Voice of Madness

I. My lips taste nothing but fear

It has the salty taste of blood

Mixed with the warmth of tears that dried

I touch a hand to my face and imagine

The rain continuing right through the skin

To press into the pulsing

Silver-stained veins.

II. This era in existence is a title

A name no one will speak

In fierce whispers of obsession

As fingers twist through

Wild snakes of hair

Is it a shadow of love?

Or hate?

I don’t know.

III. My beautiful fantasies are born

And weaned from the foxglove

That withered my body, turned my eyes

To its violent delights

The sleepy red poppy

That adorns my body in droplets of crimson

Is it a sign of loss?

That mourns the time

Or is just my masochistic monster

Waiting for release?

IV. The fallen angel sleeps within

As the devil rejoices

Singing fires spin within

Binding round my wrist

I scream as it moves and bends

Weaving sinister visions

Around a wilting cross

Spun with thorns

Laced with rosary beads of blood.

V. The pyre roars with the fury of a lion

The ashes spin and I press myself into them

Marking my skin with war paint

They embrace me like a departed lover

And I weep for my breaking heart

Peeling back the scar to see the skin hatch

Until the ropes unravel and snap.

VI. A wolf’s howl breaks the silent night

The sky breaks and the moon raised its eye

To look upon the corpse of the forest

Shattered bones, ripped green skin

A creature cries out, the ravens scatter

To blacken the sky with shrieks

Diving to feast, dirty glossy feathers

With an angel’s blood

I scream in the night

The creatures call for me and I raise my head

I am no stranger to the hunt

I wait to skin the hide of the stars, to look upon them

Watch as they fade and die.

VII. I am temptress of no one

Distorting nothing into everything

Madness is the music to which I dance

Spinning in this skin of cloud and diamond rain

My hands reach out spinning on this dizzying

Directionless journey

North pulls me to south

Where the sun meets the moon

South greets west and east

Where the earth pulls the oceans

And I howl with uncontained joy

As the world crumbles

The sun touches the earth

Spreads golden fire as it descends

The night starts its flight across the sky

Spreading wide veiled wings.

VIII. Insanity is my name

Though I don’t really know why

It is meaningless now

And I curl into myself

Close myself up into my corner of the world

And watch myself disappear

Into the whisper of a heartbeat.

IX. As I fade away among the strangeness

Of this song-less night

I allow pandemonium to finally stir

From his dreamless sleep

And open his beautiful eyes

To my shrieking

Burning world

And take it from my dying hands.