The Emergent Sea

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  • Fall of the Bower of the Gods – I

    by

    Monādān, Confronted

    I – Monādān, Confronted

    A creeping song of malcontent,
    Entered through a fragile hide,
    The One in doting, is absent,
    In Bower of Gods woe betide.

    Thy fair kindred gathered ’round,
    Suckling on unmarrowed bones,
    Abandoned their fears compound,
    Shambling on to vacant thrones.

    The Bower begets / boisterous offspring,
    Whose lilting lyres / lay all low,
    In the boughs of tall trees / talking, tasking.
    Twilit Lorëlei to spy and know,
    The movements of gentle father, to his garden go.

    Lorëlei with secret babe at hand,
    The unborn, brimming with potential,
    Wresting her courage from those hidden lands,
    Striking action where kin are ornamental,
    Speaks lullabies to that unborn child,
    “Covenant, sweetling, the father reconciled.”

    For it seemed the babe beckoned back,
    A-filled with promise and distant motion,
    To be set apart, as the One,
    To challenge him in grace, and ruin.

    Lorëlei onward pressed,
    Past the empty seat,
    Thru starry hall,
    Her empty nest,
    Where once she rest,
    Her aching feet,
    Now raised she up,
    On gilded barge,
    Made in honour,
    Of fae entourage,
    Star Weaver flotilla,
    Lighting unlit stars,
    Musing their beauty,
    Of beauty, they are.

    Out she sailed,
    Toward the leaguer,
    Thru the veiled,
    Field of stars,
    She assayed,
    To greet the marked Weaver,
    Whose mighty art,
    From worlds apart,
    Tore her from,
    Father dear.

    Then she wheeled / warily to flotilla,
    Cresting carefully / on creative convoy,
    Chancing to steal / sight of Silūria,
    A sojourn of vengeance upon up-jumped toys,
    Outgrown their play and weaving the future,
    All while father, in his stupor,
    Dishes out our birth-right owed,
    As gild for his fae-turned bride.

    In midst of cruising barges,
    Recapturing her childhood fancy,
    Lorëlei wracked with urges,
    To drop her ills, engage in whimsy,

    And watch the dainty dancers,
    Engage in their great task,
    Nimble, weaving, world-enhancers,
    Sowing in stars her every ask,
    Their sellic charm, all enamours.

    Adrift and adorned,
    Wariness beaten from,
    Her heavenly body,
    In a sea of storms,
    Crashing in agony,
    Pangs of creation,
    Dancing in ecstasy,
    Sweet sublimation.

    Then after a mere glimpse,
    She is ruptured from it,
    Upon a torrent of anger she hid,
    Stirring even the weavers,
    From all their schemes diverse.

    There, on the horizon of the bound,
    Father reclines and whispers,
    Sweet nothings and tingling sounds,
    In fair, romantic discourse,
    With bold Silūria, in her manse.
    Upon them Lorëlei descends.

    About him she glides and swims,
    Circling his body like celestial sphere,
    Who in his orbit, at his whims,
    Captures his delight and holds him dear,
    Every orbit, coming ever nearer.

    Till finally rests upon his palm,
    And shaking God begins to calm.
    Lorëlei sick of this wild psalm,
    Seethes and wreathes anger and harm.

    Her body straining,
    While her coiled tresses,
    Abound her skin maiming,
    Tighter and tighter caresses,
    Constricting,
    Stoking fire so bright,
    Itself smoting,
    Till body wrapped,
    Wracked and fading,
    Suddenly from depths there came,
    A wailing.

    Outstretched the wretch, Monādān,
    Lord of the first ere world turned,
    Embraces daughter, enwombed a Son,
    First offspring of Progeny unspurned,
    Monādān sought to temper the foetus learned,
    Whose touch, raging fire forever burned.

    For at the moment, he braced her navel,
    Out sped a force whose endless course,
    Hammered a beat, thundering loud and stable,
    Cowing the lord, filling with remorse,
    For on the horizon of being,
    Was a nascent force,
    Who when risen up,
    Would be his unseating.

    Continued here:
    https://emergent-sea.co.uk/2025/08/06/fall-of-the-bower-of-the-gods-ii/

  • Diamond Eyes

    by

    Our meek scholar,
    Caged on all sides,
    His tyrian collar,
    And Diamond Eyes,

    Beam endlessly,
    Through walls of mist,
    Searching restlessly,
    For some lucky tryst,

    With the great sea,
    That envelopes him now,
    In which he would be,
    Truly made to cow,

    He last standing,
    Of his fallen order,
    His heart demanding,
    He stand taller,

    Than the fled brothers,
    Who in great disarray,
    Abandoned this folly,
    And sped away,

    Alone now he dwells,
    Upon the brink,
    In a mighty tower,
    Whose light will sink,

    Into the Deep,
    Of mingled ocean,
    Lest he keep,
    It in his devotion,

    This fearful clerk,
    Set upon by foam,
    Duty will not shirk,
    As water claims his home,

    Rushes to the beacon,
    Shatters beaming glass,
    Clutches up the pieces,
    The fragmentary mass,

    Scholar of the Brink,
    In the Dark,
    Has eyes to see,
    All things apart,

    But can never unfold,
    The rose in his heart,
    That remains untold,
    Too close to impart,

  • Veneration of the Victim

    by

    Her heft and gilded chalice,
    Tapped from her bower bold,
    Faintly taste vain malice,
    Sup the saccharin cold,

    O adore her in repose,
    Her erected obelisk,
    The eyes of all her foes,
    Stone them ye basilisk,

    We cleave to her throne,
    We prop our schemes abed,
    Till sharp tongues hone,
    The weakest join the dead,

    Harry the weeping wail,
    And chisel face proud,
    Heavens we assail,
    Mighty tower to the cloud,

    Now in silent accord,
    An order unto us,
    May swift end we afford,
    To those who cause a fuss,

    Now venerate the victim,
    Sardonic icon formed,
    Cherish her cause verbatim,
    Till next our world is stormed,

    I know that many idols,
    Are hated and then loved,
    Yet when they rise I sidle,
    To the feet of them above,

    Now the age all but creaking,
    Tired construct soon to fall,
    My heart set in sinking,
    Am I to rise tall?

    I notice now my peers,
    Quieten when I’m around,
    When I lay forth my fears,
    I scarcely hear a sound,

    Her body torn down,
    My worries fully grown,
    I wear the pretty crown,
    A victim set in stone,

  • O Bear Your Estranged Child

    by

    Bear me a babe in arms folded,
    Scooped up and swaddled I go,
    Formed, shaped, then in you moulded,
    Bear me please, God in absentio,

    Tears bleed from faithless eyes,
    I strive, I try to adore,
    You see thru me, I cannot not lie,
    Grasping your promise more,

    The deeps I plumb uncovering,
    Threads I dare not pull,
    When I drink from there within,
    I drink but can’t get full,

    Were it easy to hold the light,
    I’d store and cherish my days,
    Sore twist of fate, your delight,
    Hides in mysterious ways,

    Yet is my hunger proof enough?
    Good’s proof therein my core,
    Or is the struggle and the puff,
    Modern yearnings for more?

  • Damn of the Clock

    by

    Handing out the finer points,
    To satiete the needs of the rhyme,
    Bending the field to ordinal joints,
    Bringing Mr Time in line.

    For he needs-must that weedle guts,
    That raver, craver of flavour,
    That bulbous ticker out his chin juts,
    Outrageous keeper, bird-grand-hoarder.

    Cough, cough at the damn of clock,
    Spurn ye little dogs, oh mortals!
    Little does he know the people so mock,
    His flagrant, flatulent foibles.

    Damn him, damn him, as the clock ran,
    Too scared to care, hiding the words he sang,
    “Oh little old me, dishing out minute span,
    ‘Tis the want of the clock to ring and clang!”

    “Bother who? Bother me? Some or tother,
    Ring, ring, destiny home to mother,
    Little old stuck on hands that flutter,
    Back and forth goes the time and they all natter!”

  • Wheeling World

    by

    It is as though all the world wheels,
    Past while I am fixed,
    A flash procession about me reels,
    And I within it are mixed,

    The bound between two streams,
    The subject imposing difference,
    Proscribing what it all means,
    Defining all existence,

    Upon my seat I track the moves,
    And draw them into my story,
    Wheels become the thundering hooves,
    Of the foaming steeds that bore me,

    Up upon a wayward path,
    Thru brighter climes and dreams,
    Fleeing from the world of wrath,
    Fall thru a gap in the seams,

    It is more sober in transition,
    More subtle being so free,
    No rebuttal will change my vision,
    Nothing will shake me.

  • Fall of the Bower of the Gods – II

    by

    Return to the Bower

    [Narrator]
    Clutching her stomach, hope unborn,
    Lorëlei retreats to the Bower,
    Gathering about her the Progeny swarm,
    Beneath her barge, her grief’s tower.

    Her tears dammed, an inevitable tide,
    Her wrath uncloaked, her hair arrayed
    A mane of war, for in council confides
    The sinful lusting her father displayed.

    Hearing the news:

    Onáðon,
     With will to power

    Melodië,
     Who tunefully mews

    Ilmátria,
     Mother to future mother

    The offspring Mago,
     Who would abuse
     The fragile Progeny,
     Would choose
     To cast out that usurper,
     Siluria, detested muse.

    [Mago Speaks]
    “Spurned was my father
    In first council with the Lord.
    Afeared was father’s father
    At Onáðon, kindled sword.

    Cast out of the scheme,
    Held in the leaguer—
    Oh what could have been,
    If our lot were not meagre!

    What we would have risen,
    Had the Father not been
    Wracked with indecision,
    Wretched amongst children,
    Afflicted craven…

    I, Mago,
    Commend we assail them.”

    [Narrator]
    And now in hope’s hollowed chasm,
    The Bower did groan and become as a cage,
    A jealous air permeating as cosm,
    Like some fell miasma of rage.

    Yet as it permeated it muzzled—
    A rage from the daughter of transgression.
    At the inner firmament it nuzzled,
    Threatening to yield a silent expression.

    [Onáðon Breaks the Silence]
    “Dearest son,
    Flame of my hearth,
    In you have we won
    Free Age from dearth.

    Champion of the new sun,
    Risen and become,
    Our rights are trampled,
    Our fates by the Weavers spun.

    Our Father enchanted,
    Sundered from works begun
    By that foul temptress
    Undone by Siluria the doted.”

    [Narrator]
    Mago met his father’s gaze,
    And pride flared in his nostrils.
    He bounded forward with speed to amaze
    Up to Lorëlei, contending her wills.

    [Mago to Lorëlei]
    “Dearest kin, Lorëlei
    Up close I sense your secrets.
    From dearest all-mother you hide, you lie
    The source of all your regrets.

    For now your action hath unveiled
    That our humble garden
    Stems from a primordial tale,
    From our Lord’s great distraction.

    He, architect of our gaol
    A land of bounded play
    While he, in years hale,
    Left alone to frolic in the hay.

    But dearest kin, Lorëlei,
    This is how you would have it
    A cage for children
    Too clipped to fly,
    A small seat for you to sit in.

    For in your Bower, a nascent flower
    Whose indomitable power you’d wield
    Emergent son from immaculate womb
    To lord over us in our tomb.

    Oh, I see you: father-sister-daughter.
    How your action breeds contentment
    But you did not factor in your laughter
    That we will not bound in our growing resentment.

    Once more I offer here
    My sparking testament:
    Let’s free ourselves of fear,
    Pierce this stifling firmament.”

    [Narrator]
    A thunderous silence grew in the garden,
    And into that silence stepped Ilmátria,
    Whose brooding intensity began to harden,
    Lighting the dais so all could see her and harken:

    [Ilmátria Speaks]
    “Mago dear, you speak so firmly
    None can dampen your raging furnace.
    Your words empower me to attend grimly
    My estranged daughter and her waxing malice.

    Withholding from mother her growing bounty
    The cornucopia of splendour within her.
    Her hidden joys, rights ripped from me
    Stolen love—my needs to nurture.

    While she,
    Unceremoniously,
    Bears her unborn babe
    In sorority
    With Melodië
    That filtered and dimmed ray
    Of desaturated light

    In quiet judgement
    Over my womb’s blight.
    While she weeps
    In her children’s sight
    Cowardly sister, would you not speak?

    My daughter’s captor—my motherhood you keep.
    I grant her to you.
    I will go now
    And fill my womb,
    Hot on Mago’s tail.
    There is work to do.”

    [Narrator]
    The fiery host emblazoned with glory,
    Casting their light throughout the hall,
    Marking each other as players in story,
    Shadows rendering, their figures loomed tall.

    [Melodië Enters the Fray]
    “Sorrowful maid / your Silent Sister,
    Quite afraid / in raiment of alarm,
    Names gnawing / pains groaning,
    Do not dare / dain assail the dam.

    Father’s fickle / yet fights for his plan
    Let him lay / while lay he can.
    He is surely stricken—don’t strike him now.
    If he is doting, let him a little.”

    [Mago Replies]
    “Well spoken, senior
    More than a spectre of yourself.
    No wasted words; you speak cleaner
    Than my humble self.

    My words spur to act,
    Yours but to delay.
    So elegant, matter-of-fact
    Now you have had your say,

    You may retreat back to your tract
    With your daughters, Lorëlei,
    And lay.

    You have no part in our heroic pact.
    I swear that even our god—I’d slay.”

    [Narrator]
    He waited for his raucous applause,
    The chorus giving him his due.
    When he opened his eyes, searching for cause,
    He spied Onáðon’s eyes—coals burning blue.

    Shrinking under the majesty of his father,
    Mago bowed and stooped.
    Onáðon spoke—Mago’s pride was slew:

    [Onáðon Speaks]
    “Little son, what have you begun?
    In this sanctimonious place,
    Wielded words like weapons you’ve done—
    Placed on war footing our whole race.

    Have you not spied the creatures
    Watching from the astral tier?
    What have they made of this preacher—
    Who, so eager to take up the spear,
    Blasphemed against father dear?”

    [Narrator]
    Then all the host gazed at the stars,
    And all of them noticed motions.
    Those dainty Weavers in their cars
    Some spurred to break their devotions
    And descend upon the rebellious clans.

    [Lorëlei, at last, speaks]
    “My duty is like to all the kindred
    It was no easy task facing the Father.
    Have you all become so blinded
    That you would spun our Lord, and rather

    Take his mantle—his rule rescinded
    So that you could pilfer his art?
    Have you forgotten where you are placed
    Tiers beneath Emanation’s part?

    In your hubris you have raced
    To erase our Father’s bleeding heart.

    Mother—how quickly you give me up
    When I sought solace with Melodië.
    Know that I always will return
    To your gilded cup.

    I will venture wherever you say.
    This bud that threatens
    To tear us up
    Know its gift is yours,
    Your power at play.

    I pledge myself to you, Allmother,
    To regain our love for one another.”

    [Narrator]
    Thus parted the Progeny and the Offspring.
    Their council arraigned,
    A will to action and heroism ring
    Their virtue forever stained.

  • The Atlanticist

    by

    Harken, Atlanticist,
    To the deeping gyre,
    Heedless wreckage,
    Aye, the ire,
    The wasted patronage,
    Slipping under ocean shelf,
    That furtive quagmire,
    Fallen in the gulf.

    There was a time when you thought:
    “If the world should crumble, let it fall—
    I shall gather the ruin,
    And through my lordship,
    Usher in the dawn.”

    You sped on the wings of your fancy,
    Swiftly, upon that device you flew,
    Unconcerned with future clemency,
    Should the eye of scorn fall on you.

    Two arms outstretched,
    Pulling the lands together,
    A bold scheme, no less,
    But lacking leather for the tether.
    More’s the pity—there the sunder.

    Did it never cross your thresh,
    That all your uppity labours,
    Binding us to that bloated heft,
    Would drag us into ill weathers?

    Why, you oughtn’t have thought
    You could drag the Leaguer of the West
    Over the sea to lands you sought,
    Americana yoked at your behest.

    You thought you could bind the lands,
    Raise a colossus of old,
    Whose legs would straddle western lands,
    Whose body reared-up as Atlantis bold.

    But your great hands could not move the lands.
    Your colossus legs split and buckled,
    Tripping on hubris’ gait,
    Before fully weaned or suckled.

    What became of your grand delusion?
    Why, it fell into the ocean.
    From west of west, no aid did come,
    Despite all your devotion.

    Pulling against the axial wobble,
    Chains to set the world to rights,
    A great year & great leap fumbled,
    Yet skies not set in deigned night.
    Atlantic Age dipped from sight—
    Lo! Our deranged hopes and sunken might.

    These are the fruits of all your labours,
    Your mewling and commotion,
    While the abyss still spits and murmurs
    At your altogether, untoward motion.

    Look at these things you have wrought—
    All toil heedless in vain.
    Look at all the bubbles come laughing up,
    At your machinations, profane.

    More’s the pity, more’s the doubt,
    You mockery of man—
    Snuff that dreaded pilot out,
    And return to Prometheus his due,
    The hallowed fire that birthed you anew.

    You gathered up that holy flame
    In some demoniac rite,
    With dampened spark, the future tamed,
    An age where no hero reigns,
    To rid us of this dwindling blight.

    It was your lot to squander
    These waning years of ours,
    Binding ourselves to places yonder,
    To wonder at the supplicant, coat-tailed bride,
    While we, in managed decline, decried.

    In all of Christendom, I never knew
    A cabal of rotters as fell as you.

    Silence, while battles in the eyrie
    Saw hawks devour the doves—
    And tangled in that feathered blood,
    They, forgetting where they stood,
    And played as only doves could.

    You have eroded every stone
    On which we had oaths to swear.
    Now, none to bully back in tow,
    You at the helm with your medusic stare.

    The elite, replete in hidden vales,
    Pallid masonry beyond the pale,
    Whose busy hands, in frenzied state,
    Erecting impossible geometries in their estates.

    Charts, stocks, and latest frocks,
    Appeasers, pleasers,
    You oligarch teasers.

    With you stuck to the wheel,
    Wishing upon an empty throne,
    Fallen and brought to heel—
    Too late to atone.
    Your stuck colours amassed,
    They, as cold as crossed bones.

    Despite early hiccoughs,
    You sell plan as-seen,
    Tall-tales—“We’re made of sterner stuff!”
    All aboard the pipe dream.

    Hollow out the holds,
    Ring-fence them in,
    Return to your abodes,
    For supper do sing.
    In the middle, we do as told—
    And the middle, why, the middle never folds.

    Quick champagne do,
    Strawberries & cream,
    And off we rush,
    Aboard HMS Pipe Dream.

    Hush below deck,
    No one shouts down the captain,
    He’s a little green in the neck,
    And needs you to help him.
    Pity Providence’s son who leads.

    We should have set off under new stars,
    Parameters reached and placed ourselves,
    You cannot blame us,
    Because you were harmed—
    The heavens not arrayed as our fancies depend.

    Then is then, and now is now.
    We cannot reconcile.
    The old allies went out in style,
    Not to be spurred awake by your guile.

    We are fixed, transfixed on saving face,
    No tricks, to switch with rank & file.
    We have fallen out of grace—
    The anointed, reviled, to stiff upper lip resigned.

    And in front of all human race,
    We drag the spark unto its resting place,
    The grave of empires in Atalanta arraigned.

    We should have set off under new stars.
    Instead, we hitched on fading Polaris—
    Out goes the light on the Atlantic farce.

    Wake up afeared captain, it’s time for tea,
    Our figurehead Europe sinks into the sea,
    The drowned lady calls for thee.

  • Homunculus of the Ocean

    by

    The Homunculus of the Ocean

    I was beached upon a ring of white,
    Enamel rocks jutting out a gaping jaw,
    A rush of water almost sent me on,
    Through that yawning maw,
    While a singular terror studied my awe.

    The ring was crowned in a fading grey,
    A second circle of sacrifice,
    Tiered, the Elder whales were splayed,
    A fetid boneyard to block my descent,
    They, pierced in some jagged rite,
    Beheld in the periphery of my mariner’s sight.

    That flood of mammalian blood,
    Spraying out over the eye,
    Amidst that red mist I stood,
    Gazing, hazily over the obscured deep,
    Homunculus of the Ocean’s sigh,
    I, screwing my face, damming tears that would cry—
    I dare not weep.

    As I waded into that Deep,
    Shambling through the whale-bone structure,
    Up to my knees in congealed red seep,
    Heralding a bloody geyser of the stuff,
    My throat straining from imagined stricture,
    Gasping, I reached for my last tincture,
    Washing my spirit in opiated elixir.
    Brief, blissful mixture.

    It rose up of a sudden,
    Rearing, the barnacle-crusted heft,
    Crashing a wave, drenched me sodden,
    In that mingling, mired water,
    I swear it spoke to me on that rocky cleft,
    Speaking of the lonely tides—of Ides Bereft,
    Nascent ripples of the bleeding depths,
    I agape, at my heart’s theft.

    Or rather, it sang of a melancholy,
    Of a sonorous age forgone,
    Reminding me of our great folly,
    Those stricken sailors in waking dream,
    Heeding the Ocean Song,
    Driven ever northward, sped on by that melodious wrong.

    In its sadness, I basked,
    As time stayed the water,
    In music, there was I tasked,
    My charge ringing in my ear:
    Seek the iris of the eye,
    Bring back whale-daughter dear.
    Fear, fear!
    Rapture me from here!

    No—Surrender to the Elder Song,
    Sonor of the Homunculus,
    Greet sighing eye of the Ocean,
    Where the Lorelei meets us,
    In watery embrace, find devotion.

    The Flammifer’s mast folds,
    No hope of homeward return,
    Dare I dain breach the watery holds,
    Or die upon my sunken stern?

    I have at last heard the song,
    And its beauty I will not spurn,
    My heart is already won.

  • Polity Strife

    by

    Now arisen at Tyntálon, tenpenny crews,
    Of base and low mores, marred by broad news,
    Desires of plunder, and to sunder the capital,
    From dear land that feeds it, to feast as a Vandal.

    Our kin languishes in darkness, kindness gone by gloaming,
    “Sate your appetite!” from slake mouths foaming,
    Malefactors waxing, with admonishing wit,
    Largess of Splendour, to Society’s writ.

    Borne from liturgy, our Lady Misrule,
    Forever the player, Providence’s fool,
    See now courtly games, the gainsaid names,
    “Innocence!” Vultures proclaim,
    “Leave us our ill-gotten gains!”

    Hope to nascent ethics, ennobled and true,
    The hour beckoning heroes, ethereal in hue,
    Justice to our Lady, time well-past due.

    Burgeoning streets all, powder in keg,
    The pauper rising too, “Rue to you who made me beg!”
    At once wordless pacts, washing over manor row,
    The crowd grabbing Ser Pratt,
    “I’m better than this, you know!

    My finery sullied, you savage glut!
    Up-jumped brigands, spawn of mutt!
    I’ll have your hands, then your tongues,
    And believe you me, you’re the lucky ones.

    The rest I’ll split, smirk to knee,
    Then hastily hanged, as fruit to a tree,
    Believe you me, that’s where you’ll be.”

    And now a hushed aura grows, goading the lord, “Go on”,
    As one they wonder, “Why, Lord of men,
    Sing us now a noble nude song!”

    But soon the gent, knave-heart returning,
    Fearing his host, his courage now spurning,
    “What called he us, comely as dogs?
    Let’s hear him whine, lashed to the hogs!”

    Laughter’s mad cheer, chiding his horror,
    Tearing his clothes, unsheathing his honour.

    To censure the riot, marched Magister Pallid,
    Mincing no words, and waxing candid,
    “Hear you all, low rabble rousers,
    Abandon your folly, find this man his trousers!”

    Heedless they went, worried little at all,
    Magister felled too, unceremonious fall,
    Dawning sun bearing, shining heraldry of law,
    The desperation drawing, diverse parties to the fore.

    Through gates golden, came Maelond of Moldon,
    His oration bent ears, and enamoured the wanton,
    “Mail has passed, molasses under the mountain,
    Seeping through springs, to my courtly fountain.

    Troubled I head, home to my blood,
    Finding it mingled, mired in mud,
    Where now is the hand, holding crown aloft?
    Where the heister of strings, while kingly arm gone soft?

    I stand in appeal, appalled in frank alarm,
    That my thick water, should come close to harm.
    Yet as you reave, from your bold anger I seethe,
    Hold now to your course, as I live and breathe!

    I shan’t remorse, your cause of just mort,
    Tear down these mercantile, misers as you ought.
    Leave but a seat, untrampled by common feet,
    When anomie is stayed, to this throne you will entreat.

    It will find you as lordly, in law’s due course,
    Reaping of our hoard, was the strife’s true source.

    Amnesty, dignity, respect through fealty,
    This all you will gain, if cause you take with me.
    Come haughty crowd, now simply hang him,
    With my blessing, bring this ordeal to ending.”