At the Gates
​
Remember the night we crossed Canterbury Gate?
Betrayal bought our way in–us little band of Goths.
The rhetoric is dangerous, I know, but descriptive
of how it felt. The hazard it imagined. That sense
 
of something turning, of history, of the music falling
from high above. A patient mess fuelled by courage,
we barely knew each other, not then anyway,
yet–oh well. Everything would be ending soon enough.
 
We shivered in the cold, waiting, and forgot what we were.
All our hopes hinged upon on this one, fantastic moment.
This was Rome, and Rome would be ours, and tonight
we would dance in Rome. Mock-heroes, after all, never
 
know about the truth. Not before the turn to morning.

The Girl Who Could Talk To Landscapes
​
Once, a long time ago, while the mountains were still growing and the sea was still deciding on its colours, there was a girl who could talk to landscapes. She had always been able to. When she was very young she used to sit by the edge of her village and listen to the trees argue with each other in the Old language.

All places converse in the Old language. The Old language is the language the world speaks. It is the language the wind whistles in and the pebbles chatter in. Her mother used to tell her that the world was simply a whisper, a secret exchanged between two gods, and the Old language was the language it was whispered in.

All this was well-known back then. Many linguists at the time believed that the Old language was the source of all communication – that in a conversation, every word is translated through the Old language to imbue it with meaning, because the Old language is the place from which all meaning derives. [read more...]