"Past the village, under sea ice,
haunting the shoreline since days came from nothingness.
Watching you with unblinking eyes,
waiting for you to defy."

The boy observes him before the fire
Ancient tribesman speaking in somber tongue
Fascinated, leaves in the night
Glacial wind bites at his eyes

Words of elders ring in his mind
"Hair of a maiden, skin of a basilisk.
Stealing children too brash to comply,
sentencing them to the deep."

"I'll come to you."
The child calls to ocean depths from the snow
He listens for the humming sound
Wishes for the creature to appear

Splash of water, unrecognizable noise
Vision hazy, still his feet move ahead
Flash of emerald, now a presence inauspicious
Cranes to see, stability compromised

Into the blackness of Antarctic sea
Tidal momentum; submerged in her monarchy
From waves, he calls to vacant land
Sinks to the bottom

Upon realization of his breach, they retrace his tracks
A form floating near the polar fronds
Familial collapse

The tribesman lauds the child
and curses the monster living in the waves,
old as the Sun

Rising whale with emerald tail
Merely adrift, more beast than myth

Quiet dawn as fog lifts in Saint Esprit
Target of a twisted covert trial
People of the region unsuspecting
As dapper agents empty out the vial

The climate of the day unstable
Esoteric knowledge on the table
A policy of silence to suffocate the truth

Tested on the meek and voiceless
So they could weigh their choices
Gladly trading souls for an edge in the war
But then all hell broke loose

A three-martini lunch unfolds in Ft. Detrick
Story of the day on no one's breath
Diethylamide in the blood
Visages of hell on earth undone

Mass hysteria consumes the village
People leap from rooftops trying to fly
Scratching to the bone, insects imagined
Drowning in the sea to end the pain

The straightjackets fastened tight as they loaded the asylum
Thrashing wildly in their beds, bodies melt like molten lead
Stomachs full of coiled snakes drove them all to madness
But delirium passed in time, with no admission of a crime

Black swan song
Seven gone
Test gone wrong
No stopping

A "Stormy Epidemic"
Cooked up by Sandoz suits
To control a revolution
Black swan sold as a crow

In the woods of Belarus, veiled in snow, the edifice awaits
Horded close inside are the five, their every movement watched by delegates
One by one they're led inside, vacancy becomes their truth to tend
A voice from the ether, "The procedure is initiated."
They open the vents

The vapor settles in the temperate air
The five waiting, holding their knees, scanning the room
Finding nothing but rations, provisions that they promised
Years of transgressions
As they sit and wait, the memories give way to unnerving truth
A simple trade of freedom, avowal to stay awake

First day gone
"Bear witness, my young allies, their sleep will never come."
Five see dawn
"No talent more instrumental. No need to lay with the sun."
Fourth night, drawn, finds peace

Program devised by the men who couldn't know
Deep in Belarus, under bureaucratic pall

Wake to the seventh day, a sudden end to their colloquy
Calm in the chamber now, an arithmetic anomaly
Faintly whispers start, the paranoia becoming clear
Joined in breathless tones, the five conspire
An incoherent choir

Watched through the glass
Under sway of the gas
Aware of covert stares
Silent but for their breath

Gather proof to make their plans
March in line through woods of the North
A faction born of desperate times
Sleep a weakness to give forth

The ninth begins like all the rest
Take vital signs, conduct the tests
The screaming starts, no forewarning
Their agony is given speech

The wailing lasts until sundown, a sudden end gives them pause
A silence coating the chamber, the dread of something gone wrong
And now the voice from the ether announces imminent breach
And from the first they encounter, "We don't want to be freed."

The five are lost, eyes to the paneled sky
Their battered mouths speak in concert
"We transcend death.
We must remain awake.
We are the madness within you."

Wretched forms beat at the wall
Left to dream their waking sleep

Under starless night on the slopes of Mount Parnassus
He reveals his fateful story to the priests
When his only son became one with the Aegean
He embarked to find the Pythia of the East

The clerics wring their brittle hands
Three voices meld and speak as one
"Give us the gifts you've brought for Pythia
and all your years of grief shall be undone."

With laurel leaves wrapped around his body, he proceeds on Sacred Way
The Oracle his last remaining chance

Head down, she breathes the ground
Rising mist turns her words to prophecy
Revered in frenzied state
Parnassus-born

Procession ends at eagle's height
Adytum bathed in crimson light
He falls before her sacred feet
Calls for his son to live anew

Her wailing echoes through the sky
Her proclamations shake the earth
Vapors command her to sing
Above the Castalian Spring

Far away, the sound of morning wakes him from his dream
Her tawdry spell a revelation of her fallacy

He ascends her throne with resolution
An impious absolution
His desperate wish forever lost to time

Head down, she breathes the ground
Rising mist turns her words to prophecy
Revered in frenzied state
Parnassus-born

In a trance, under fever
He is taken past the stars to the realm of souls
A reunion of his ancestral lineage
A promise of earthly rebirth

"Dance for us and we will return!
Forego the olden forms, know the Circle."
Astral vision brought to life
He returns to teach the tribe

A ritual Ghost Dance to summon those lost by war and famine
A reverent display to restore all that's been removed
Forming in circles and covered in war paint, invigorated
With the beating of drums to guide their every move

Dance to bring the harvest
Dance to stop the end

As the days and nights elapse,
they all recite ancient prayers under the waning moon
They call to elder souls to spare their doom
He watches proudly as they step as one
Yet as the winter approaches, he ponders when they'll come

Fields unchanged, the tribespeople whisper
Deprived of his power to speak with death
Still the Ghost Dance remains
Chants rising in the wind

In a dream, out of darkness
He is taken past the stars to a realm unknown
Revelation of merciless deception
Souls of the dead: shadows and myth

"Dance for us and we will return!"
Betrayed by the witch owl
Broken circle

Under cover of dark they conspired
Release from oppression inspired
The shackles that bound unraveled
Ever daunting, way out untraveled

The trap was in place, bait swallowed
The doctor fell prey, death followed
The fluid inside the skull plate
Pressure driven psychopathy

Hands round the throat
Scalpel to the skin
Blood falls to the cement
Evidence compounds
Conflagration clears the ground
Life was strained from all in the way
"Life is earned for those who escape!"

"Provisions will be improvised.
The forest is where we must hide.
The caves, to regroup and regrow."
Demented civilization will rise

They hunted, they plowed
They took all that nature allowed
This land, overthrown
No choice but improvisation

Wandering fools killed and claimed
Straying damsels captured and tamed
Some say the witches of Milford to blame
Nooses still swing in the forest by the flames

Decades scrape by
Generations born into sin
Mutated they stalk

Those who dare to walk in the forest
Be wary, there is trouble abound
A new breed of humanity
Surviving by hunting you down

Though I walk freely, my time is not my own
The mass inside me demands that I atone
Abomination made of invasive cells
"Become non-being," it utters at the outset of every day

Unable to breathe, enshrouded in fear
Shadowed, withered, the specter incessantly appears

The Seconal
A noble fall by script of death
A somber bypath
When abyssal night carves its way inside, will they let me die?

With the taste of my own blood and the stench of seeping pores
I call upon my sovereignty to bring me home
Self-made ending, transfer the power from the vile form
One last autonomous effort to accept what I've become

Prescription is filled, it goes in the drawer
A final response for all that's in store
A choice to remove a terminal weight with dignity spared
Command of my fate

A gathering of kin to witness my final breath
Their hands and words allay me
Memories to bring to death

The brine assuages the terrors that I've buried
Its spirit slows my thoughts
Foreboding replaced with a cosmic clarity
The truth illuminates the dark

And all is quiet
No voices, no sounds disturb my slumber
The silence surrounds

Legends have spoken of a terrible darkened sea
All are mistaken; an unending ecstasy