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1. |
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In the Garden of Abandon, the May
Queen resides in her botanical bliss
Safe from the dangers of the outside world.
She is happy here in the blooming Spring
When the roses grow their most vivid red
And on all is cast an emerald light.
In the west-most point under golden light,
There’s a bush blossoming the Rose of May
Where pixies and sprites hide with cheeks so red
Carrying out hidden mischiefs with bliss
As they drink in the air of sweetest Spring…
Who would ever want to leave this dear world?
Yet the Queen brings a sadness to her world.
Her eyes begin to hint at fading light.
She mindlessly tends the flowers of Spring…
It’s in these reluctant moments, she may
Just see that all is not roses and bliss.
She knows this to be true as blood is red.
Her eyes begin tearing and turning red…
“Such a prison I have made of this world…”
In a Queendom meant to foster her bliss,
She seems to have extinguished all Love’s light.
Even the sun of this burgeoning May
Can’t silence the hurt that memories spring.
She faces her thoughts of that ancient Spring
When the setting sun painted the day red.
He disappeared amongst the Oaks that May
Never to be seen again in this world…
But it’s not her fault he abandoned light
For the blind darkness of some unknown bliss…
The time’s come to open herself to bliss,
To reclaim the innocence of the Spring,
To let Love’s dance fill her with joyous light,
To let the sun play upon fire red
Hair, and venture out into the wide world…
Leave behind safety’s cage, O Queen of May!
When bliss colours your complexion deep red
And Spring gives butterflies to your new world,
Your youthful light will prevail—come what may…
(9.ii.19)
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[Victory is for the boldest of hearts…]
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2. |
Part I: A Violet Vigil
02:35
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Hold onto your dreams, hold onto your dreams…
Do not let these fears enthrall your spirit.
May these chains of weakness fall to the floor
And slink away like snakes in the damp grass…
Where hope would fail, let courage be your star.
Where faith would falter, let Violets grow.
When despair sets in, let Violets grow.
This Garden is the canvas of your dreams
Where you may shine as if you were a star
And the gods still walk with you in spirit.
Let your bare feet pass through the morning grass.
Leave your nightclothes upon the bedroom floor…
When your ghosts call you from beneath the floor,
Give up your burdens, let Violets grow.
Remember days when you laid in the grass
Together sharing all your hopes and dreams
With hearts so light and full of gay spirit
Making bold wishes upon a bright star…
He follows the light of that very star
And reminisces of nights on your floor…
He knows you’re always with him in spirit.
When doubt threatens truth, let Violets grow.
He makes his way home each night in his dreams,
Walking his horse beyond the Garden’s grass.
He spends the days counting each blade of grass
And the nights counting the shine of each star.
What is one left with if they lose their dreams?
When expectations are dashed to the floor
Not all hope is lost, let Violets grow.
Even in death, he’s with you in spirit.
Let courage and honour fill your spirit.
Lay your heavy head down upon the grass.
As if a halo, let Violets grow
And keep vigil by the light of your star.
Let your virtue be your rock and your floor.
You have the strength to realize your dreams.
Your young spirit is an intrepid star.
Steel yourself with resolve on your grass floor.
Let Violets grow and fight for your dreams…
(8.ii.19)
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3. |
Part I: An Orchid Night
08:51
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“Die a Little Death with me…” said a Voice.
“Lay amongst the Orchids with me this night…
Abandon thyself to throes of pleasure,
Of sensuality, of desire…
Answer the call of the wolves’ serenade
And die a Little Death in the grotto…”
Musical speech calls her to the grotto…
Why on earth should she heed such a damned voice?
To be taken by such a serenade—
By such a Devil’s charm in the hot night—
Would make her but a thrall to desire…
But O wouldn’t it be such a pleasure…?
One should never be governed by pleasure
Or by some serpent in midnight’s grotto
Even if it is one’s true desire
To follow the words of that lovely voice
And disappear into the Summer night
Chasing the sound of the heart’s serenade.
“Yet, will can be bound in a serenade,
Harnessed, and evoked in acts of pleasure.
The words may be chanted into the night,
The ritual performed in the grotto…
The nature and sound of magic’s pure voice
Is revealed in manifest desire…
It is with the most longing desire
That we are to sing the spell’s serenade…
Without reserve, we must give our voice,
Body, and mind to a deepest pleasure
With which we may transfigure the grotto
Into a temple of magic this night.”
She made her decision and entered night
Intent on capturing her desire
Beneath Orchids in the starlit grotto.
The Garden moans with delight’s serenade
As she abandons herself to pleasure,
moving in rhythm with the chanting voice…
Listen to the night and its serenade:
“Follow desire and embrace pleasure
Without guilt in the grotto… Hear my Voice!”
(21.i.19)
———————————————————————
[Dedicated to Austin Osman Spare.]
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4. |
Part I: An Ivy Gateway
07:05
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Ivy climbs a trellis in the Garden
Basking in the breeze on a Summer’s day.
Its eternal returns teach a hard truth:
We can’t escape mortality’s sadness
But we can carry Life’s burden with grace.
Do not let your broken heart turn to stone…
Ivy passes through an archway of stone.
Lately, she wanders far from the Garden.
Enabled by her Lady’s blind-eyed grace,
She journeys farther and farther each day.
It seems that the sun can know no sadness
From its vantage point… Lighting paths of truth!
Ivy has often questioned what the truth
Holds beyond her ancient home’s wall of stone.
Will a search for freedom end in sadness?
Will she delight in Abandon’s Garden?
She walks for what feels like an age this day…
Yet, the sun is still shining with good grace.
Ivy bestows our aged things with grace.
Monoliths mounted by transcendent truth
Illuminate green in the light of day.
Perennial raiments hide timeworn stone
Titans in some dark, primeval Garden…
She’s never felt such longing or sadness…
“Ivy veils this tomb,” she notes with sadness.
It’s the lost resting place of Rowan Grace.
Long ago, she vanished from the Garden…
Over a century ago, in truth…
What is that beast standing upon the stone…?
Some glass-eyed Satyr from an antique day…?
Ivy’s drawn to it (him?) like light to day.
His timeless gaze is filled with such sadness…
Her heart skips a beat and she turns to stone!
The pining Faun is beckoning her grace…
His love reaches through time to kiss her truth
And keep her here, ages from her Garden…
Ivy’s day of birth passes without grace.
In sadness, they guess at her passing’s truth
As Ivy crawls stone in some old Garden…
(31.xii.18)
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[I dedicate this to Arthur Machen.]
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5. |
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At night in the Garden, she walked alone.
She let her thoughts drift to her youthful past
When elfin songs danced through childhood’s window
And a call from afar beckoned her heart.
The memory almost brings her to tears…
To think—she once believed in faerie realms…
Given to the imagination’s realms,
There is no cause for one to feel alone
Or to be reduced to pitiful tears.
It serves no use to cry for some lost past
When love and companionship filled the heart
And the Rowan swayed outside the window.
But tonight, what did sway past the window?
What was calling to her from distant realms?
What fey remembrance tugged at her ill heart
To draw her out into the night alone?
Some feeling reaches out from ages past
Touching her deeply and calling forth tears.
Before she left her rooms to follow tears
And dreams, she glanced once more at the window.
Her vision led to the Garden path past
Flowerbeds (faerie rings?) and unknown realms.
On the periphery, standing alone
Was the Rowan tree at the Garden’s heart…
What was awaiting her abandoned heart?
The sweetest singing that brought her to tears…
It was most faint and for her ears alone
Like when she was a child by the window.
She has no more use for these spinsters’ realms…
Accused of dwelling in her fancy’s past...
Surrounding her were echoes of the past.
Butterflies fluttered in her pounding heart.
“Take me away now to your endless realms!
This sorrowful home has bored me to tears…”
And Night opened up as if a window…
When the sun rose, the Rowan swayed alone.
When a lonely past brings you only tears
And your broken heart closes Love’s window,
Know there are realms where you won’t die alone…
(20.xii.18)
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6. |
Part I: A Rosemary Crown
09:48
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Out of the woods came a grand procession
Who cast their inhibitions to the wind
In remembrance of an age so long lost.
Their melancholic song and rhythmic step
Fill the countryside with a regal air
That awakens a forgotten passion.
Weaving and piping his spell with passion,
The Arch-Magician leads the procession.
His song transforms the feeling in the air,
Lifting emotions as if by the wind,
Carelessly dancing his masterful step
In service to a treasure once thought lost.
But your bond with nature cannot be lost
And neither can your animal passion.
In modern times we may fall out of step,
Yet your place remains in the procession.
Your souls cannot be carried off by wind,
Your values don’t simply change with the air.
The Old Ways are singing upon the air…
“The rituals of old will not be lost!
Let the flames of your hearts be caught by wind!
Let the New Ways be burned by true passion!
Take off your mask and join the procession!
Take up the song and take up your true step!”
Keep up with the Maenads, lose not your step…
Look to the Dragonflies marching through air
To crown the One King of the procession
With a Rosemary wreath we once thought lost…
They coronate the triumph of passion
And this rite gives rise to a magic wind…
The names of the Old Gods spark in the wind,
The Nymphs and Junketers watch not their step,
The Satyrs and Fauns bask in their passion,
The fey Pipers blow kisses to the air…
The Pedagogue sings, “Honour is not lost…
Steal away with this passing procession…”
The ghost wind says like a voice on the air,
“Take this step… Abandon’s Garden is lost…
Embrace your passion… Join the Procession…”
(15.i.19)
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[Dedicated to the god Mercury.]
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7. |
Part II: The Holly King
27:02
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Thereupon the door hung a Holly wreath
Battered by the Winter night’s wind and snow.
The Garden is abandoned though its spell
Still lives in our hearts… The Yuletide storm
Has chased Summer from our forlorn land.
Flowerbeds are bare and wood feeds fire.
Inside, he warms his hands by the fire
Though its light wanes and its smoke forms a wreath
Above the flames. Embers flare, spark, and land
At his feet as he contemplates the snow
Through frosty windows and the howling storm…
What can we do to endure Winter’s spell…?
“We need a true king to break this dark spell,”
The elves divinely gleaned in the fire.
“You must go out into this endless storm
And upon your head wear a Holly wreath.
Your sustenance will be the frozen snow
As you journey into the barren land…”
“Find the old Oak at the end of the land
And don’t hesitate for more than a spell
For like a sword, you’ll be cut down by snow…
Ice will burn you as if it were fire…
Your one safeguard is this enchanted wreath…
Fell the Oak to end this eternal storm…”
So, he went out into the cursed storm
In the hopes of delivering the land
From unending Winter… Touching the wreath
On his door, placing his faith in the spell,
He left the comfort of his hearth’s fire
And for centuries, he walked in the snow…
And then a tree revealed itself in snow—
A silhouette in the pink-tinged sky’s storm.
Unafraid, he felled the Oak with fire
And an anguished cry rang across the land.
Though the world was now free of Winter’s spell,
The Holly King forever bears his wreath…
Doomed to endure the snow and walk the land,
To be mankind’s refuge through storm and spell,
Fire lost, the king’s crowned with Holly wreath…
(9.ii.19)
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8. |
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The Garden’s northernmost corner is dark,
Despite time of day or change of seasons.
An old Oak endures the passage of time,
Imposing itself against Summer’s sky.
It casts long shadows upon the hollow,
Eating the light of its very being.
Gnarled roots are at the core of its being,
Spiraling upwards around the vast, dark
Threshold to the entrance of its hollow.
Damp and cold, regardless of the seasons,
Allowing no views of the serene sky—
It is truly a place outside of time.
But then this Garden has no sense of time
Anyways… Nor has it sense of being…
It seems as ageless as the azure sky,
The universe’s unknowable dark,
And the eternal circle of seasons.
Yet, life stirs by the Oak in the hollow.
The pit of the young lord’s chest feels hollow
And he knows that he’s running out of time.
He’s lingered through the passing of seasons,
Gathering any strength to his being.
He has decided to cross the Oak’s dark
Threshold, abandoning fear to the sky.
“I glance one final moment at the sky
And make my entrance into the hollow.
The soul’s mysteries lay beyond the dark
Doorway of the Oak tree, outside of time,
Where ego will cease to exist being,
My lantern extinguished for all seasons…”
“I wander this realm as many seasons
Pass… My mind’s as open as the night sky,
Searching for magical modes of being
And Death’s truths in this infinite hollow…
I’m a dust mote on the fabric of time…
Underground, a little mouse, in the dark…”
“Within non-seasons below the hollow,
I look up to find no sky one last time.
Overcome, I’m being swallowed by dark…”
(4.i.19)
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[And yet in turn, I’m swallowing the dark…]
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9. |
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Far beyond the Garden, upon a hill,
An archaic Oak’s remaining leaves fall
Hastily to the ground… Time is standing
Still with a seemingly hushed breath… Dancing
Amidst light snow, spinning beneath the moon
Her magical web, is the Blackthorn Witch.
Spinning and spinning and spinning, the Witch
Is circumambulating on the hill,
Forming a vortex on this solstice moon.
Circling the Oak, she lets her black robes fall.
A primordial spell is now dancing
From her lips, cursing all Life left standing…
Many years ago, an Oak was standing
In the Garden… It whispered to the Witch
Of a man in a young couple dancing
In its shadow… “He must enter my hill…
A king must come to us before the Fall
Or we’ll perish before the New Year’s moon…”
And so a king was born before the moon…
Our Old Ways were saved and left standing
For a time… Rites were performed by night’s fall,
Mysteries were sought by Druid and Witch
Alike, untamed feasts took place on the hill,
And Great Pan was seen amongst those dancing.
The two brothers are forever dancing—
One must always prevail under his moon.
When the Holly King mounts his brother’s hill,
The Oak will no longer remain standing…
And the consort of Winter is the Witch,
Eternally omened to sing Oak’s fall…
Spinning her web on the last night of Fall,
Singing her spell, ecstatically dancing
And conjuring Winter, the Blackthorn Witch
Strikes earth with her staff, screaming at the moon,
“Let Winter come to silence life standing!
Let the lightning strike down upon the hill!”
Next Fall, at the dawn of the solstice moon,
Give thanks for all Life dancing and standing—
For the Witch will strike her staff on the hill…
(10.ii.19)
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Monastery Salem, Massachusetts
Dreamscapes For Solitude.
Dungeon Synth For Psychonauts.
Dark New Age For A New Dark Age.
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