I say this without compunction
A labor of life intention
Form may be function
So is reinvention

To the battle with intuition
In a quest to redefine
Joy in work is the mission
When signing on the dotted line

How does one enter
A new world from the old
You have to find the center
And be courageous and bold

The actor owns the stage,
The warrior owns the blade
The poet owns the page
Where all there are made

Life has the clue for rebirth
A code of dots and dashes
To decrypt listen for you worth
And the phoenix will kiss the ashes

two become one
with guilded hearts soar
both become undone
when love becomes war

eris smiles at the strife
a lovers debt ill afford
war and love also life
music melody oft discord

war and love both scar,
weapons of kiss and blade
times like these few and far
when created and unmade

the situation burns desire
love's labours in the arenas hour
we who are about to die inspire
a crucible of loving hate devour

but in those eyes and touch,
a heavenly hell we demand
a burning paradise is as much
as mere mortal can command

so with the fight prapared
she my cathedral and lament
battle I was never scared
when loves whispers eloquent

give me war to tower storm,
and a abandoned fortress stage,
my love gives passion to my form,
when Charon collects his wage

another from my Cyrano

CYRANO

This feeling that invades me, total and joyous, terrible and jealous. It is truly love, the sad rages, the constant thoughts. And yet it is not selfish. For your happiness I would give my own life gladly, even if you must never know. If it could be that sometimes where I was, no matter how far, I could hear your laughter born of my sacrifice. I fear nothing but your loss. Do you realize? Do you perceive this soul in a shadow? A soul to you the candle that gives me warmth in the chilling darkness and light to see. Without you I am lost forever. This night, this glorious night, is too perfect. It only means for me to die now, with the sight of you trembling like a leaf through branches of jasmine. I love, greater than anyone, I hold the sun in my heart for you, my half soul. You illuminate me, those eyes a beacon to shore. You are my life and in those eyes. I surpass all things, in those eyes love itself could not love as much as I.

No thank you

I shall never sink to be a musketeer!
What then must be done? Find a powerful protevtor? Seek a patron and, like an obscure ivy that outwits the tree and makes of it guardian as it laps the bark, rising by craft rather than its own strength? No thank you.
Dedicate as they all do versus to fanciers, transform myself into a clown, in the vile mind of seeing, on the lips of a minister, a smile that is not sinister? No thank you.
Make lunch every day of a toad, have a belly that is used for walking, slithering, a skin that becomes dirty fastest on the knees, shed my skin, cultivating a supple spine? No thank you.
I would turn down the apple. Having some forked flattering tongue always in someone’s ear.
A literary lion for a circle of old ladies. A courtier with a fist full of madrigals, filling my ears with the sighs of dowagers. No thank you.
Make the editors print my verse by paying? No thank you.
Get myself the name of pope, by the councils that are held in the cabarets of imbeciles? Work to build the reputation on one sonnet in the place of making others? Discover talent in the mediocre, Be terrorized by vague gazettes? Love to make a visit rather than a poem, draft letters begging for favors, make myself presented?
NO THANK YOU!!!!! NO THANK YOU!!!!! NO THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
But to sing, to dream to laugh, to pass to be alone to be free.
To have an eye that sees clearly and a voice that vibrates.
But when it pleases me, to wear y hat askew.
To fight, make verse, travel without worry of vain fortunes and fetid glory. Such a voyage I dream of to the moon. To write nothing that does not come out of me. Satisfied with the fruits of my own garden. And, if some chance triumph arise, not be obligated to render anything unto Caesar. Face to face with myself, disdaining to be parasitic ivy, not rising high perhaps, but all alone.
It is my vice, displeasing is my pleasure. I love to be hated. If you knew how one walks better under fire, the volleys exciting the eyes. You, my dear friend, surround yourself in soft friendships, like those Italian collars, Hemstitched and loose so your neck grows feminine. One is more at ease. But me? Hatred each day obliges me to keep perfect posture. A tight collar that forces me to raise the head; each enemy the collar tightens. Hatred is a gallows, but also a halo.

an old Cyran Poem

She sang for me and me alone
In a chamber with echoes clear
No sin for her I wouldn't atone
Nothing that would engender fear

She sang for me in my sleep
Behind the walls of my closed eyes
Falling far and hard this love so deep
Feeling this love far from wise

But this love is mine I scream
To the gods that would take her
She is my love this dream
And only my kiss could wake her

I'll only have her a short time
In the scheme of things
I'll hold her love woven in my rhymes
and feel all the warmth it brings

For she makes all things right
As she holds me to her breast
There is nothing I wouldn't fight
At her whims simplest behest

This love I feel is true I say
And destined only to last
Her voice an altar to which I pray
When what's past is past

So my goddess listen close
These love are only long ago and once upon
For this queen in brave repose
I'll gladly be her pawn

SO for this love I'll sacrifice
All that I can give
For losing her is worth the price
If happily ever after she live

Part 7, the Man who could not be killed - Black and Grey, by Scott Ferrara and Jeremy Webb

The crew all piled into Roxanne. Dante, Seamus, Ernesto crammed into the back, while Calico slid into the front next to me. Cuddling up a bit as cats were want to do. If we survived there was always the party, the drinking and the sex. Chalice came to each of us in her own way to offer blessings and hope for our survival. She appeared to me, and me alone, as the blood spattered corpse of Emma.





Chalice – Be strong my knight.



Dante – She’s talking to you now, isn’t she?



Ronin – I’m her champion.



Dante snorted in derision.



Dante – Some fucking champion.



Chalice – Despite her blood, you will always be brothers. Brothers by choice.



Ronin – I miss her so much.



Dante glanced at Ronin, then stared off into the distance, his fist banging gently on Ronin’s shoulder.



Dante – So do I.



Then, as if a chorus, they all appeared.



Beth – To die in service is a good way to die, Golem.

Gabriel – You are no longer the man who couldn’t be killed.

Chalice, Gabriel, Beth – You are the man who wouldn’t die.



I started Roxanne up. The engine roared, like a steed eager for battle. We head to route 112, on a few back roads. Chalice will wreak havoc with local law enforcement. The off to Whiskey road, a twisted artery of traffic where the workers were paid in hooch. Signs of mathematical certainties greater than, less than, dotted the roadside reminding us how it all falls to numbers.



The precinct will have a visitation, a large black man carrying a very wounded little woman in his arms. The desk sergeant will get to work, helping them and suddenly his body won’t be his own, albeit temporarily.





Ernesto – Always a good sign. Once more unto the breach?

Seamus – You know Shakespeare was actually Irish? Prolonged English conspiracy, that.



Ernesto – That’s where you’re wrong.



Dante’s chin dropped to his chest, and he pinched the bridge of his nose, as if to ward off a migraine.



Seamus – And how am I wrong?

Ernesto – He was Spanish, I was a priest I know these things.

Dante- Will you two please not have this fucking argument again?!?!?!



We turned onto another back road. Fresh snow had fallen and the flint grey skies begged for more white. The house was a two story dilapidated mess, surrounded by woods, pine and scrub oak on all sides. Most would rightly assume with the motorcycles out front that it’s a meth lab. A palpable air of agitation will keep most of the locals away. It’s like an irritation, like spiders crawling on your skin. Three servitors were in the woods. The still was outside to the left of the house. A quick IR scan shows, several more servitors, 3 shades and a few victims scattered throughout. The house was on the verge of collapse, missing persons collect in such places as the last refuge of the damned. Seamus placed himself in the tree line. Ernesto, Dante, Calico and I went in. Dante quietly drew a stick magazine from his ammo pouch and slotted it into his AA12. He raised it and took aim at the front door, firing off a ten round burst that drained the magazine in a heartbeat. The FRAG 12 grenade rounds made a mockery of the door and blasted a lethal cloud of fragmentation shards into the foyer behind it, clearing us a toehold into the lair.



Ronin – Subtle, brother.



The deadish arose with a collective moan. They had seen the black on the other side. They had felt the loneliness and isolation. There was no white but the stinging crystals falling from the sky.



We had a countdown until the still was going to go up. Then the children came. All the shade’s fantasies in small immortal bodies, cute as a button, sex toys seeking blood. My Storms bellowed thunder, quick efficient shots. Calico disappeared, to plant the explosives on the still as the place reeked of antiseptic.



Shooting children, even centuries old children, is never easy. There

is only the mission and the cold hand about your throat. Wondering that if there was a just God. You would die now and never see this. Dante was a pro, firing into the crowd. His only god was the black. He smiled and laughed. His shotgun spewing round after round of deadly flechettes and #2 titanium alloy shot. I was looking for the girl. When the corpse assaulted Ernesto there was an epiphany of blood, said to an Our Father. He was Latin old school. Then the Shade appeared, as big as a mountain. His biceps were bigger than my bullets. Silver nitrate burned his skin like an Arizona midday, a dry heat. . Smoke and flesh smelled like a quiet Sunday summer afternoon barbeque. Sometimes even professionals must resist the urge salivate.

It had this hand and a half, a sword of muscle. Dante gave it a taste of shot, then dropped his shotgun and drew his sword, snapping his shield into place with a flick.



DANTE – Find the girl!

RONIN – That’s not my mission!

DANTE – This is my op asshole!

RONIN – You wanna die? Fuck you, do it on your own time!



Barong and Cavalry Sabre drawn I went in. His first hit was an avalanche of

muscle. My jaw SHATTERED. Drop parry, weapon sliding off the sabre. Sidestep

behind him. His man killing weapon was too slow. A quick spin and the blades

went down. Gabe told me to hit hard and fast, Beth be true to your faith. And in the end he couldn’t imagine a mere fleshling fighting him. Mid section sweep and a tuck. Hand roll across the throat. I spoke through a tattered jaw.



RONIN – You ffffuckign head itthhh mine!!!



The servitors came. And I HACKED. Dante spun into the midst of them, alternating between shield punches and efficient cuts, even the edges of the shield were sharp. For a moment I thought he was in the arenas of old Rome and he was a gladiator taking task to the criminals his masters sent to their deaths for the entertainment of the masses. God, he was a scary fighter to watch. “We who are about to die, salute you.”



Freed from the servitors I turned back into the Shade, my heavy blade to those gargantuan arms. Bringing the blades up under the arms and trying to sever them.Seamus fired Bessie, the round bisecting the Shade under its armpit and punching out the other side in a welter of gore and smoke, then traveling into a servitor and exploding it in a crimson mist. The shade looked angry more than hurt, and it had just taken a round from what was in effect an anti tank weapon. One arm came off its body, and I dropped my barong and drew my pistol. Burying my sabre in its guts and firing the storm as I grabbed hold. I ran, carrying the beast into the sun. Burnt meat and embers flew as it held onto me. Ash choked my lungs as its body was engulfed in fire. The burns were covering my face and torso. It kept fighting, hammering with its fist. I ended up with broken ribs and a punctured lung before Dante waded past and took off its other arm at the elbow. It finally went up completely when he spun and took off the head.





Dante – I never said you weren’t brave, brother. A idiot maybe, but a brave one. I know Chalice appears As Emma to you. She always has.



With that I rose and fired. Bullets whippings passed his ears into the oncoming servitor.



Ronin – Looksth like I hith the barn.



Then I fell flat onto my face, the wounds finally too much for me. Massive internal injuries, but the black just didn’t want me.



Seamus/Dante – Lucky shot.



Calico was running through the warrens, taking servitors. Ernesto was with her going through clips for his Garand while he mouthed his Rosary. Both had given up on stealth. Then they found the girl. Ernesto emerged bloodied and bladed. Calico smiled. The lost lonely girl, the one life I needed to save.

She walked over to me and my demolished body. Stroked my hair and shattered jaw. Chalice will expedite the healing.



GIRL – Monstros



Ernesto was going to translate, but I understood.



“Monstros” Was all she said. And I didn’t know if she was referring to them or us.

Lakes

Stillness from the waters edge,
when the the waves caress the shore,
a devine precipice and ledge
whisperes secrets of forgotten lore
the ghostly lady of the lake,
beckons for the final kiss,
still ruined in many a wake
last moments inearthly bliss
the is her shining blade
gleaming steel beneath the rust
for in that kiss a man is betrayed
mistaking watery love doom for lust
but in her embrace mortal men say now
chilling lips sup life's fire
for in the kiss is the swords bloody vow
the lake's own thrist drowns desire.