Hemlock: Shadow Pages

by Sean Michael Argo

  The twilight city is what you bring to its streets… brothels, alleys, speakeasies, a wasteland of your own making. I’m in over my head, but this is the last trench, where the weak die and the strong rise. I learned how to fight, how to scheme, how to lie with my eyes. The Gambler, the Nightmare Man, turned me into a weapon, pointed right at the heart of the city itself. I could have fled, could have let the streets burn, but I knew he would never come with me. Shift was incapable of flight. Invictus Extremis, and as hardboiled as they come. Love is expensive my pretties, and the sales tax is a killer.

  My lipstick goes on smooth, red and vibrant, the slinky dress hugging my body a warning to anyone looking to get in my way. Shift is in the street, the trench knife sharp enough to cut soul from flesh, ready to strike the moment we exit the theatre, ready to spill His blood to the cawing of the black birds. My plans are set, my schemes plotted, my charms well-hidden beneath vice and skin. Such fools we are, mad with love and without care for the perilous deeds to be done. Tonight is the night.

  THE NIGHTENGALE’S PLAYLIST

  This is my Magick

  Drumbeats in my ears matching rain on the pavement

  The heresy in my eyes hidden by sunglasses after dark

  My tools hang from my side

  And I walk without care because now I know what I am living for

  This is where I make my stand

  The in-between places call to me like old friends

  Unseen worlds masquerading as alleys, tunnels, and the forgotten places of the world

  Nothing can take the light away

  It lives in this place

  And it shines through me

  Where there is mystery and wonder you will find me close

  Here Gods walk as homeless men

  Addicts and whores do battle against unspeakable evils

  Old things walk in new skins

  Telling the stories that will save the world

  This is sacred ground

  You have been warned

  The Black Rose

  Once I told you there were no regrets and no goodbyes

  You answered with a kiss

  I walked away from you

  And into the dark heart of that bitter swamp

  Enfolding me with its streets of shadows

  Covering my tracks with cooking smells and rot

  Sometimes I dream of those Creole nights

  And I can see her standing there

  Her short red hair and green velvet dress

  A spirit of the city

  Come to see whose feet tread so lightly upon her cobble-stoned streets

  Morning

  Slender fingers touch my own

  I remember the snake path

  And the murder goddess in your eyes

  I move across fields and mountains

  I cross deserts and forge rivers

  Still I can feel you

  There

  Behind my eyes

  Caressing my heart with the tongue of a thousand lifetimes

  Stealing the breath from my footprints

  Together

  Always one step ahead and one step behind

  I shake the dew from my hair

  And join her by the cooking fire

  Flatbottom Blues

  Green leaves and butterflies

  Do they know who comes near

  So many bricks lost in the storm

  We buried the old man on the hill

  I will never tell

  That doesn’t mean it will stop hurting though

  The hay needs bailing and momma’s got supper on the table

  So me and the boy say goodnight to the hanging tree

  There are a lot of bad things down in those swamps

  But like I said

  I’ll never tell

  Mutual Annihilation

  Sliding through the club maze

  The pulse of life all about me

  Always seeking

  Hunting that one frequency that means release from my pain

  A selfish hunger I must feed

  Pounding music in my ears as I become the silent pillar amidst a sea of sweat and motion

  Our eyes meet and the world shrinks into my gaze

  You can feel my hands on your sides from behind you

  You fight to run yet you crave my danger

  I am the insolvable equation

  The unasked question in you throat

  And the slithering serpent of my spirit will burn away your fear and doubt

  Like a sacrifice to dead gods we meet in a brutal embrace

  Alone in the Dark

  Something in the snow

  A presence in my mind as he walks towards me

  In his hand I see the chalice

  And from his lungs the words I have longed to see

  A song in my throat as I beg for my secrets

  Only now do I see the shadows that hide his face

  The Far Shores of the West

  The arrows take flight

  My shining stars on the bloody sea

  They cut through the shadows at my heel

  Whispering hope into my heart

  Steering me clear of danger

  And though death comes upon a foul wind

  The White Ships carry me swiftly to paradise

  Dream Not Dream

  Fireflies in my gut

  The sickness of a thousand years

  Crawling on my skin are the nightmares of generations past

  Who is it that sings to me in the moonlight?

  The thing that has dragged me from my sleep to sup at the table of thieves

  I am the Midnight Duchess

  So I play the part of the Fool

  Tuck me in again won’t you?

  It’s so cold outside

  And I‘m afraid to be alone

  Sigil

  Your radiance is in my heart now

  The only warmth in my cold watchtower

  I can see my love stretching in all directions

  I exult in my pattern of pain

  Those flesh-hooks that bind my spirit

  Painting beautiful lives with my blood

  This is the price I begged to pay

  The snow covers my mistakes

  I pray with my tears as they become the flowers that fall about you

  And I remember why I came

  Nemesis

  From my perch I can see the glitter of hope

  And the silent enemy that stalks it

  As I turn from words still wet with life’s ink I can feel its breath upon my cheek

  I run through chapters

  And yet it follows

  I hide in paragraphs and hurl at it sentences of desperation

  But still it captures me

  Snaring me in its vice

  You cannot escape me it whispers in the dark

  But I do not hear it

  Already I am plotting the pages of my escape

  Street Magick

  Liquid words flow through me like silent blue lightning

  The crystal droplets that wash away the stains of the city

  The drug that brings me back to myself

  I answer questions with bullets as I go melodic

  Enraptured because I am fundamental change incarnate

  I am the back alley sentinel and the penthouse mystic

  Shadows melt and secrets ignite to the break beats of my power

  The chaos factor in this static labyrinth of glass and steel

  Watch closely and you will learn how to change the world

  But do not linger

  Lest you be forced to make a deal with a dragon

  Dominion

  The whitewashed walls that define my prison are bare

  My murals of hatred no longer mar the rooms of their creation

  The stigmata of rot has been swept away by cunning hands

  I watch with hollow eyes as others take my place

  Has it been so long?

>   I am cold and alone

  Dangerously jealous of their warmth which I cannot share

  This was not a happy place

  I mean to keep it that way

  The white paint cracks as something underneath begins to stir

  Once Remembered

  Spirits of a land lost speak to me through my headphones

  A sister to the streets of history

  Alleyway shamans brew the potions that bring me to god

  The rave beats of my people as they dance the world clean of its sorrows

  Guns come at me from shadowed corners

  The rain stick my one defense against the dry spell in our religion

  I know what the vermin have seen from their burrows that tunnel under your evil empire

  Seek my life because I know who you are

  Step to my razor and make my name live forever

  Talking to the Mirror

  So many mistakes

  So many disappointments

  Living a life that was forced upon me

  My bloody teeth and the world that keeps hitting me in the face

  I take my trials in stride

  Though sometimes anger becomes the killer in my skull

  Crying for release

  I am stronger than you

  Because isn’t might right?

  Bullets in my brain

  Pushing me to the edge

  Everyday tripping into the next

  Love is the stain on the floor that won’t come out

  Damn you for being so wonderful that I don’t have the strength to give up

  Open Mic

  All I need is an audience

  Validation because someone else is looks me in the eye and says

  I suffer too

  Hung on a pole like I’m alone

  Hands on my ears to shut our your sympathy

  I need my fear

  Something that tells me what is real

  On the day that the sun does not rise

  OM

  My fury is my pleasure

  There is a jewel at the center of the lotus

  A hatred and the will to use it

  Gnashing my teeth in the effort not to smile at my own black comedy

  The Baron

  There’s a hunger in the whimpers of victory

  Steel scaffolding hides the menace that stalks the boiler room

  Don’t fall asleep

  Hands pitter-patter on pipes under my feet

  Spindly ghosts and my grandmother’s marmalade

  Confusion runs like rain in a gutter

  Shuffle and sigh while the masters decide your number

  The man with the top hat smiles

  The coming of chaos means his work is done

  It Came from the Shallows

  Thunder on the edges of the marshlands

  Salt in the air bites my senses

  What comes at us through the murky waters?

  Engines of escape churn the mud

  Harpoons scream at the deep

  There are things best left in the frontiers

  I fall in the wake of its evolution

  Trapped by the cage of my prejudice

  Hunting the lies in my soul

  It will steal your memories

  Jaws open wide to suck in the sins of the blind

  What makes the end so hard to accept?

  Color changes to red

  Muscles slacken and will not serve me

  Cornered by illusions as the stagnant water fills my lungs

  The Fair Folk

  I watch from my perch as the bright people revel in the light

  Smiles and joy so abundant

  They seem to drive away the shadows that wait in the hard rain of the real world

  For tonight there are no monsters

  Problems and worries are checked at the door

  All enjoy the comfort of good company

  Pretending that the world isn’t so vast and frightening

  Whoever said that disillusionment was the joy of enlightenment was a thief and a liar

  The Occult Underground

  Behind sunglasses worn at night

  Hidden in the pages of books ancient and new

  Down alleyways and on dark streets

  Buried in the broken languages of madmen

  The real world bubbles up from the cracks in your ignorance

  The secret world lives

  Dancing in the shadows

  Victories and defeats

  Dramas and tragedy

  All go unseen under the awareness of the self-appointed masters

  My devil’s cloak covers my true name as I move among the blinded legions

  Footsteps echo in the halls of dream and spirit

  The fate of everything balances on the blade of encrypted truths

  Open your eyes

  The world is not the veil that obscures your perceptions

  Stand up and be counted among the lights that burn away the darkness

  Seeker

  I move silently through the tangled wood

  Keeping to the path of the quarry I never hope to find

  Somewhere in the silent trees the hunter awaits

  We three who play the game of nature

  The green grass is cool under my feet

  A subtle reminder that life always endures

  The stone maiden gives me nectar from the heartspring

  My arrows fly straight and true

  Prayers to hold you up when you fall

  The Shrouded Glen

  The green man has led me here

  This hidden sanctuary

  He knows what doom seeks me on the road

  My weary bones laid to rest as I continue my journey

  Tree and leaf reach out to me

  Holding their wayward son

  A bird lets loose her song

  The warning of danger near

  I pull on my boots and draw up my cloak

  Shadows enter the clearing to find it empty

  A soft breeze the only sign of my passage

  Wic

  His beard obscures the frowning old man inside his eyes

  Holding up dead spirits with a walking stick

  Grumble grumble

  Always drawing on that damn pipe

  Bringing chaos with him

  Never early

  Never late

  Never on time

  And bugger you if you don’t like it

  He walks his own way from the beginning to the end

  Wizards do that sort of thing you know

  A Moment’s Reflection

  The rain softly drums upon my hooded brow

  A small constant on this tumultuous path

  The air is fresh and cool

  Not like the clinging odor of the crypts that lay behind me

  The water runs rivulets about their cold stones

  The epithets of days gone by

  Now choked with lichen and mold

  There is a peacefulness here

  In the mud and creeping roots of the past

  But for the open graves and the ichor upon my chipped blade

  One would almost never know what horrors once filled this place

  I gently close the cemetery gate and leave this place to its well-deserved rest

  Tides of Grey

  Sealed in winter’s soft kiss

  The skeletons wait buried in my heart

  Swirls of color wash out the vandalizing madmen

  Beautiful boys on the beaches

  Never singing again

  Hold me close Babylon

  This time it looks like the sacred clowns are going to win

  Revolt in an Alien Tongue

  I remember you sometimes

  Teeth in my skin

  The way you smiled at the bar

  Clotted wounds crack as I move

  She took your picture I think

  Toes crushed by the weights I carry

  So many yea
rs I should have slain

  Scars on my lips as others kiss them

  I know you can see what others don’t

  That’s what makes your smile so hollow

  You see it don’t you?

  Taste my tears and walk on traveler

  Just pass me by

  Sliding upwards into infinity as the lights play across dark fields

  Push

  Streetmen preach the gospels of war

  Worshiping the plastic gods

  Monsters in the sky

  Death in the glowing eyes of the jungle

  The monkey god has come for his children

  Morphic resonance

  Rotted fruit in unknowing hands

  Too many permutations

  My primitive mathematics fail me once again

  Voices in every window

  The eyes that hang in the air

  Behind the wheel I begin to scream

  Morphine

  Snakes slither over smooth skin

  Her lips full like blood

  Hair teases my flesh like a promising whisper

  Hidden in her hands is the fruit of sweetness and decay

  Warned from birth of its passionate perils

  Yet still I walk through the grove towards my doom

  Her beauty is my beacon

  Dragging me down into the hungry soil

  I am seduced in my thoughts long before my eyes can betray me