HORROR Poem: Underneath the Distant Stars, by Bartłomiej Lekan

I walked and walked the crooked paths
Long have they lead me through the murky mire
It reflected stars in their rippling baths
As they twisted, and turned, and formed a spire

And lo! and behold! A carriage arrives!
Black horses on black winds, born of the night
Their neighing its timbre from hell derives!
This wonder descends the nocturnal height

The tower of starlight, unborrowed sheen
Above the Pleiades, soars this belfry
I hear the bells’ toll in this distant gleam
Into the carriage! My will far from free

The driver I spy, through a gap so small
Visage like death’s, but she wouldn’t serve so
Cloak with silk spider-like novae that crawl
Between mad constellations, to and fro

The horses gallop, higher and higher
The memory of Earth grows dim and quiet
Into that abyssal, yet lustrous fire
Blaze in the night sky, a divine riot

Into that mansion, mighty and gleaming
I am escorted by the shadows dark
Midst codices old I feel as dreaming
Aurorae reveal, in a brilliant spark
Oh, the annals of time, now open wide
As a river that flows, having no source
I decipher life’s stream, just to my side
But my visage soon grows from glee to worse

As I see the foul mysteries of old
Oh the vile sun! Extinguish the vile sun!
Let the dark once again the veil uphold!
By epiphany I am now undone!

Oh Apep wake and do fulfil your fate
So that the secrets may lie hidden well
For they bring malediction, death and hate
But tempting so, my mind they lock in spell…

Philosopher’s dreams, priest’s confirmation
Decayed wreath wrought by skeletal hands
No reason in light of revelation
Burying my soul beneath dunes, nights, sands

In the chthonian halls long forgotten
The arcana drip through the ageless gneiss
Each pillar that holds – face like a totem
Is this Iram? The columns like maze

Among them – whispers, their source I follow
Dark words in the darkness, murmur of souls
The sound of the ages – sad and hollow
Strange light sips through the dome dotted with holes

Under these green and white constellations
I arrive at the odd muttering’s source
I hear it clearly, but see no stations
Where man or phantom could hold their discourse

But what is this new miracle I spy
The scenes on the pillars now come to life
Is this some phantasm, my eyes to me lie?
The realisation now cuts like a knife

The kings and queens of the ages long past
Step out from their reliefs and converse hold
They talk of the night that will ever last
And of stars that used to shine oh so cold

“Know ye bygone letters? how to cast them?
How to compile them into syllables
That summon forbidden, sealed away days
That we recall, in our sheol of stone?”

I hear the words of their lips unmoving
They sear the bleak images into my mind
And while the old moon seem to me soothing
The long dead stars blink twice and become blind

Then I am taken to a meadow vast
Unending expanse under shifting skies
Molten iron on the firmament cast
A light that gives no light but never dies

Then the voices turn to whispering wind
Waking the spirits, buried in the deep
Wild beasts cry out, by biting hunger thinned
Restless night sky stirs, shaken from its sleep

A vile shape emerges, dreadful starlit eye
It speaks in visions: of storm clouds that churn
Of the dying that ever dying lie
Of distant forests that forever burn

Their embers seem to form some lines, a shape
That takes a meaning by malady crowned
Marauding ghouls tearing at night’s worn drape
Endless necropoleis beneath each mound

Is this to be the destiny of all?
To dance post mortem for the sick pleasure
Of those whose wicked names none now recall?
Sorrow upon sorrow without measure…

A stream springs from the tears beneath my feet
I myself become the stream and ascend
To countless deltas on which mighty fleet
Sails ever on, beyond horizon’s end

Each ship in its sail a moon holds by ropes
The mariners cast their wayfinding staves
And I sail with them, with their dreams and hopes
And their nightmares, unleashed from sunken caves

I see the black sea come to life in rage
With darkness borne of the waves, not the sky
Tiamat wakes and spits the words that no sage
Would read nor cry under decree most high

And eternal seems my glum odyssey
Beneath the outstretched roots of the world tree
Where Nidhogg gnaws, obeying prophecy
Of the maiden that lives to death foresee

And sea starts to burn, along with the tree
The corpses of heroes walk the hel-way
A baying I hear, beast from fetters free
Before the end, I am taken away

Back in the abbey, above the far mires
Shadows keep guard in silence unbroken
I look out the window, to see the spires
The moon is full, it hangs as a token

Of light offered in the nocturnal dark
And in opposition to the blinding
Sun revealing less than a passing lark
The roads now made clear are ever winding

No word spoken, I know my time is up
My audience with celestial and high
Is at its end, I have emptied the cup
That was handed to me, I don’t know why

Mourning, I leave the pearly gates behind
The carriage awaits my timely return
The steeds now of swirling galaxies remind
Last awe before the end of my sojourn

I enter the carriage with heavy mind
And through a small gap, the driver I spy
Visage like death’s, her expression looks kind
No question asked, yet such is her reply:

“Now, Hermes, that you have finally seen
What you have looked for in these far nocturnes
For so long it left snow on your temples,
Can they still truly worship Sofia?

In her incomprehensible, dark forms?
In her disjointed-connected nature
That brings the far close, and distances the nigh?
In her unlight that illumines the night?

I say, fear the old Moons but seek them still
They’re the emissaries of fossil stars
And can show your soul the ways to follow
And be not lost, even without stave helms

But now go, you’ve seen your share for one night
Go where the hearth, not the ages crackle
For with no anchor, your vessel shall be
Cast far into the mad and angry sea”

And with that I was back, the mire agleam
Not with stars, but instead with fireflies
Simple to me now exquisite can seem
When horrors and wonders opened my eyes

Paths no more crooked, they now form designs
Of blooming novae, fungi outreaching
I walk back into the great line of pines
Where the birds with their songs are now teaching