A Lullaby for the Devil
by Alexis Child
While the guillotine is a very un-English machine,
there are present fashions of execution. Many
nowadays have learned the common mechanics
of crucifixion in superior Byzantine fashion. They
who always ate in silence, barely cracking their jaws,
seeing the unseeing, untruths told to hide the darkest
places, at midnight come knocking, where the whip
comes down building fear and loathing into every wall.
Jesus spikes travel through the median nerves,
two breasts rise up from the dirt. The crowd
crane their necks touching the bleeding wound
allowing life to surge forward. My thorny crown
drops on their bloated faces, forever in search of
its rose, a secret for a lover's knowing. Afraid, I
shall slowly morph back into the body of a dead
artist, I sound two notes, falling and rising like
names of lost dogs; but, the devil knows I'm lost.
Death seems instantaneous; walking graves
and talking bones, until the light passes
through me, my hair rising with the wind shining
for all. I know this is the living air; a terrible cold
that breaks through my soul. By moon, Hecate, witch,
crone, and mage, blow winds of anger from my skull,
these bones of rage upon my enemy before me now.
Hex of hate, I fear the evil man more than wild
of beast who cursed my soul with blackest fire.
I, too am never far away, bringing darkness over
you in the Shades. With knots of discord that
bring us to our fate, we shall dance on the day
our limbs break free from the spirit. We'll walk
the stairs of seven where you have lost your Christ.
© 2015 Alexis Child. All rites reserved until the worms crawl in…
Image: The Hierophant, from the Thoth Tarot deck, painted by Lady Frieda Harris according to instructions from Aleister Crowley.
Alexis Child hails from Toronto, Canada; horror in its purest form: a calculated crime both against the aspirations of the soul and affections of the heart. She worked at a Call Crisis Centre befriending demons of the mind that roam freely amongst her writings and lived with a Calico-cat child sleuthing all that went bump in the night and is haunted by the memory of her cat. She is once again signed to Nostilevo Records in the near future. Her goth rock band, Ceremony 7 will be re-issued on this record label in the Fall.
Her fiction has been featured in The House of Pain, Screams of Terror, SpecFicWorld.com, The Official Fields of the Nephilim Site, SinisterCity, and U.K.'s Dark Of Night Magazine. Her poetry has been featured in numerous online and print publications, including Black Petals, Blood Moon Rising, Estronomicon eZine, Death Head Grin, Midnight Lullabies Anthology, Sein und Werden, The Horror Zine, and elsewhere. Her first collection of poetry, "Devil in the Clock," will be released in print in the future by Witchfinder Press.
Visit her website: http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/alexischild/
Find more by Alexis Child in the Author Index.
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