A brutal banishment,
A condemnation unfeeling,
Compels me to wander,
In dreadful isolation
Why?
Why must I leave behind all that once was mine?
Ahead lies only an eternity of vacuum
No life awaits here amongst the forlorn soils of the Malediction Fields.
A people lost,
A tribe without spirit tethered to a land that no longer remembers,
Trapped within valleys that scream without mercy,
Prayers to a long-dead body go unheeded and unheard.

The ghostly cries of the abandoned carve ruin into the fabric of my senses.
Yet my back is turned,
My heart stone,
There will be no return for one such as I.
For I am but a man,
Fassible yet free,
Purity and principles scattered to the harsh winds,
Stoic beneath waning skies swollen with the promises of pain.
Descending spirals of a withering storm-scape,
Echoing the chaos that roils within the fragile stem of the Earth.

A brutal banishment,
A condemnation unfeeling,
Compels me to wander,
In dreadful isolation.

Uncoiling amongst the stars, my spirit-fight is endless,
I abandoned the prison of flesh millenia ago,
Parted my veins to shred the last veil,
Shrugged aside the chains that anchored me.

Left the shattered shell of my corporeal form to descend,
Into the blackness of this malicious earth,
And as my being merged with the very fabric of this withered planet
A new pathway was opened before me.
With each passing of the moon,
With each cycle of regeneration,

I felt a new strength bond with the very essence of my existence,
An amalgamation of the aether and the nameless emissions of the void,
Tethered to the flickering flame of my soul.

Ascension thus was born and beyond these mortals realms I foar,
Watching the stars collapse beneath the fury of the old ones.
The febrile breath of the universe,
Exhaled, Scattered, Dissipated,
Carried on the drifting, timeless winds,

I have watched civilisations rise and fall on this weakened planet,
I have seen the weakness of man cleansed by the rage of the cosmos,

Watched the skin of this decaying world scarified beyond recognition
Lifelessness if all that remains as my endless vision,
Watched the last light of reality gutter
And die.

Let these waves take me away,
Let this tide pull me away.
Let these waves take me away,
Let this tide pull me away.

These ashen waters swallow the grey skies,
In this tumultuous churn I gasp and thrash,
Human driftwood torn and flung,
By the escalating currents of despair,
All encompassing bleakness.

I'm under this sea of sorrow,
I'm under these waves.
I'm under this sea of sorrow,
I'm under these waves.
Let these waves take me away,
Let this tide pull me away.
Let these waves take me away,
Let this tide pull me away.

The storm breaks, the grim expanse of the sky now reflects the maelstrom,
All pervading grief foaks into the chaos wrought atmosphere.
Shattered and tangled I am,
Wrenched to and fro before finally I am dragged,
Helpless and broken,
Beneath the waves.
Now my struglle ands,
I sink beneath the angry roar,
Surrendered to this unforgiving ocean.
And here, below the frenzy, drowning in solemn grace,
I am at peace.

I'm under this sea of sorrow,
I'm under these waves.
I'm under this sea of sorrow,
I'm under these waves.
Let these waves take me away,
Let this tide pull me away.
Let these waves take me away,
Let this tide pull me away.

This still iron-hued expanse of nothingness,
Echoes the forceful silence,
Permeates my soul,
I, the only stain on this perfect blank horizon,
Lost to colossal voids.

And I watched the sun cross the sky
A thousand thousand times,
From within this tomb of earth,
Waiting patiently for the sign,

To be called by those who would summon us forth to wander once more,
Under the waning moon across the bleakness of the fens.

Once, many centuries ago, we were kings,
Of an age now forgotten,
Our dominion absolute,
Our realms bound only by black seas and cliffs of ice.

By sword and fire, blood and honour, we exacted our rule,
Commanding the landscape with dread force, bereft of mercy.

Now, we can hear the calling of desperate souls,
Who have stood and watched these ancient fields raped,
Scars run across what once was ours.
Through the dust of ages, rage stirs us to walk once again.

To stride unbound and unfettered under a shroud of twilight,
Our pales eyes surveying the rotten remnants of a once-proud kingdom,
The winds howl, the trees shiver, the harriers scream.
As our deathmarch begins again.

Labyrinth of soil, twisting, writhing, ever changing,
All life returns here, Death, decomposition rebirth.
Ancient barrows exhale and beckon with hands of stone,
I move towards the welcoming black,
Allow my being to merge with the earth.
And the soul wanders,
And the soul wanders,

Lost alone yet unafraid,
To roam the warren for eternity.

Flayed by the driving rain, of black clouds scud across the sky,
The world roars with rage and the very ground trembles.
I watch as lightening spears the darkness,
The stark outline of the trees stripped bare by winters ravaging chill.

Wind screams, cutting the knives of sharpened frost,
As I raise my arms to embrace the assault,
All that lives cowers in the shadow of elemental wrath,
Yet I stand and roar my challenge to the maelstrom.

Mountains rear in the darkness,
Colossal megaliths of malediction's promise,
Looming, immense, all knowing,
Stoic against the fury of the storm.

The raging tempest shrieks of hatred,
Bunched clouds toil with the need to destroy,
But I will remain unmoved in the face of the assault.
I welcome the pain of nature's vengeance.
Eyes clenched shut,
The freezing wind and stinging waters
Fear my skin and slake the thirst in my yearning soul,
Never have I felt so alive,
Every nerve tingles, every sense razor-keen,

This frail, thin, stooped prison of flesh,
Punished and invigorated.

Crushed into the sodden earth.

And therein will remain forever.

Alone...
Hollow...
Ashen.
Life promises only death.

And thus I am again sentenced to solitude,
In silent contemplation, a vision framed in grey
Falls upon world-weary eyes and brings torpor.
The years behind left drained and colourless.

I look within to fan the embers,
Charred and enervated beyond recall to flame.

For so long, I have journeyed, one weary step upon another,
The dust of a decade's failures ground underfoot.

And so I fix my gaze to myriad desolation.
The harsh wind punished a frail simulacra

On the precipice of spiritual oblivion,
Without and within only ashes remain.
As the elements now I shall be.
As one with the enduring stone and the onrishing waters of wild rivers.
As one with the burnished hue of the dawn
And the misty closure of the twilit evenfall.
To cross the foils and stygian peatfields.
To stride unfeeling towards the eternal periphery.
These bitter lands have borne witness to so much
That I now embrace within a lonely
And burned-out will.

When only distant memories chime across a spiritual vacuum,
The last vestiges of life long since extinguished.
A dying visage whipped by storms charged with the stench of despair.
The entirety of my essence, the nucleus of my humanity now scoured.

I am Bereft.