Dare You To Tread Upon This Path? - Caleb Scott

Dare you to tread upon this path, my friend?
To walk that line which hath so many slain?
Think you yourself to spare from that same end,
Escape with pleasure, lacking cost or pain?
Aye, my feet too have trod that shadowed track
My eyes into the mirror’s glamour stared.
If no more learnéd man may turn you back,
Then heed a brother’s warning, or prepare
To stand awash in crimson testament
To all that in your hunger you have spent.

Prey - Anonymous

Can salt ever be such as sweet?
As a blooming rose in mid-may,
Or water ever hold the heat?
As beauteous entwined bodies lay.

Nay! Salt is pungent, water cold,
Its depths are deep and midnight black.
But that is how it keeps its hold,
Its beautiful mysteries do attract.

The sun, it sets, its hollowed rays,
Turns to one with the ocean blue.
Fire red and deep purple lays
Across the sky with solemn hue.

And night! Oh night! The chilling night,
Bathed in the silver of the moon
In its reflection filled with might,
When Heaven, stars, and sea commune.

But soft! Take care, just hear my final pleas.
I fell as prey to the call of the seas.

Anachronism - Caleb Scott

Accursed be this wretch, afflicted with
McClane's sad fate - to find myself entrapped
In time and place so poorly fit for me.
Allow me, pray, to ride unbound and free
Abroad in vast uncharted, deathless plain;
To live for death, for life by pen and steel
Made meaningful, in honor proud to die;
O for the chance to kneel in high regard
And swear to noble monarch noble life,
In days when King was more than crown alone,
And death and life so intimately known.
Give me the chance to live that dying may
Be but a worthy end to well-lived day.

The Blood - Aaron McAndrew

Even some friv’lous vice can burn.
My heart hath tasted hell and knows
That through the Blood is quarter earned.

Most life lessons are hard way earn’d;
And despite our face we cleave our nose.
Only through Blood is quarter earned.

Over squalls of mercy have we yearned.
Too easy to soil the snow.
Even some friv’lous vice can burn.

And when it seems as if we’re spurned,
The squall comes ‘gain, the grace doth flow.
Only through Blood is quarter earned.

And so we suffer, our souls churned.
Easy and smooth life never goes
‘Cause even friv’lous vices can burn
And through the Blood is quarter earned.

In Only Death - Aaron McAndrew

In only death will I be free
From haunting dreams of twilit shores?
(Where first I trapped you inside of me.)

Or from the fact that I can’t see
Past crimson bruises, scarlet sores?
In only death will I be free?

In filthy colors I find such glee;
Watching them as they leak out pores.
(It happens when you’re inside of me.)

At night I hear the jade banshee
Wail out her cries of locked doors.
In death will she (and I?) be free?

I wish I’d be the cold, black sea
That doesn’t mind man’s probing oars.
But no, you’re still trapp’d inside of me.

If only I could find the key
Without getting down on all fours.
I guess in only death I’m free
From the world that’s trapp’d inside of me.