Gathering Storm

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Another poem that I'll be submitting for assessment this year. Not much to say about it, but I'm proud of the imagery and plethora of poetic devices I've used.
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The skies, they were ashen and sober,
A promise of the night to come;
When forever comes crashing.

Prius: the rain starts softly,
But the birds are already long gone from the trees.
It gathers force and ferocity,
Shredding newly-wrought leaf from twig,
And creating a shimmering, singing horizon
Against the gathering dusk.

Secundus: a rolling hum barrels through the clouds,
Breaking forth as the rumble from a wolf’s throat.
Wide-eyed cats scramble for cover
From noise which has no presence;
The herald of the imminent maelstrom
Calls to the heavens.

Trientis: and so it comes, as promised.
Incandescent serpentine after incandescent serpentine,
Infusing the night air with electrical fire.
Bolt of blue shatters bark and branch,
Leaving singed and sorry ash upon the ground;
A violent end by violent means.

Son of the Song

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This is one of the poems I will be submitting for my poetry assessment this year. It started off as an exercise in free-writing whilst listening to Slow Riot for New Zerø Kanada by Godspeed You! Black Emperor (I think this is actually my favourite record of all time. Buyitbuyitbuyit!), which turned into a half-decent poem. I think it is about music's power to save you, particularly from dark places in your life; depression and the like. This may just be the highly pretentious explanation I'll use in the obligatory critical commentary, however...
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The bleak hum of time blocks my ears
To the intense ticking of life.
I don’t know it, I can’t feel it,
But it is there.

I hang, head down, not even awake.
Is it bright beyond, or a beauteous barren black?
A fist around my wrist hangs me,
Gently rocking me to my sense.
I grab hold of a sound,
Distant yet corporeal,
With both hands.
Life flows into my muscles,
Giving me the strength to pull myself up.
I hear my heart thud rhythmically like a bass drum.
Something whispers incoherently.

I stand and lean into the wind,
And the world rolls free from my shoulders.
My head lifts, my neck straightens.
Life flickers in, no longer blocked out.

The Fall of Aftermath - part two

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Okay, so I promised you a story based on The Fall of Math by 65daysofstatic, and it is now finished!
It was my original intention to use the track titles as a basis for the narrative, as I believe there was a distinct story to be told. That said, the constraints of the project in terms of time and length meant that this wasn't strictly possible. I may re-write at some point, I may not; but for now, here it is!
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The Fall of Aftermath

“…And promise me you’ll be home before midnight this time Niko.”
Niko sighed. “Yes mum, I will.” There was a harsh crackling noise, and the phone went dead. ‘That’s weird,’ he thought: this was the inner city, where signal was usually pretty good. He had the feeling that his mother would think that he had hung up on her, so he tried to ring back, but couldn’t even get a dial tone, so he sighed again and pocketed the phone.
Niko stepped out of the doorway in which he had been standing and had only the time to take a deep breath of the fresh night air, before something large, moving at great speed, hit him. He dropped to the ground, cursing loudly – the tarmac was damp and unforgiving, and knocked the wind out of his chest. He picked himself up, dusted himself off and turned to face his assailant, who had also lost their balance. The man, for he saw it was a man now, was not particularly well built, but even from his position down on the pavement, Niko could tell that he was exceptionally tall. He watched as the man stood up and patted down his jacket.
“Are you alright friend?” Niko asked, “I’m sorry, I didn’t look where I was going.”
“Do not worry about it.” replied the stranger distractedly, his gaze darting around the dimly lit tarmac at their feet.
“Have you lost something?”
The man fixed him with a probing look from his dark eyes, the only feature clearly visible beneath the peak of his cap.
“It is nothing. Please, go about your business.”
“Please, I insist I help you look for it.”
Niko knelt down and started peering around his feet for whatever the stranger might have dropped. He started to run his palms parallel to the ground in an attempt to feel for it, but the man’s hand gripped his shoulder.
“It is nothing,” he repeated, “I will find it myself.”
Niko stood up and shrugged. He was about to turn and walk away when his foot connected with something. He stooped to see what it was, and found a small, black box. Picking it up, he found that it was heavy for its size, and cold to the touch. The only discernible features were two buttons – one red, one green – and an on/off switch. There was something written on it too, but it was obscured by mud.
Without warning, the stranger’s boot smashed into Niko’s face, and he sprawled into the gutter once more. The box forgotten, he clutched both hands to his nose, fighting against the blackness that threatened to overwhelm his vision – but it was no good, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

The man watched the boy crumple to the floor, nose most likely broken. He was not a malicious character by nature – current activity not withstanding – but he could not help the wry smile that crept across his face as the shape in the gutter fell still: nosy little bastard.
After pausing for a moment to admire his handiwork, the man leant down and retrieved the detonator from where it had fallen for the second time that night, and checked it over. Satisfied that the device was not broken, he gave it a quick wipe with his coat, pocketed it, and gave Niko one last glance before sprinting off into the gathering darkness.

Corporal Sipka’s boots crunched on the building dust that covered the length of this street. At present, his unit was making its way down the city’s main shopping boulevard. It was like there was a depressing and poorly-fitted grey carpet everywhere, laid to hide the sorrowful little bundles which littered doorways and the pavement outside them: men, women; young children even – people that on a day like today should have been out enjoying the sun and the atmosphere of market day. Ever since the explosion, reports had been trickling in about the devastation, but with the simultaneous sabotage of numerous communications control centres nation wide, there had been nothing concrete coming in, and certainly nothing that could have prepared him for this. Some of the structures furthest from the blast epicentre still stood, but he had heard from those that had been there that the closer you got to it, the less in tact they became – a ground-floor wall here, a splintered door frame there, but nothing that could really identify the buildings to their former occupants.
“Sipka, eyes front!” barked Sergeant Taborski.
Sipka shifted his gaze just in time to see the bundle at his feet as he stumbled into it, kicking it and causing it to roll. As the body settled, he looked upon the face of a woman – or rather what had been the face of a woman. The sheer heat of the blast had left her features blackened and shrivelled, singed almost all of the hair from her head, and melted her very clothes to her skin. The man behind Sipka vomited onto his boots. Sipka just looked, unable to avert his gaze from sheer horror.
“Corporal Sipka!” came the authoritative voice behind him again, “move out!”
Swallowing the sickly feeling in his own throat, he stepped gingerly over the corpse and continued on. His unit was part of a larger force tasked with the dual objectives of scoping out the damage that the device had caused – assessing the safety so that civilian recovery crews could move in – and searching for anyone who had survived the explosion.
Before long, they came to an as yet unsearched residential neighbourhood.
“Fan out and sweep the buildings as fast as you can; we’ve got a schedule to keep. Sipka, you’re with me.”
The Sergeant led the way up to the first house – if you could still call it that. Unlike the others, this one looked as though it had fallen into disuse even before the blast. Weeds had forced their way to freedom through the cracks in the paving stones that led up to the front door, which itself hung off the hinges. The large front downstairs window – which was the only one that remained – was boarded up, and across it were scrawled the words ‘The hour of His judgement is come’ in black spray-paint. As they crossed the threshold, Sergeant Taborski held up his fist, signalling the Corporal to stop.
“Did you hear that?”
Before Sipka could reply, the Sergeant called out.
“Hello? This is Sergeant Taborski of 102nd Battalion. We’re here to help. Is there anybody there?”
Silence. He tried again. Nothing. The Sergeant was about to turn and leave when there was the distinct sound of something falling over, and a high-pitched cackle.
“Back room – go!”
They raced down the hallway, and in his hurry Sipka practically kicked down the door to the back room – not that it put up much resistance. As he burst in, he almost missed the dirty and dishevelled heap in the middle of the room, mistaking it for a bunch of rags; but when the pile of rags starting giggling, he realised it was a person.
“Sergeant, we’ve got one here!”
Sipka bent down to help the man up. In his former life, he would have been tall in stature, but now he was bent almost double with age. His hair was as matted beyond belief, and the clothes in which he now stood were faded and filthy. As Sipka lifted him up, he noticed that the man’s hand was burned, much like the woman’s face he had seen earlier.
The Sergeant appeared at the old man’s other shoulder. “Jesus, this guy reeks,” he said, lending a hand. “Are you alright sir?”
“Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgement has come!” cried the man, grinning.
“Excuse me?” stuttered the Sergeant.
“Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the great!” he replied, still smiling.
“I don’t think he’s quite…all there, Sarge,” offered Sipka.
“You don’t say. Right, get him out of here. I’ll radio in a chopper.”
Sipka, with the man’s arm around his shoulder, made to move for the door, but his charge started to struggle. He managed to push away, and before either Sipka or Sergeant Taborski could react, he pulled a handgun out of one of the pockets in his grubby brown overcoat.
With lightning fast reflexes, Sipka brought his rifle to bear and yelled “Sir, drop the gun!”
But the man’s grin seemed to widen. His gaze shifted from Sipka, to the Sergeant, and back again. He began to talk again, this time calmly and slowly.
“If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand,” he said, gesturing to both slowly with the gun, “he will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath.”
He stopped, and fixed Sipka with his gaze. Sipka felt as if he was reading his very soul like a book. He spoke again.
“The explosion that destroyed our city, razed our homes, and turned our fields into wastelands is nothing compared to what is now happening to those that survived.” He gestured to his blackened right hand. “I have been marked. I am forsaken. There is nought left for me.”
And with that, he raised to gun to his temple and fired a single shot before slumping to the floor.

Sipka gazed out of the back of the truck as it passed through the refugee camp set up for the meagre amount of survivors that had been found so far, a despondent look on his face.
“Tomorrow’s another day Sipka,” said the Sergeant, putting his hand on the Corporal’s soldier, “plenty more souls to save.”

Watch This Space!

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Don't worry kids; I haven't forgotten about you. I will be posting new content very soon...I just need to finish it first! Until then, here's a bunny.


A bunny with a pancake on its head...