Tag: poetry

Titan’s Wake – The Story So Far

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

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Shining cities and tower tall,
broken at its feet they fall.
The Titan, red ash and smoke
in Cataclysm’s voice it spoke.
Then nothing but sand and wind
and death.

Then at last in caverns deep
The dwarves were first to break their sleep.
Their Empire rose in steel and stone,
bending all hidden in sand alone,
to kneel and bow to
the Lion Throne.

The Roots of Stone patient stand
until Dragon curse from human hand,
bit and tore at Secret Seal.
Druid-child born to heal,
led companions brave
across the sands.

There they found in canyon’s peace
a giant with crystal-heart to cease.
Bitter miles and hidden fear,
full of doubt but purpose clear.
They broke the heart,
to break the curse.

No curse they broke, and cursed their own
The sacred Roots a tomb of stone.
By Dragon-Word they slipped away,
awoke in chains both black and gray.
The Machine-City of Zero,
where the Dream sleeps.

Tales they heard and songs of light,
their learned much of Zero’s spite.
A story of a different sort,
the gods own ruin by Dreamers thwart.
Undo the Titan, free every mind,
at Dragons’ return.

With brittle lies and fortunes blessed,
the heroes fled from the Dreamers’ nest.
They brought their strange tales and questions meet,
to lay at Sunset Company’s feet:
The Final Seal is found,
Zero rides.

Under sand and over stone they flew,
up spire and in air they knew,
the Temple Unknown, invisible and sure
they fell upon harsh knowledge, pure.
The Mask of Six found
a new bearer.

And there they fought against the Dream
Red blood flew against Sunset’s gleam.
Fleeing death and Zero’s might
the Mask unleashed a blazing flight.
Far to the west,
beyond the moon.

Led on by words of sleeping hand,
they journeyed west to a frozen land.
Beyond the desert, beyond the glade
Seeking for both Guide and Blade.
In Raven’s Hall,
they claimed them both.

Snow and mountain spire,
their path lead to secret fire.
A hidden temple amongst the snows,
where secrets wait and death’s wind blows.
The machine flickers to life,
and the Mask shines with fervor.

Careful now, you heroes bold
for what you find down in the cold.
It’s hidden heart slowly beats
Power does not die, it only sleeps.
Words and tales and songs and lies,
the empty choice is hero’s prize.
Make your way or make your grave,
the blindfold-man is Fortune’s slave.

Love and Parallel Dimensions

G. Derek Adams1 Comment

Let’s talk about love and parallel dimensions.

I’ve had a theory for several years that it is far easier than one supposes to slip between alternate worlds, through the membrane of reality between eyeblinks. It happens all the time and most people rarely notice because the worlds we flip between are ever-so nearly identical. Here there’s a red house and there it’s blue. Here my keys are on the table, but there they are on the hook. Has that McDonalds always been there? Did this shirt always have a black stripe? We travel when we sleep and things are almost the same when we open our eyes.

Almost the same.

You find yourself talking to a friend, but things seem strange. They know you from Universe 247B, but you are remembering Universe 8-Jacket-907. Are your memories congruent? What’s the margin of error? In Plato’s Cave are we remotely seeing the same shadows?

I like this theory a lot. Maybe it’s because my memory is  a constantly rumbling Etch-a-Sketch, or maybe it’s because I lose things all the time, or maybe it’s

Artist - seventypercentethanol
Artist – seventypercentethanol

because I feel a distance between me and most humans. Some souls are a little less anchored than others, more easily sent adrift through the worlds.

I also fear this theory a lot. One day I might slip too far. Open my eyes in a dimension where no one knows me, or a place where every ill decision waits to wreak itself upon my brow. Most people slip when they sleep, but some days every blink shows me someplace different. Every car ride, every corner turn, every open door a new dimension. I try to hold on, to navigate, to touch stone and remember. The wind keeps blowing, ceaseless and patient.

But then I see my Beloved.

Somedays I slip far away, even from her, but then we blink together. We blink together and I am home. And when we sleep we slip together and wake up someplace new, someplace stranger — but together. We blink together and we are home.

There are more worlds than this and we dance through them unknowing. A forever carousel of worlds and souls and change and wind. A single life can get lost so easily, spun out of the gyre into worlds dark and forlorn. It is only the gravity of love, the shining thread in the dark that binds and must not break. There are those who believe it immortal and inviolate, but I am too full of shadow to agree. It burns all the brighter for its fragility, it holds all the stronger for how easy it is to shatter.

Thank you for knitting the cord with me, thank you for travelling so far with me. Across a billion worlds I prayed to find you. May the shortest distance between two points always be our thread, hand in hand we travel and I always wake up home.

I love you.

Blink with me and we are home.

Riddle Box Opening Verse [ Sketch 2]

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Have you come to play a game?

All the pieces are marked

all the clues will  appear

one by two, two by one,

running through the

weightless halls of the manor.

You have come to play a game,

the killer and the killed.

Blood on white marble,

blood on shadowed wood,

blood on blood,

blood on fire.

The game has come to play.

Follow along, the string in your hands,

the song in your ears.

Eyes sharp, hearts dark.

The two travelers step through the door,

the door shuts behind them.

Forget the names and play the blood,

sing Tomorrow and hold back the flood.

When the two sing together, they shiver apart.

No better tutor than fire-blasted heart.

Leave your tears

it has already  happened

we merely pick up the pieces

and put the board away.

Riddle Box – Opening verse [Sketch]

G. Derek Adams4 Comments

The door shuts

behind you

and you sit down

at the banquet

and sit down

at the show.

Have you come to play a game?

Artist Unknown
Artist Unknown

All the pieces

are marked

all the

clues

will  appear

one by two,

two by one,

running through the

weightless halls

of the manor.

You have come to play a game,

the killer and the killed.

Blood on white marble,

blood on shadowed wood,

blood on blood,

blood on fire.

The game has come to play.

Follow along, the string in your hands,

the song in your ears.

Eyes sharp, hearts dark.

The two travelers step through the door.

The door shuts behind them.

Open the game and play the blood,

sing tomorrow and hold back the flood.

Welcome to the Riddle Box.

World Under Construction – Tone Poetry

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment
Artist Unknown
Artist Unknown

The secret roads of Night
the falling leaves of Autumn
the bright blade
shining in the dark.
Farewell to kith
and farewell to kin
we go forth into the Forest
hunting monsters
and singing strange songs
in the bower of Dawn.
We have no family
except each other
no story
except this one.
The fire burns in the night,
but is ashes come the morn.
Will you come and ride with us?
Will you come and die with us?
This is no time for heroes,
but the road calls all the same.
This is no time for heroes,
but we will remember your name.
— Swordkeep’s Song by Tyrol Limmermere
First Bard, Court of Pondegrance 1501

 

The Sage is In [Round One]

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment
I put up a status on my FB fanpage asking for questions to fuel my next blog post. It’s been a while since I’ve activated my Sage prestige class, so please enjoy the shiny wisdoms here for your consumption. I’ll put up more as they come in.
Why do fools fall in love?

– Laura T.

What is a fool but an empty head?

Unencumbered by malice

or worry

or thought

they fall because

they fall without pause

gravity puts them

where they need to be

safe in the grooves

the record-turn of destiny

while we

the wise resist

our brains heavy and thick

with proud lines and numbers

clatter across the vinyl

while the fools

fall deep

into the simple clasp

of moss and time and

the slow revolve.

If you were going to play a pirate character in Pathfinder would you a) go Rogue or Fighter? b) what two weapons would you use? c) Drow or Tiefling?

– Daniel D.

Interesting question – I suppose it all depends on what type of ‘pirate’ that you have in mind. Are you thinking Errol Flynn – swashbuckler? Or more of an Edward Teach/Blackbeard – hardass murder dispenser? For the sake of this response, I’ll try to take the average of the two extremes.

a) Neither. I would go with a Ranger/Gunslinger multi-class. Dump most of your levels into ranger for the Two Weapon Fighting Style, and then focus all your Favored Terrain and Favored Enemy slots on aquatic types. Also training up a suitably vicious Animal Companion that could fight alongside you at sea would be wise, I recommend a Dragon Turtle.  Stack on 3-4 levels of gunslinger for the firearm proficiency and Grit points – a true swashbuckler could continuously fuel the Grit pool with all their feats of derring-do.

b) Falcata for main hand, Dragon Pistol for off. Your primary damage is going to be through melee, the spray effect of the pistol is mainly to soften up low-level mobs and disperse damage across a large group.

c) Tiefling. The bonuses to INT and DEX are key for a nimble fighter build, as well as the racial bonuses to Bluff and Stealth. Also Drow haven’t been cool since 1997.

Well, this looks promising.

G. Derek Adams4 Comments
Exhibit A
Exhibit A

The

Method

To My

Madness

A Collection of the Incoherent Ramblings

of

G. Derek Adams

I think this was from high school, sometime. It’s apparently a poetry portfolio, and since it’s on notebook paper, I’m guessing I did it at the last minute and banked on my native charm with our Gifted Teacher, Ms. Stephens to carry me through. And from the ‘A’ scribbled on top, I guess my plan worked. Here follows the transcript of three awful poems.

What Is A Poem?

A poem is the color of night wind blowing.

A poem is the sound of green things growing.

A poem is the taste of the headman’s blade.

A poem is the smell of bluish-green jade.

A poem is darkness.

A poem is light.

A poem’s a bandage.

A poem’s a knife.

A poem’s all of these; and more

A poem is both key and door.

OH MY GOD THAT IS TERRIBLE. ‘bluish-green jade’ really? REALLY. Oh man, I really thought I was super clever with this one — showing the scent of a sight, the sight of a smell, IT’S LIKE I’M WALT WHITMAN OVER HERE. And then the juxtaposition of ‘knife’ and ‘bandage’. Wow, it really hits you. Hits you hard, with all that TRUTH I’m dropping.

To Be Sung Tunelessly

Trees grow (in the ground)

Waters flow (up and down)

Winds blow (through the trees)

Farmers hoe (dirty knees)

(Now thank me for giving you the Secret of Life)

Holy shit. Okay, I’ve got to believe I wasn’t serious about these. I hope, I pray? Okay, last one.

Error

I  hereby state that Galileo and Copernicus were all wrong.

The world revolves around me;

Whirling and twirling in front of my eyes.

How dare they!?!

That I could possibly not be the sum total of creation!

I am not a speck of dust, oh no

It is the stars that are tiny;

No bigger than a pin head

and less important

-Anyman

Ha, this one wasn’t too bad. It probably also marks the last time I ever used a semi-colon.

Something there is…

G. Derek AdamsLeave a comment

Something there is

like black iron

in the spine of humanity

fragment uit ‘123 DOOD’ Artist: illustrafrieke
fragment uit ‘123 DOOD’
Artist: illustrafrieke

not always, not forever

but enough

enough to preserve

to stand in the wind

enough to unbend knees

and grit teeth

found when we seek

proof again

that we are

to be feared

a horror of human will

great weapon of the mind

skeleton-metal and unbroken

singing in our bones

how terrible

and certain

the salamander birthright

of the children

of man.

Abracadabra

G. Derek Adams3 Comments

Art is a magic spell.

With each line, each lyric, each spatter of paint, each glob of clay we cast it. Careful and mad we summon the spirits once again, the true power of our race, that we may act as conduit to the Unknown. Even the dullest brute among us calls out to the demi-god of the television remote, the demon of the freeway, the howling eidolon that lurks in stones and stars and the thousand turns of dumb luck.

But artists are the true shamans.

We need it to mean, we need it to matter. With matter we shape the energy latent, the paths untaken. Some see God in the scratch of the violin, some seek God in the twist of wire and glass. Others just want to show the pain, the rain, the song of the train. All energy, all magic, passing through our hands in an instant then gone.

But if we cast proper, cast careful, cast well…the spell can linger. The shape and form of enchantment can suck in air, and its hands close as if by reflex and it shambles forward into the world to wait for a new victim, a new audience. What we make with true hearts can ward and weave the world, sing it quiet into a better form, shine as a light in the dark, cage the dark beast for a time, hum and giggle like a wine-drunk fairy.

So take it serious, take it real, pound your bones to meal. Stomp and stammer and crash and clamor.

Sing a song, write a tale, draw a thing. Dance or build or break or live.

Make it. Make the thing. Cast your spell and keep your eyes clear. Open the gate in the back of your spine and let the magic work.