essence bleeds out of these wounds,
Manifesting as turmoil and angst,
Our internal peace shattered into fragments,

Like flesh they can be knitted anew,
Our nirvana of vitality restored,
But the tools are very much different,
It is not the demesne of the mechanic to fix,
The workshop lies in our own minds,
Meditation and self-love are the utensils at hand,

It takes perseverance,
Listening for the hurts of our spirits,
Taking needle and blowtorch to each wound,
Incense and peace and shadow work,
It’s an ongoing inward pilgrimage,
To get back to ourselves.

Sin-Eater

Before a vital spark can be buried deep,
It must be cleansed,
A soul given its best chance in the hereafter,
So call forth the sin-eater,
This soul worker will consume each lick of evil,
A feast at a funeral,
An ivory plate placed upon the husk,
Bread and grapes and coins pressed into cheese,
A glass of wine to wash down the sins,
The ritual cleanses the dead with knife and fork,
With each bite the deceased soul feels purer,
A spirit growing lighter,
Sanitised,
Absolved,
Saved.

Road Anew

The road calls,
A journey anew,
Less a siren song,
And more a gravelly clarion,
My trajectory must again be forward,

There is no other way for me,
My soul demands it,
Spiritual acceleration,
I am to be the wheels,
Propelling my hopes into the horizon,

Upon my own steam,
Or atop steel stallion,
To ride beside cormorants and authors,
I’ll lace those boots close,
And throttle up,

The path calls,
The road anew.

Gaki

I am Gaki,
I died once,
A life spent in overindulgent opulence,
Now I suffer in spirit,
Doomed to unlife existing in eternal famine,
All is fodder,
Unclean or otherwise,
But no myriad feast can cure my paucity,
All of the kings men,
And all of the kings flesh,
Couldn’t sate this demons hunger again,
Nothing can fill this distended belly,
It is hell I assure you,
The pain has dulled all other sensation,
Hell of a worse kind.

Wendigo

Among the great northern forests,
A being of folklore prowls,
All claws and antlers,
An emaciated spirit of famine,
Leathery skin strewn taut over elongated bones,
The very image of a corpse animated,
The pines whisper its name,
Wendigo,

Once a man,
During a cruel winter,
Driven mad by hunger,
Contorted into an abomination,
His mate and cubs became fodder,
But even such a massacre was not enough,
More meat,
Find more meat,

So many have fallen prey to its appetite,
And you may be next,
Sniff the air,
If you smell rot and decay,
You ought to flee posthaste,
The fallen leaves herald its coming,
More meat,
Never enough meat.

Operation Gravewalker: The Convict

So much for me posting this the other night eh? Sorry about that, i sort of fell asleep and forgot i was writing it up. I seem to keep doing that recently. My bad! This is simply a short monologue by a convict who was made to go through the aetherisation process that was mentioned in the previous Gravewalker post.

 

“Heroes they called us. What a load of bull! Then again, how could they have known any different? The government never told the populace what the operation was about. They had no idea what the State was gonna do to us. I call us human sacrifices! We aren’t all volunteers after all. It’s not like we’re human anymore. We’re Spirits now. We are the real ghosts in the machine.

Operation Gravewalker it was called. The idea was to turn us into walking tanks, the ultimate war machines. I’m guessing it’s to do with that so-called “big discovery” down in Chile. Some old ruin or something. Ya don’t hear all that much about world news in jail. We gave up our humanity to protect our friends and families. Apparently. I ain’t got any family or friends. Some of the others did it out of love, some felt some stupid divine calling and some did it out of guilt. I was forced. A real human sacrifice to the State.

I won’t forget the process itself. I got told to stand in this small white room. Then all of a sudden one of the walls opened up, behind it was this robot looking thing. Almost like out of the old transformers. It just stood there, dead. I didn’t really know what to do, so i just stood there. Suddenly i felt this massive force of cold, like being thrown into an arctic pool. It went on for a few minutes i think, hard to tell. I looked at my hands. They were dissolving! But they were still there, it was like my hands became a gas. A couple more minutes passed and my whole body got turned into this gas. They told me this was exactly what was meant to happen. The bastards took my body and turned me into a damn ghost.

Their plan succeeded. We sure did become unstoppable weapons of war. That robot body was sure no simple Japanese entertainment bot. It was one of them. Our bodies got reduced to fuel to power them: our suits of armour. No, perhaps our homes? Another prison? It’s like sitting inside of a sauna, but you can’t leave. So hot. It was so cold before, why does it have to be hot now? Our spirit bodies burn to bring them to life. Our spirits burn to drive them headlong through gunfire. Our spirits burn to give them the power to smash armies. They call them the Monoliths. And let me tell you this: they are goddamn scary! Now I’m goddamn scary! Haha!  We are the ghosts in the machine.”

Operation Gravewalker: But first, some notes

I’ve been toying with an idea recently, I’m not going to reveal everything here straight away but i thought I’d type up a few notes I’ve written. Just for flavor reasons, you understand. Surprisingly enough its actually a science fiction idea, as opposed to my usual endeavors. Hopefully I’m going to type up another piece of writing later on tonight. Well, that’s the plan anyway.

Operation Gravewalker: Special forces directive using undisclosed means to turn both volunteers and convicts into ‘Spirits’. These spirits act as spectral pilots and fuel for the ‘Monoliths’.

Monolith: Mechanical weapons of war. Usually bipedal, but can be modified however the pilot wishes or requires. Requires a human being to be ‘Aetherised’ to control the machine. The pilots incorporeal form acts as fuel for the ‘Furnace’. A pilot is anchored to the Monolith, but does not have to permanently reside within it.

Spirits: A spirit is a human being who has gone through the ‘Aetherisation’ process and become an incorporeal being akin to a ghost of legend. Like the traditional myths,  Spirits are able to use many of the same abilities attributed to ghosts, such as possession of inanimate objects and passing through solid walls for example.

The Furnace: The “engine” of a Monolith. A mystical power source that requires spectral energy to operate. Able to produce colossal amounts of power but for obvious reasons spectral energy is hard to come by. A Spirit pilots body burns for all time within a Monolith to keep his or her Furnace active.

Aetherisation: Process of converting a humans body into a spectral being without killing them. An unknown machine owned by the state is used for this purpose. The subject loses their physical body permanently, but is able to perform many actions that are traditionally attributed to ghosts. They are then known as ‘Spirits’.