The Possessing Verse

 Here's a thing I wrote. Its just fictiona and its a bit long so its under a thing.

Hurl, black winds, cross tomb-toothed sky!

Take up branches and beat the eaves

for the blue-haired girl, about to die

slipping in storm from the steps of thieves!

Shut it you strangulated verse-worm. My grips right and the words on this giant tomb cut deep. Its a boys work scrambling the faces of these rich enclosures. A schoolboys work, And we're in! And to hell with you, you god-cursed animating strand!

As creeping spiders flee man's vengeful hand,

you, would-be killer, crawl inside the house,

no tomb, but Villa, overwrought and Grand

through which you quietly stalk... a stealthy mouse

Gah, your rhymes are nothing but shit. Thoughtless worm. Of course a house! All homes in this city are tombs without and daily life within. A pompous clapboard necropolis, by order of the Prince that rules here. But you don't know that do you? You may live in my skin and see what I see but you are ignorance compiled are you not? You compost of stupidity. You vile analysis. Just you sit there in my head and see what I show you. As for killing, I've done none yet, but will.

Down through the corridor, on through the halls,

reflecting alembics with tubes that twist,

occult-seeming charts attached to the walls,

for this, is the house.. of an Alchemist!

And no pedlar of tubular frauds either. Sumagan Vacluse grows fat off mechanical tricks. He engineers the funeral stage and fêtes the Prince with Strange Displays. If any man in Pluvial has means to do the deed, it's him.

I plead

Young Miss

What deed

is this?

Don't mind that you thoughtless reaction of words. There, within that copper vault is the thing I seek. See the door marked with that zigzag bolt. And the tired young lad dressed like a guard. Let him rest there for a moments breath. In the darkness of the thunder clap I'll execute deflation of his lungs with Sacristy. Just wait..

What? Quivers th' assassinating hand?

Crafty wench whose hypocritically named

blade shakes. Fever'd with infectious care?

Pity for the innocent? This thoughtless

unsuspecting boy.. Too late! The lightnings flash

and moments later thunder masks your lunge!

Your slender blade bites deep into his side!

He gasps, collapses, like the flower..

The cunts thirty-five if he's a day, and twice my weight, and stinks o melodious worm, see you his keys through my eyes? For it strikes me you see better in the dark than I, though you peep with my jelly.

                        .. collapses like the flower of spring

It's beauty clawed by murd'rous hands of frost..

The keys Worm! We lose the hour. Another guard will take his place. The lightnings shadow blinds my eyes. To hell with this dead dog fucker, he's gone!

The rosy petal shrunk, by fate, too soon..

I die, you die. You grasp that Worm? Your garrets in my skull. This neck gets stretched and your expulsion will be permanent and swift! The keys! They catch me, they catch you too and I'm not leaving without my prize. I die, you die.

The symbols of his duty also lost

but lying there, reflected in the gloom.

And there she is, good Worm, I shall feed you a rhythm on the morrow, now see you here within this thunderbolt-sealed door, the means of my resolution.

Bound jars.

Glass arks.

Lights prism.

Sparks prison.

The Lightning, Jars of Sumagan Vacluse. With one of these, and with the riddled discharge of yonder storm outside, I'll murder that scourcerous poetical necrophile who cursed me with your voice between my lugs. The Prince of Carcasses shall die. See how this one glistens and ebbs emptily, pulsing its light frags in anticipation of the strike. Ohh, you want me to fill you girl don't you? And I shall..

And so

With haste

You make

Escape

In gaps between the lightnings flash

It's stolen prison in your pack

Rakhia Ddu

(Whose hair is blue)

and flew

with hopes

that none

pursue

Your zig-zag shaped retreat

through Pluvials seeping streets

I run towards not from o invertebrate muse. And who would think to stop me? A madwoman running through the rain-slick streets clutching an empty jar and chatting to her thoughts. What's more expected in this grotesque place? Why, it's only since I've fixed on dispossessing the city of it's Prince that I've felt at home at all. I've never looked more Pluvian I tell you!

Your words are true Miss Ddu for in these streets

the blind are made to caper by decree

the dead trudge through the mud by royal command

rain streaks the sinews of their skinless flesh

the mad, (and actors paid to fake it) howl

normality is banished, and the mud

and moaning mis-tuned songs from open bars

veils every grotesquery, and you too

Well that's right polite for a psychic intrusion. Look up there at the limits of my peepers glimpsing. Assay that obscuring cloud curling like a kettle flume in the spot where decent cities keep a spire or hall of town.

Towers, sagital

crook'd, vegital

a clawed capitol

Like hands, skeletal

bathed in enfolding lightning all around

and smoke

and sound

You've been reading while I sleep for I can't place 'sagital'. I will close your books I think. This is the Pluvial Occlusium, highest point in town. From which nothing may be seen and which is never seen itself, cloaked forever in self-generating steam and smoke to please the irony of the Prince of Carcasses. But lightning knows it, see? And finds its path there. It's that thing we must climb to fill my jar, and you shall guide me Worm.

O dense and hecticlly-encumbered fool

desist! To brave this bolted berg

is death! Oh BITCH (don't) you nightmarishly

(there) monomaniacal (grab) brainless

(no) berserk, burglarising (use your legs)

stupidly imprudent girl (and pull up)

And there! Done! You See! You hear the storm! I hear you not mental co-habitant! I like it!

So, you surprisingly

athletic slattern hold

(hopefully) your empty jar

aloft, aimed at the heart

of the deafening storm

blinded and (DON'T STEP THERE!)

apparently made mad,

egregiously tempting

certain death-electrical

or via a disastrous fall.

Calling by howled insult

and gesticulation

divine fires blinding strike

until the storm at last

(HOLD ON) gives up its touch!

Ahahahahaha! I've got you now! Wrathful galvanism and justice on a crooked shaft! You rhyming bastard! I'll fry you!

Now Miss Ddu,

don't split hairs,

without ado,

use the stairs.

They don't lock doors this high, I feel the portal swing. Visitors to this viewless nightmare are few. The smoke abates within. See, the white jag-light of my now-pregnant jar do gleam our way. These steps that pass through ruined halls and past evacuated doors shall lead us out.

Though you scrape

your escape

and, stumbling from the Occlusium, reach

nights-visible uncertain gown

you tread not home

but weaving each

knot of writhy gloam,

you stalk the town,

crackling jam-jar hidden in your breach.

Seek I wire and conductable gems to execute transmission of my signally blow. A touch – he must stroke it and be connected, this is surety alone. And of all his tactile engagements only women are a golden pass, and dead. Dead and beautiful tragical girls. That's what he likes, that's what he writes his poems for, his possessing and annihilating verse that all men fear. There's his fondlement and grasp, there is the hook for him. An amulet or ring. But what would he make certain condescension to attend? What pic or glyph or secret sign? Ahhhh... Ahahaha. Observe you swirling verbal arrangement. I'll make purchase here of an easily available sign and craft.

The fortunate pawnshops

of Pluvials great streets

keep to midnight schedules

while shedded yellow pools

oflight, piss-pigmented, seep,

between their gargling props.

Worm, there's no economy but pawning left in Pluvial now. We make nothing , sell nothing. The princes revenants  labour without end. Nothing is valued but it pleases his whims and nothing pleases him but poetry, death and the fetishes of despair.. No I ain't mad! So what if my hairs blue and I talk to myself? You sell me the damned locket you..

“Exeunt, knocked harridan! You cobalt escapee. Return yourself asylum-wise o stained wanderer!”

So spake the doughty lord of coin

who, ushering our heroin away

received kick around his groin,

fell silent, and began to sway.

Eat it, crabbed bastard!

Responded she

whilst hurling currency

and spinning on her heel

to flee.

Got I my gibbet chain anyhow Worm, this pretty silver facehatch on its conductive links, a minute with some dog-swapped wire and insulated feet will set the trap. And then! Transfixed by Zeus's rapier! Arse-to-tip!

Now on the morrow there must be a dirge for I won't wait. Plus, I've recently committed murder and burglary and honestly don't think I have the time. Birth a grim pavane shall I, tear-speckled egregiously sad farewell to one rapidly-demised in conditions of maximum tragification. A head-bowed giggle-freezing woe-throne the likes of which is rarely seen. What tragedy can I arrange before the dawn? What tale hints its fruition?

Why peep you through those windows drear?

Or prowl around those knots of cheer?

Why rests your hand upon your blade?

Why glance you so at every maid?

What search you for in these old papers?

Why burglarise that closed-up drapers?

What murderous thought or criminal dream

escapes your eye in icy gleam?

Where, silently, does creep Miss Ddu,

whose fingers beat a fast tattoo,

upon your blade, Sacristy's hilt,

while humming in a hangman's lilt?

Where is the place and who the victim,

awaiting the whim of that fast right forelimb?

Why only the almost-innocent Worm, a pale Lady unmarked by horrid fate or the burning hands of time. Or else wiped clean by some unhurried angel, for she shows not the vaguest marking of either age or circumstantial life. The lady Trona Tritikale is who I seek. And I shall push her off a bridge.

Oh storms

disgorge

your swarms!

Or under a horse, through a window.....

And forge

the forms

to drown

this Whore!

…. jam her in a rack or rapidly-closing hole...

Murder!

Motiveless,

emotionless,

crime!

Simple and necessitated you drivelling rhythm.

Lady  Trona Tritikale is the untouched amour of that self-same calliopemaniacal prince. Alone she remains for every other lies dead or toils skinless in the streets. Any woman seizing the fancy of that highly-contemptible man and startling his muse into grimy flight within his soul, any woman that he sees who sparks his eyes or illuminates his hunger for a mate, any such woman, marks creation of a Verse. The Prince, (wracked by artistic spleen) turns pen to paper in description of his want. His inks desire.

The women that he writes of rot alive. They die inside their skin, some fade to wraithlike ghosts, decay to dust, some cannibalise themselves and others, twisted inwardly by that alien possessing verse. The chorus of the Princes shallow heart and invisible rhythmical sovereignty of Pluvial itself.

And here, is one, (the only one) to draw his eye and yet be uncorrupted by his words. Her death will draw him out.

Do not approach the silent home.

Do not tramp down the rain-damp grass.

Do not leave foot-prints in the loam.

Do not spy through the beaded glass.

Oh do not prize the window loose.

Do not squeeze through the open gap.

Do not slip past that guard (obtuse!)

No! Cut not through his necks bare knap!

Do not hide corpses in the closets!

Do not push butlers through the windows.

Why make such awful Grim deposits?

Or corpse the floors with bleeding cargoes?

Do not seek out the central parlour.

Don't click the lock on banded door.

Don't go towards the girl-voiced caller.

Don't tiptoe over things she wore.

Please slip upon the crumpled clothes,

or bump into the unlit lamps,

oh, fail and flee you bitch I loathe,

ignore the calling voice, decamp!

Don't twist your nose against the stench?

Don't wave away the buzzing flies?

Oh, pause before the door and blench,

please, do not meet the pale girls eyes.

“Have you been sent by my true love? My lovely Prince, my sacred one? Do not put on the light I beg, it hurts my eyes, as does the dawn. Is that you mother? I see your shadow. I smell your blood. Is this my supper? I hunger so within my bedroom I've eaten rats, please may I leave soon? I feel my spine within my stomach. That blood-marked blade, oh may I lick it? My Prince is coming soon I know, to bring me pets all ripe and slow. I am sorry mother for the hurting, the biting and the trouble-causing. I will behave well. Like a Princess. But I have grown so pale and thin. I touch my skull beneath my skin. Must I feel this hunger gnawing, the blood within my ears so roaring?”

Hush my pretty little girl. I am no mother to you, but start not nor flinch for I come from your Prince. Gifts binary I bring in number, one: this locket, see you here Ope it gently girl and see within? Ah yes, you see, the prince does love you, and how might he not? So beautiful are you and moonlight-white. Like the stars in the sky. Now wear you that my star. No. Not there. Not around the neck. I have a separate gift for that. Around your wrist. That's right, so thin. Wrap it round and hold it. Now kneel for me and close your eyes. A red gem I shall anoint you with. Just there, that's right.

Persuade

alike

raise blade

and strike.

And done! Exeunt alarmed, by divers means, head stage left and body through the stalls. Regrettably non-accidental yet it serves in a minimal capacity. I flee to keep my final call before the dawn.

Oh aerial and unobservant Saints,

do you knot hear the creaking boards of Night?

Crammed full and overloaded as they are,

with fat crimes bulging from their broken lips?

Can murders more be done in such short time?

Are further cruelties scheduled for the hour?

Are things not bad enough you wastrel sacks

of limpen Law to rouse your searching lamps?

Hush now brotherly verse. I'll kill no more tonight and only once again. I go now to my day-job long prepared. Stradivaris's Funeral Establishment. It's here I make my wage, with skills precisely honed. Promotion is rapid and unexpected.

How fitting for the killers home,

a place of death, itself disguised,

the white and chilly catacomb,

whose purpose goes unrecognised.

Divest you of your staine'd blade,

secreted just behind a stair,

throw off your bloody coat arrayed,

oh cast away your purple hair?

A wig. Beneath, your locks short-cropped,

now you curl inside a coffin,

the gilded lid securely propped,

fast asleep on soft white satin.

Tis the only available bed Heroic Verse. Now wake me when the knocking comes and drone softly through my dreams if you must at all.

So sleeps

the killer

in a bed

better than

your victims had

till mornings light

creeps cross

the floor

and knocking wild

upon

the door!

Then wake

ye up

and whining, rise

to scrape the chin

and rub the eyes

and placing on

a neat white coat

to greet the knocks

with altered throat?

Hold friend tis early yet I come. Saints fail Stradivari's should we fail to offer ruth to those in need. Now. How may I assist you golden Sir?

“Calamity and shame! The Lady Trona Triikale is dead!”

God no.

“The Prince and family call for a funeral before the end of day!”

Of course.

“and every place of preparation called at answers not. Silence and shut doors, as if every embalmer slept late or hid within.”

It seems impossible.

“Only here at Stradivari's, which (I beg your pardon to state directly) is a rather mid-range establishment, is anybody home. Where is Stradivari?”

I regret o begemmed magnificence, my dexterously enabled employer is also absent.

“Oh god! Again!”

But fear not sir, you address Meister Lactose, sub-luminary to the great Stradivari, but artisanal and expert in his way. Let me see the Lady Tru.

“Hmmm, do I address an apprentice.. boy? You seem young and small to boast such expertise, (though rather drawn).”

I have a growth disorder, and the fumes of my trade have marked me. But, bless my hands I am familiar enough with the dead. May I see the girl?

“I suppose you must, since no other path reveal itself. There, you see, she's like a broken bird.”

O tragedy, to see such sweetness extinguished.

“I find her rather horrid. The marbled eyes, starved pipecleaner limbs, her hands curved into claws and are those fangs?”

It is a common enough consequence as the body makes its changes.

“Hm, I'm sure. The gods alone know how old she is.”

Oh! The head is on.

“Yes.... of course?”

Yes. Of course. My shocked surprise expressed thusly because, you see, it happens that.....

“Yes? You have tailed off Meister Lactose, where go your thoughts?”

I over-focus on my work.

“Ah.”

… you see it happens that the Great Stradivari has commanded (for a week) that I attend only to decapitations as (I hope I may confide in you Sir) their disconnection troubles him, and so, on seeing the young lady as-one, so to speak, I experienced an moment of entirely illogical yet naturally inescapable surprise.

“Yes that does explain that quite clearly, although you may be interested to learn that the young lady was, in fact, killed with an nearly-entirely-successful decapitating strike to the back of the neck.”

Truly.

“Yes, as you see here the head is attached only by this thin strip of skin remaining at the throat. It tips quite easily you see?”

What a curious and at the same time, utterly forgettable coincidence. I do hope the killer has been caught?

“The dogs of law pursue her even now.”

Her?

“Yes. One Rakhia Ddu, recently escaped lunatic, multiple murderer, assaulter and thief. At large in Pluvial and possessing some kind of grudge against both the city and the Prince (praise his rhymes).”

 (Praise the rhymes.) Indeed.

“Indeed. She left a Blue Hair at the scene of the crime and (as I am sure you know) all inmates of the Asylum have their hair dyed blue.”

I shall be on the lookout, and now, if you would, I must be about my work.

“Of course, I shall return at two?”

Of course. I assume the funeral will be at the gardens of repose upon the Rue Des Smiles?

“You assume correctly.”

At the private mausoleum of House Tristikale?

“Indeed.”

Before the bolted door embossed with Pearl and Glass?

“It will.”

At the hour of (roughly) three pm, (in the narrow gap if time in which the Prince is both sober and awake.)

“Quite so.”

And that the Prince himself is expected to attend?

“He is. You seem remarkably well informed about the funeral habits of the family Tristikale.”

Of course Monsieur.

“Yes.. of course... I must go, I shall return, as I said, at two.”

Good day Monsieur.

“Good day M. Lactose.”

Ahhhhhhh, my grinning Princess, tip me your sad head, I shall produce a golden halo for your endless sleep and glue your baring lips onto your teeth.

“Oh I'm sorry I..”

Ah!

“I quite forgot.. Meister Lactose, I apologise. You seem disturbed.”

Not at all. I am, once again, focused on my work and not expecting any interruption.

“Yes, I'm sorry, I returned on realising that.. what is that?”

It is a simple lighting effect designed to create a halo of flickering light around the sleeping head of the departed. Unusual and distinctive to you no doubt but entirely unremarkable in the circumstances.

“I see.”

An effect favoured by the Prince. And a speciality of Stradivari's, employed only for our most significant and honoured clients.

“Oh it is a remarkable flickering. Does it emanate from something placed beneath the head?”

You were about to explain Monsieur? The reason for your interruption?

“Oh yes. My name! Should you require it. I am Sect Verso, adjutant to house Tristikale.”

Thank you. I shall not. Please leave.

“Oh, of course.”

(Fucking idiot.)

Down down sorrowly winds the dawning day.

You twist the creatures face to feint of  life

and forcibly massage the muscle knots

to wrench the mortised features into set,

a primly sober smile to please the eyes,

you artfully sew closed the gash you made

approximately eight hours previously,

and mask it with a strip of pearly silk

then, carefully, you grab some copper wire,

daintily secrete it in the sleeve,

to run it up and down the grasping arm,

attach it to the locket, lying open in the hand

then loop it back to make the circuits click.

Charged, waiting and carefully arranged. A most efficacious method of removal.

Then waiting.

Settling dust.

Motes vector,

sunlit bars.

The streets voice

soft beyond

your own breath

and the forks

of lightning

hutched beneath

the corpse head,

playing notes,

singing on

the cold glass.

Only then

long hours past

eventually

a knocking

at the door.

“Oh she is wonderful M.Lactose, as peaceful as a dream.”

You are too kind.

“(It is a pity no-one will see it.)”

I'm sorry? What?

“A closed casket by order of the Prince. My apologies. I must take her now. Late! Already late. We must go. Good day.”

…..

Closed? How is it that the necrophile yearns not to gaze upon a woman dead? What urge can be revoked so? What fetish lost? The most golden surety and carefully worked-out fulcrum of my trap! It's key essential screw. A monsters pleasure in his victims passive form, mixed up with adoration of himself. Forgone? A closed casket? A closed fucking casket?!

Leap the table, slam the door,

dash to grab your sword and wig,

escape the building, past the store,

run through the crowd with zag and zig

pursued by howls of fear and shock

you dodge the hands that grab for you

round the corner, down the block

to the funeral goes miss Ddu.

Closed. Murderer. Twice, thrice, twenty times cursed. Despot. Inferior. Pretender. Shitting versifier. Abhorrence. Third-rate simulating appendix of duodenal verbs. Expendable and poisoned organ! GET FROM MY PATH PEASANTS. Oh noun of degradation. You shall look and see and touch. YES CALL THE POLICE, CALL THEM. OAF, I SHALL CUT YOUR THROAT. GET FROM MY PATH. Madwoman madwoman madwoman, a MADWOMAN in the streets. Yes HIDE your child there HIDE them. Terminal terminal terminal no. You? No. You! I am Rakhia Ddu, murderer and insanity at large.

“oh god no, please”

Shut up you FAT SACK. This is the Rue Des Smiles is it not? Yes. Where is the mausoleum of the Family Tritikale? (I am lost (why why why am I lost and how could I not be?! In this town where every home a TOMB?)

“Please.. I .. I don't know what to answer first.”

Where is the mausoleum of the Family Tritikale? Where? The tomb! Tritikale Tritikale

 Tritikale. Where? Where? Where? The door of Pearl and Glass!

“it it it its thaaat waaay”

Good. Thank you. Excuse me. I am late.

Door gleams,

guards pale

sword reams

guards bale.

STOP THE FUNERAL! I AM NOT FINISHED WITH THE LIVING OR THE DEAD!

The family Tritikale in serried ranks

all turn as one to see you barging in.

The powdered Aunty Welt her wig askew,

cousin Wail, whose nails (all broken) gouge his clothes,

The brothers Volt and Vole, subhuman both,

distant Timeous, recently revived,

Tinneus, Tiblisi and Tel Amon;

shrunken uncles Three, rising with an oath,

and numerous beige wanderers and friends,

velveteen hangers-on, convenient pairs,

and there, in the front row, the weeping man

who dabs his saddened eyes with folded silk,

whose head escapes his hair like sharpened rocks

breach the weak trickling of a viscous sea,

whose pert and purse-lipped mouth laps at the air

and drips out gasping notes of pure regret;

“As lilies faded in the shadow

escaping the sweet caressment

of the flower tenders attentions

yet leaving scented spiritus

odour of haunting memory

enlivening the darkness there,

so your childlike beauty Trona,

though passing, fills my empty heart.

I am to blame, my adoration

though more constant than the daylight

was not enough, although, I see

One has come now, to cruelly mock

your memorial, the murderess

and assassin Rakhia Ddu.”

You. At last. Praise every tangled thought and every sleepless night and every hour I spent embossing twisted plans into my brain, for they have brought me here. To you O incalculable effluvium. And praise aloneness and the guarding bars of thought, and silence and exile of the self and all the locks of the asylum for they made me what I had to be to reach this point.

“How grotesque

and yet amusing.

I do hope

that you kill again

in the brief

brief moments before

those outside

or secreted guards

in the crowd

quickly subdue you.

A cousin?

Some are rather close

and ugly

or will you kill me?

If only

it was possible

but all deaths

on the worlds surface

abjure me

no blade can harm me

no rope hang

or venomous bite.

I have encoded

every one

in consuming verse

and they serve

subjected and rhymed

for all time.”

In through the Pearl doors

out through the crowd

advance the go-serve-laws

silent and proud

down goes your sword-blade

clamped are your arms

still are your lips made

with fear and alarms.

It's through

Miss Ddu

for me

and

you.

For naught? Do I descend once more? Like the orbiting child of a darkening star. Tis fruitless to resist. At least (one final thing) I am once again the chiefest beauty of your heart. For only this slip of a thing lived who excelled me in perfection. You do. You must, remember me. The only one, the final one. The true reflection of your heart, and now this pretty girl is gone. Made hideous by absent life, I must advance again. For worms shall eat her and her beauty be forgotten. Even now inside her box, deaths fingers have abused her, for that could consumer knows nothing of beauty or of love, but gulps them both without a thought.

“Oh poor fool deluded

I do not recall you.

Your sharp and wasted face

(though somewhat masculine)

clearly once possessing grace.

Madness then extruded

its clay on you Miss Ddu,

catching the eyes in webs

like quivering spiders,

nailing the coffin lips

with white vertical lines.

Inconsequential slip,

gaze upon True Beauty!

Away sarcophagus!

Let me behold my love

oh

oh

undiminished by death

shall my verse awake you?

I place my lips on yours

so cold

unforgettable taste

and look!

Oh sweet enchanted heart

with your last simple thought

you guarded not your wealth

but true source of your soul

myself

the locket lies upon you now

my own portrait within

let me reach out and carr....”