Aphelion: Anatomy of Sorrow

By Bismay Rath

The Murky Womb

In suffering I slumber,

Twisting and turning, morality in malady. 

Fate fumbled a few nights ago,

Drowned beneath sounds of

A bearded man bawling,

Screaming for solace in this murky womb

Of ache and agony.

Elegy to the Living

To be born, to shatter,

Though not chosen, was amiably ordained. 

The incandescent faces I've grown to adore,

And those you have yet to show,

Lurk beneath my dreams,

Like a serpent circling its prey,

Unmoving, the hunted fool smiles,

Eager to lose the wager of life,

Hopes for tranquility in the beyond,

Sanctity will correct the

Sins of the willful human heart. 

Aphelion

In woeful oblivion I serve

A humble host to Aphelion, 

The farthest from the sun's grace,

For Darkness seeks my company,

With Pain and Misery,

Warming up the opposite chairs.

The only memory that remembers me,

A ghost seeking your self, and an exit,

And the door, I recall, was never there. 

Aphelion and the Hollow Hero

A kingdom lay within a gentle vale,

With fields of gold, its rivers bright with cheer,

Until a sound began to pierce the veil, 

A weary music drizzled, drawing near.

It was the bard, who now sang of shade.

His form, once sunlight, bore a slump of care,

His gaze a frost that made the sunlight fade,

A trapped and lonely tempest to beware.

Where he would walk, the vibrant blossoms died.

A flower of frost suffused the court's design.

The people, troubled, to the clerics cried,

Who scried a curse, a clinging sorrow, 

Not a sign of common malady.

They summoned one,

A hero, to undo what had been done.

Came the hero, stark and sunlit in form,

His eyes were stars, shoulder gleamed with light.

Found the bard beside a lake, forlorn,

A man in prime, who watched the water's sheen

As if it held a truth he longed to glean.

“All hail,” the hero said in a tone to shield misery, 

“They name your curse.I am its remedy.”

The bard then turned, and what his looks revealed

Was not a fiend, but ever-etched misery.

“There is no curse for you to unmake here,

Unless the curse is memory, or breath.

It is the ache of old wounds, not a spear,

The mind a path that leads to light, to death

Of what has been. I keep a museum

Of lost time, and the present is a hall

I wander, dusting glass in sorrow’s thrall.

I am a cracked vessel, meant for grace,

Yet all I carry seeps from me, empty in haste,

How can I offer solace, show a face

Of comfort, when the light within is effaced?

I am a falling tree none stand to hear;

Only the silence proves I once was here.”

The hero stood. The sun was climbing high.

His map showed dragon's breath, not gray and gloomy air.

This was a mist no blade could cut, no cry

Could pierce. Shifting his weight, he offered his care:

“You think too much. The sky is blue and clear.

You have a roof, and a trade. The past is sealed.

The future is not present. Now is here.

Choose to be happy.” So he spoke, and laid

A hand upon the slumped shoulder, a gesture

Meant to be kind, that only ushered

The gulf between them. He turned to return,

Back toward the castle, sharp against the day.

His task was done; no monster blocked his way.

The bard did not see the knight’s retreat.

He watched the water, his eyes without a soul. 

And the hero’s words,

Those hollow, weightless stones,

Sank into depths where no light stirred,

Where the dark would claim him,

And left him there, alone. 

By Bismay Rath