a collection of various snippets of poetry of dubious quality, as written by the dog

[RainIsABirb]

O', she ran a day and ran two nights
through thicket, barrow and glum.
she walked a day and walked two nights
through village, castle and kingdom.

O', she crawled a day and crawled two nights
through sand, oasis and sea.
but there was ne'er a day she didn't say
'gods I wish I was free!'

I've taken to writing down some poetry every now and then. It helps me pass the time on my long walks. This one is about how I got to Meranthe!

I think if we were all free we would be a lot happier.

Once in the rain, twice in the dew.
Life comes anew, wash 'way the pain.
Thrice in the thunder of clashing gods.
Four's a good number for a vengeance plot.

I've seen it all and I'll see it again
Spited words and dewdrops taken
Count down with me for each mistaken birth
Mirth of the gods and their fate-curse.

Four in the perpetual of hatred and misgivings.
Thrice in the thunder where all is forgiven.
Twice in the dew, once in the rain
When all is remade, we all wash 'way.

Why do people fight? I hate it when my friends fight.

I know it's naïve to think that way. I know why people fight.

I know why we all have to die. I'm sorry for being so silly.

[RainIsABirb]

whispers on the wind

soft and sublime
murmurs on the mind
linger on the lies

where the dog whines
and the flies weave
flitting, fettered paths
of buzzing circuitry

where the crow's foot
grasps upon branch
and they make roost
in the pines

i'll be waiting.

~ as written by the dog.

[RainIsABirb]

My heart goes out to all those lost.
S'not only death to take them away.
Its fog, its delicate cycle of change.
Its life, its relative righteous maze.

And along the paths we'll tend to find,
a straggler who's been left behind.
And with hand outstretched they'll say,
'Please come help, I've lost my way.'

'Come with me!' you try to reply!
But we can't see, they've stole our eyes
And we can't hear, they've closed our ears
So, separate ways we'll run. Goodbye!

So, what to do when one is lost?
S'not only death that takes us away.
Its whimsy, its fate, its luck, its pain.
Its happiness, its sorrow, and decay.

~ A poem pinned to the Sisters' Torii Gate.

[RainIsABirb]

In the northmost rocky mountains, a small letter bearing a refrain is offered to a gravestone.

my hate swells, my hate sighs
through tides of uttered lies
ever-sailing, ever-moving
til' shores to which it arrives

there the dog cries
and the cicada screams
there trees grow tall
and forever evergreen

there, far, in the pines
i'll be waiting- long apart-
with my deepest apologies
for a frail maiden's heart

~ tandava

[RainIsABirb]

And long were we in walking, far beyond the place of stopping.
Where the horizon dropped behind, and no animal dared to go.
And upon that crooked path, the earth itself was to be watching,
Stalking upon the fools who had long yearned for home.

And long did we seek the taste of earthly fruits.
Forever did we thirst for its bounty of blessed dews.
Long were we in walking, far away from the place of stopping,
Where we fools ever-mourned for a place to call our home.

And here upon interim, and here upon bridge,
We fools watched, slipping by, our reasons to live.
And then within wallow and then within pain,
We clung onto our spirit, cursed her cleansing rain.

For what good in pausing, beyond this place of stopping?
What poison is to dawdle, in longing, in pondering?
Her lesson imparted, her truth unveiled,
Yet Man killed Death, and in that, we failed.

~ "What a stupid lie we're told."

written on a paper pinned to the Torii Gate of Death

[RainIsABirb]

THERE IS TERROR IN THESE TWO EYES

IT'S A FEELING I KNOW ALL TOO WELL

STARE OF PITCH and BREATH OF RIME

WATCH ONE DIE and HEAR THE KNELL

"... s-shit. I'm scared."

THERE IS FEAR IN HER ONE LEFT EYE

DIAMOND JEWEL SET IN PALLID SHELL

SHE WAITS FOR ME AROUND THE BEND

FAITH FOR WALKERS BEYOND THEIR END

".. I do understand. Yet.. so do I believe in you."

THERE IS TERROR IN THESE TWO EYES

IT'S A FEELING I KNOW ALL TOO WELL

FOR TIMES THAT COME KNOCKING FAST

WALKING FAST TOWARD OUR KNELLS
"Just don't be waiting too long, okay? It'd b-break my heart, if..."

AND OH WHEN I ROUND THAT CORNER

WEARY BUT DRY AND GRINNING ALL WIDE

SKIN LIKE SILVER IN MOONLIT SPLENDOR

SHE'LL NEVER STARE WITH FRIGHT AGAIN
"... I love you."

---

[RainIsABirb]

"Today, I went on retrieval duty.

Smog dusts the bleak landscape and overhead the fury of Atrellya's Imperfect roils on in the form of clouds, unyielding even days after their maker had been reduced to nothing more than the ash that blows like snowfall. Even the best words do little to fill one in on the true extent of the agony that is war, and even I cannot muster them.

The carnage is stomached with the grit of having seen worse, though as usual, it comes with the concession that one cannot truly stomach it; only pretend. This, then, is an expected horror, and one I had deliberately chose to expose to myself. Yet something out there in those ashen plains went beyond that idea of horror- it was more than I'd bargained for. Looking back on it, I should have known.

For what I didn't expect was how hard identifying them would be.

An errant limb catches my eye, bent in more than one place and coated in muck, yet identifiable by the five fingers that still in death clutch tight to its weapon. Grasping ahold of it, I find half of a torso and little else, burnt so black there is naught but charcoal- whatever material I could possibly use to discern who it once belonged to having been scattered with the ash. This is no isolated incident. I now find it lucky if I am able to put a name to a body.

To you others: You were, perhaps, a son, a daughter, a spouse, a parent, and a soldier. You now leave behind many thousands of estranged people, missing something. They will wonder where you went, but I can not tell them, not truly.

You become a number on my list. And I am helpless to change that."

~ Tandava, Knight-Captain

[RainIsABirb]

".. I wander, longer, I toil and try,
Long for life to come soon, pass me by,
Like an old friend found so suddenly;
Hi. Why? I missed you. And, goodbye."

'Tandava has done it again," they must be saying about me.
"She's gone and done it again."

All events in my past have circled back to account for zero.
I am still the same afraid child I have always been, still selfish
and ignorant to the deeper meanings of the world I inherited.

I have exposed myself to a thing that will inevitably shatter me
... again.

In doing so I have learned something: that, as I am, I confound
all definition of what I believe myself to be, and surely confuse
all definition of what others believed myself to have been.

The Visionary asked the Demon a question, I remember: 
"Is it that you crave for a storm so endless,
it consumes the light in you?"

I have long lost my muse, replaced by a hall of broken mirrors.
I am a narcissist and a coward. What self-disrespecting wretch

wouldn't?