Poem: The Rivers of Ai

In the Wastes, the unnumbered dead shambled restlessly
Sixteen angels wept in their chains, rattling across the dirty sky
The hoofbeats fell as a long rolling thunder, kicking up ash
Over the static dial, the children wailed

Chasing the raindbow, distant fly
Craggy peaks aftar glinting white
The hollow groan of the engines of the Machine
Songs of sparrows departed spiralling in the deep

Shimmer of the mirage, heat rising off the sand
Dusty sky and dirty loam, the meadows of the Dead
Madness ringing in the ears, the droning of the hive
Locusts of the unborn wild, fecundant

Yellow glare of dusk, the poached brains of zombies reeking
The endless jingle of the bells of distant Hell
Those doors swung wide and broken
The meadows lost and broken

The patter of bloody rain on the dunes,
Nightfall cold and dear
Calming the ghosts of nightmares far
Twelve hours out from the spire of ash

Cracked bones bleached dry
Skeletal metal groans in complaining despair
Visions shattered glass eyes in the Wastes
Inferno of the arrogant, shelter of the lost

A thousand horses galloping across the cosmos
A million stars spread as jewels, diamonds flickering
Spiral dance infinite, the smoke of entropy
The lantern bloody in the night

Echoes in the deep, monsters waiting
The fluttering of the midnight butterfly
Pale flutter of the ages, tattered
Flags billowing in the wind

The lonesome snake slithers in the dust
The Spire empty and wanting
Gates only passed through in sorrow
Orchards of the empty dawn

Shards of the times before strewn in ashen streets
Windows empty of candles, no feathers on the ground
Only the shuffling memories, the rosy cloak of nepenthe
Gardens of the blackened waste