Work Text:
Cup of Ace
Author’s Note: Wrote this twelve years ago. Enjoy the poem and R&R.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or of the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX series.
Summary:
The touch of darkness is intangible when lowered upon one enslaved by light.
There are those who fear darkness
The livid scream through corridors of glimps’d nothingness
The listless future incited by the unspoken, the impalpable, and the uninformed
Howls in the distance, devoid of sound
Shadows melting, returned to dust and grime
Phantasmagoric fingers outstretch into the mists, incorporeal as they graze the veldt
Barely finding purchase on clouded nightmares
Thirst broods like absented cancer
The tongue is scraped of flesh, the throat filled with rust
Eyes blackened in their sockets, air stripped from asphyxiated lungs
From the lake, the goblet rose, awash with summer flora and rose-scented elixir
Drink, a voice demanded, and all will be well
An upturned reversal of fate
Bury the skies in azure currents
The potion’s tang was sensed till the very last drop disappeared
Sinful white – Hell’s finest banquet
A light that must not shine
The Material Road
Within Fate’s workshop, beyond prairies of bronze daffodils and clockwork entrance hall
Ashen hands, dripping red, twiddle and tinker away at arcane subjects
Irises of dull blue and faded granite torn to the cheek
Bloody runes engraved into silver palms
The magus’ misfortune tweaks the interest of the harlequin, who is only paces behind
Noxious fumes escape the skin, burning through tendon and lace, silk and bone
An undying fire that curses its handler
A long-abandoned craft which forsakes the forsaken
“I am who is, and who was, and who is to come”
The ticking of a broken pocket watch
Urges the Magician to desert his work
Within Fate’s throne room, looking upon reflecting pools and porcelain tiles
Veiled maiden, proud and motherly, enacts her lord’s decree
Breasts exposed to vexatious air
Boils and abscesses spread about diseased arms
The queen’s plight is forwarded by the priestess, feather stained with ink
Castle guards rush to her side, but lower themselves to the murder of Her Highness
A treacherous cordon that butchers its benefactress
A call to battle which silences the silent
“Strengthen what remains and is about to die”
The swiftly-forgotten lineage
Curses the Empress with disremembering joy
Within Fate’s kingdom, past outer city limits and stone effigy
Crowned aristocrat, on horseback, gallops into the village with a manic grin
Cleaved torso grafted to his neighing beast
Blade still jutting from between dangling nerves
The king’s disfigurement is mourned by the matriarch, lifeless on the ground
Head thrown back in deranged glee, as though he were being treated with electroshock
A steed that incapacitates its rider
A mutinous flaw which terminates the terminated
“There before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it”
The fall of a thrice-scorned empire
Drives the Emperor to madness
Within Fate’s bedroom, behind drawn curtains and locked door
Undressed couple, passionate and fierce, indulge in wanton desire
Clothing in scraps clinging to bare legs
Jewelry biting hard into the neck, so forceful as to snap it in two
The partnership’s end is declared by the priest, hollering to the mob
Child of incarnate wastes, spawned of erring wedlock
An infant that beleaguers its parents
An unwilling heart which foresees the foreseen
“I watched as he opened the sixth seal”
The sexless relationship
Pains the Lovers with malaise
Within Fate’s countryside, atop trampled grass and private courtyard
Imperial carriage, gilded and obtuse, enters onto the overpass
Serrated wheels threshing through the dirt
Tethers strewn in a flailing mass, like the tentacles of some oceanic Kraken
The wagon’s destination is imparted by the progenitors, condemned and ashamed
Every trip wrangles a new client, choking though the process may be
A stagecoach that throttles its passengers
A rope which subverts the subverted
“These are they who have come out of the great tribulation”
The foolhardy transmigration
Sends the Chariot to cliff’s edge
The Spiritual Road
Within Fate’s battlefield, before shielded rows and armed infantry
Disciplined claw, brutal and firm, closes around the underdog’s skull
Plethora of bruises running down his back
Knuckles pressed into the arena, nails scouring hedge
The fist’s mark is carried by the transport, navigated onwards in urgency
Squandering of power, falsified trustworthiness
A might that exhausts its fighter
A pentacle which commands the commanded
“There came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake”
The dissipation of once-exonerative valour
Impairs Strength with meagre push
Within Fate’s woodland, from above treetops and motionless foliage
Alien cadaver, blemished and deformed, rocks to midnight cadence
Inverted guillotine speared through by falchions
Sightless face dragged along the forest floor
The lynched one’s crucifixion is invited by the gavel-bearing mitt, guiltless and unjust
Deriding is the execution, no shed of crimson
A vision that pronounces stagnation on its seeker
A selection of suits which proposes the proposed
“They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death”
The inmate on death row
Becomes the Hanged Man to noon’s clamour
Within Fate’s amphitheatre, among roaring spectators and rehearsed orchestra
Cackling noblewoman, bewitching and resigned, awaits first dance
Vivacious hair dirtied without headdress
Brooch dropped carelessly from leather-gloved paw
The abstinent countess’ bauble is procured by the reaper, lethargic towards his duties
From the mezzanine come jeers of retaliation, authentic raucous
A regulation that spurns its legislator
A moderation which annuls the annulled
“They are blameless”
The unannounced intervention
Guides Temperance with heedless affirmation
Within Fate’s netherworld, from below tempestuous blazes and iniquitous nest
Immoral demon, skeletal and cyclopean, orders the ruin of all
Triplet omniscient hemorrhaging globes
Heliotrope ignited in steam-congested aperture, profane supplication
The fiend’s alms is partitioned by the lady, ignorant sacrificial lamb
Ooze spewing from fractured cartilage, inconceivable twisting of frame
A scythe that shreds its undertaker
A compensation which defiles the defiled
“Out of the temple came the seven angels with the seven plagues”
The chronicled disaster
Tempts the Devil to macabre comedy
Within Fate’s reflection, beneath pockmarked gorges and bubbling crater
Gibbous entity, indecipherable and hieroglyphic, awakens from phantom slumber
Umbrageous outbreak on anemic cheeks
Ruptured gestating walls eclipsed by crescents, unconcealed veins
The satellite’s blanket is attended to by the stars, guileless servants
Waning stillbirth delivered through membranous bosom, detached cacophony
An illusion that besots its witness
A dream which muddies the muddied
“A haunt for every unclean spirit”
The obscuring of the phases
Washes the Moon ashore with hallucination
The Heavens Road
Within Fate’s universe, between lingering seconds and turnstile hour
Suffering planet, crestfallen and removed, withers conterminously with time
Tenebrous wreath of Sephiroth
Binary constellation mapped ubiquitously onto bas-relief, geometric superimposition
The terrene’s revolution is dowsed by the inquest, redeemed verdict
Over catastrophe the populace totters, ludicrous return
A cycle that breaches its circle
An eternity which embodies the embodied
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End”
The movement of spheres across the cosmos
Ordains the World to destruction
Within Fate’s bounds, amidst gravitating tetrahedra and jettisoned mosaic
Creative destructor, almighty and exceeding ultimate, unmakes faded essence
Sanguine glow throwing open the hatches of draconic horror
Nebulous vortex and rippling core, conflagrated quasar
The ruler’s descent is polished by the smog-effused pillars, tipped scales
Unsound resurrection from Golgotha, aurous palisade
A scripture that misnames its messiah
A candelabra which recovers the recovered
“There will be no more night. They will not need the light of the sun”
The white rapid at galaxy’s edge
Premonition of the End of Ray
The monsoon that dares quaff the Twelve Apostles
Seeps traceless onto tousled sand dunes
The chasm that glut sanity
Advises by wand to R’lyeh, submersed basilica
Exhumed monolith belches brackish water, loathsomely drained through vaulted edifice
Desiccated morass of bald raptor, frittered spells, and spoiled masonry
The roulette called Destiny spins, reborn in reverse
Bottled yesterdays cast into a sea of fire, embezzled orrery
Outrunning echoes at the finish line
Had he so much to gamble, that he be saved too late
Vagabond splash of forlorn sorcery
You and I are alike…Monsters conceived of fate
A stormy interlude
This world, this star system, this universe will be dyed white
The chalice is empty
The last stop on an incomplete, derailed track
A hope for darkness in lucent Tartarus