Io, the old flame gutters in the crypta!
Flame of the Sol Invictus, dying, reborn,
Spilling gold as in the age of the Dacians,
When the plinths of marble bled red beneath Trajan’s boot.
Hail, Mithras! Hail, Christos!
Dual masks upon the one eternal face—
And the temple remains, foundation sunk in Albion’s loam,
Veined with the whisper of Enoch’s tongue.
Through nave-light—sepulchral—
The crusader kneels where the phantoms whisper,
Twelve elder shades in their orbits about him,
Twelve-fold in Saturn’s cruel passage—
A wheel turned upon the lot of men.
The psalms rise—psalms of the bull’s throat cut,
Of Bethlehem, of blood and bread made one,
Cresting on the air like the wail of Rome’s last oracles.
O’ pale moon of the hearth, his wife;
Her hands clasped round the child’s soft skull—
A babe as yet unscribed by fate,
For now but a whorl of breath in the spinning void.
She speaks not—only the hush of cloth,
The susurrus of veils unwound; fate’s tapestry.
Then the bell—Ah, that infernal knell!
That Saturnine toll, unmaking!
Out beyond the cloister, the destrier paws,
A black-hoofed omen, sleek as Ereshkigal’s hounds,
Bridle bound with sigils of Mars,
Steel spurs that kissed the bones of Hispania.
And the crusader—he mounts—
Gold and shadow writ upon him,
Sun-masked like Apollo of the faltering lyre,
Yet heart a dirge, mouth parched as the Sibyl’s.
Eastward! Eastward! Where the stars in retrograde
Mark the hour of slaughter,
Where Mithras’ old altars wait beneath Jerusalem’s ruin.
Ah! Jerusalem, blasted bride of Solomon,
Torn veil of the sanctuary—
City of sevenfold grief, harlot of conquests,
Where the feet of Caesars crushed the cedars of Hiram.
Blood pools in the suq, thick as Lethean draught;
Slaughter in the streets, each arch a vaulted requiem.
Steel upon steel, the tympanum of Mars,
And the muezzin’s call—sung now with a faltering breath—
Meets the organum of crusader hymns;
Chant echoing chant, faith ripping into faith.
The crusader moves—a shade among the fray,
Sword lifted like Anubis’ scale—
Here is the measure of men,
The weight of their sins carved in flesh.
The Saracen leaps—
Scimitar arcs, a crescent blade to sunder him—
Yet Fate, the old and blind king, guides the crusader’s hand.
His blade—a baptism of iron—
Plunges deep into the hollows of his foe;
Red libation unto the sand.
Years churn like Ixion’s wheel,
Unrelenting, unmerciful.
Mercy—a thing of poets,
Wilted as the laurels of fallen empire.
Cinders float where temples burned,
Shrines blackened; the Tower of Babel felled anew.
Allah’s moon, once bright, now hangs in the sky
A cold, rusted sickle.
And the crusader—behold him!—
A shadow cast in dented steel,
His eyes void of Saxon light;
The cross upon his shield—
Once bright with the white of saints—
Now marred, now worn,
A relic of ruin.
Through fen and fog, he comes,
Not the golden youth of Heaven’s grace,
But the revenant, wraith-draped, silence-bound,
A blade unburied, unshriven.
The hedgerows whisper the old names,
Names that still pulse in the ley-lines,
Names that are sung in the tongues of the dead.
The village—unchanged, yet distant,
A relic of time’s immutable cruelty.
Upon the door, his gauntlet hovers—
O’ the threshold once warm with his wife’s breath!
Here, where his fingers once traced her cheek,
Where his child’s laughter rang light as Orpheus’ lyre.
Yet—what voice is this?
Laughter, bright, unburdened!
A child’s voice, familiar—yet unknown.
Then her voice—
Calling, shaping the air with his name,
A sculpted breath, brittle, breakable.
But the crusader is no longer;
Only the husk of war,
A wight, a wraith, a thing tempered in sorrow.
His name is lost—
The road calls, unrelenting.
And so he turns, fading into the dusk,
A knight of silence, bound to the long pilgrimage,
Never to return, never to rest.
And behind him,
The bells toll—
Not for him, not for the dead—
But for the road that swallows all men whole.
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