BETWEEN – FIRST VERSE

This is a song (well, the lyrics anyway) I wrote over this past weekend. It includes two neologisms as part of the lyric set.

 

BETWEEN

Between the fire and the flood
Between the mire and the mud
Between the briar and the blood
There is no other one like you

I’ve been a million empty miles
I’ve seen a million other smiles
Still there are no other wiles
That work upon me like you do

I wish that I could get away
I wish that you were here today
What else can I say?
It’s all a lie, and yet all true

Between the fire and the flood
Between the why not and the was
Between the bire and the bud *
A flower grows in barren soil

You know we never were complete
Until we could admit defeat
All that time we let retreat –
The labor and the toil

I wish that I could get away
I wish that you would ever stay
What else is there left to say?
These alibies will never do

Yet still the ember burns
Yet still the pages turn
And yet still the ground is churned
Can that all just be for me?
Or is that all because of you?

One day our world will come
One day the depths will plumb
Whatever’s left will sum
So that both of us will see –
Between the fire and the flood
Between the mire and the mud
Between the byer and the blood ^
They’ll be you
And they’ll be me…

* bire – the well-worn path by which one goes to visit the grave of a deceased loved one, or one that one regularly treads in the expectation or hope of seeing something or someone previously lost or disappeared. Similar to a bierbalk but one walks this path with the expectation that one will see the dead one again. Path of Resurrection.

^ byer – one who says goodbye, but only temporarily. Also a seemingly coincidental occurrence but one suggesting a definite but unseen cause, “by the byer.”

THE BLOOD OF TÔL KARUŢHA – HAMMER, TONGS, AND TOOLS

Continuing on with my short story  THE VENGEANCE OF TÔL KARUŢHA and my prior posts on Conan. I have the entire story written (though not typed) and will post it here in its entirety when I get it all typed as an example of my short story writing ability for agents, publishers, and my followers and fans. For now my previously broken wrist makes typing long periods of time problematic and so I pay my daughter to do it.

For previous entries see here: THE FRAGMENTS OF TÔL KARUŢHA

and here: CONAN, BABA YAGA, AND TÔL KARUŢHA

____________________________________________________

Conan saw the blood seep from the wound of Tôl Karuţha. Perhaps, he thought to himself, it was a trick of the dark and the nearly moonless gloom of the Ophirian night, but that blood seemed unnaturally dark and uncannily sleek to him. As if it were a slick but soiled oil or possibly even the ichor of some preternatural monster rather than the blood of a mortal man.

A guarded growl erupted deep in Conan’s mind, along with a primitive alarm and revulsion of the supernatural that demanded his future attention. Conan resolved to investigate later, when he had the opportunity to observe closely and without arousing suspicion. If he got the opportunity.

At the moment he was in a fight for his life against ever mounting odds, and for all he knew his erstwhile “ally” could desert him at any moment by showing himself more fiend than friend. For now Conan must slay, or be slain, and so he set about him with a fury and a lust for combat and gore.

In satisfying his lust he would be fully sated, for his enemies met him with equal ferocity and far greater numbers.

Time weighed against Conan. Time and numbers. His oldest enemies. His most dangerous foes.

 

HE WHO GOES ALONE – FIRST VERSE

HE WHO GOES ALONE

He who goes alone, the solitary man
Through pits as black as hell
Cross even stranger lands,

Does navigate the darker realms
Knows them like his home
He who goes alone – by No Thing overwhelmed,

Though never without cost, to go unchaperoned
Unguided in the doubtful debt
In which such harm is grown,

The bitter hearts of men do swell
With endless, careless wrong, yet he who goes so long alone
Has still his citadel,

There is a wary wilderness, dreadful hard to pass,
A mountain steep, severe to climb
Each measured in an hourglass,

Wastelands wild with weary woe
Cover all the past, yet nothing
Can be lost at last to he who goes alone,

Watching in the listless night, moon and stars all torn
Mourning blood on sterile Earth
By which the damned are bourne,

A window to the waiting soul where torments long
Are sown, and he who ever goes alone,
Where does he now belong?

The ghosts of men make short repair
Facient in their aims, the Ghost of God
Remains aloof and hovers in the air,

Facinorous is the pointless tomb, and everything there shown
No one knows this more in Truth
Than he who goes alone…

 

THE BLOOD-PRICE OF THE BRAVE from THE REGULATOR

“Cowardice always has its blood-price. And it is always higher than the Blood-price of the Brave.”

THE RUIN OF WROTHCHOLIRE a fragmentary extract from THE WRATH OF WROTHCHOLIRE

“What portend you in deceit
Why such pretense of pendent peace
Oaths unmade, and omens deep
Ring howling in my blade!
You by craft and cunning guile
Sought my seething blood
While I by will and self-resolve
Did seek your honest love
The Whore of Heaven – by means unknown
Has made your counsels clear
My murder in the night to come
You hope to commandeer
Token not that you mean well
In Fury he says no,
One of us will drown in blood
To Death you must now go!
I took you in, played faithful host
Broke my bread, gave rest to you
Sheltered hard your outlawed past
By signs and favor did forecast
To all who knew me you my friend
Were brother-blood and constant kin
At table honored you were bade
To make your vows for pled-ged aid
I by right proclaimed them true
But in your heart I knew not you
For now, I darkly find, your
Oaths unmade and omens deep
Are broken hard, their worth unreaped
Doom does howl, my blade unleashed
One of us will die in vain
To Death you must now go!”

THE BLEEDING OF MONSTERS

THE BLOOD OF UNCANNY MONSTERS – PART TWO

Because when Monsters bleed Wyrd things happen in the World…