No Child of Man Could Follow

Wanderlust in my heart
Restless blood- fiery veins
As grim ghosts of my past came haunting
Seething with doubt
I could sparse hold my ground
Searching for signs when a raven struck down
Judging my soul with an ice cold stare
Ages of wisdom
Ageless black eyes

A soul laid bare before those pits
Bereft of want and fancy
Of aspirations made by man
Fool's gold - false glory
Relish in the dream untold
Within it grander paths unfold
What once was dear proved meaningless
Our need is far beyond

So meet me on the winding road where only the desperate dwell
Behold in me a vision three
They shape the flow of all

In days of yore I craved release
Now must decline death's invite sweet
It was far too soon our paths would meet
Yet part of me is still there
For I was damned with clarity
A path of thorns and agony
Transfixed in eerie silence and overwhelming woe
Existing out of space and time it spoke with not a word:
"I'm here to give thee counsel... But never consolation..."
And worlds I knew came tumbling down in crumbling ruins and ashes
Dead planets and extinguished stars as far as the eye could see
Did fill my soul with ecstasy and nigh inhuman glee
Did shatter all that had been thus far, for the first time I could see

Then in the cry it uttered
That shattering banshee's wail
A universe within enclosed did lay, proclaimed in unknown tongues
Yet my heart, it understood each poison word
Did strike the anvil of my soul
Of my soul

And every road entwined did graze
Adrift where lost souls wallow
On pathways where my answers lie
No child of man could follow
Cosmic storms swept all I was
The end of my existence
Within I braved a horror though never did I flinch
For in these dreadful eons my essence was reforged
An influx of wisdom blinding the virgin retina

Witness to damnation
Shepherd of the end
My despair is hollow
It heralds of rebirth

"Rebuild then in the places
Where only thought exists
As the others taste but ashes
In the furnace of your will"

A mighty fall, now forced to be
A vessel for purposeless misery
In remembrance dear I once lived more
Mere shadow of what was before
Such rigid sight, a puzzled past
Of what should be yet could not last
Not here nor there yet lost between
I am trapped in the eye of the Raven

It was the sound of rustling wings
Tore me from my vision grand
Defeaning silence pierced my being
Like a storm of nails

Lifeless, torn and broken
The beauty of my own demise
I collapsed unto myself
And plunged the heart of the abyss

Drifting
Lost in a timeless void
Cursed to eternally behold
The mirrored path unfold

How I howled and wept
Laughed and cried
Lived and died
I was empty- whole and perfect
A creature most fulfilled