"All Hope Abandon Ye Who Enter Here." 
 -Dante, The Inferno 

 Bring forth the Light, 
 To raze colonies 
 In a single cleansing breath. 
 Don't sleep, my queen; 
 The sun rises one less time 
 Than it will set. 
 Now overhead, the stars 
 That guided our forebears 
 Have turned to dust. 
 And underfoot, the churning 
 Framework of this earth 
 Succumbs [bad word]  

 Bring forth the Light. 

 These dreams of Thunder displace, 
 Dismantled spirit's burnt bare- 
 Sylphs in the shards resounding, 
 "Open to the Field!" 
 Depatterned, floating in Grace, 
 Mapping the fragments... 
 "For to awaken and reassemble, 
 Enter by the narrow gates." 

 All has been inscribed 
 In the footnotes of time, 
 From the rising dead 
 To the falling rains; 
 From these proving grounds 
 To the burial mounds 
 Of fallen satellites' 
 Skeletal remains. 

 From a timeworn note's 
 Subtle feeling-tone, 
 To the coiled scales 
 In this mistaken mode. 
 Felt the birch bark walls 
 Of the temple shake, 
 When those who from heaven, 
 To this earth came. 

 From Eleusia 
 To the Killing Fields; 
 From the Promised Land 
 To [bad word] plague; 
 From the trenches of 
 Every whispered war, 
 To the future wreckage 
 Of the Large Array. 

 For the gate is wide, 
 And the way is broad, 
 That delivered me 
 (Insufferable in-between) 
 From the fleeting dawn 
 To this endless night, 
 In the labyrinth 
 Of the Iron Kings. 

 Now my footsteps take precedence as the traffic sounds fade, 
 And this city's lungs have purged their last breath. 
 I'm held captive at the curb before the World's End Lane, 
 Where I pledge my self to uncertainty. 
 From this shattered breaking point each new step must be 
 Nothing short of the saddest act of sorcery. 
 In search of that fleeting adversity, 
 O, merciless emptiness, that used to possess me... 

 So farewell Persephone, at rest on the altar, 
 Who dared to merge stone with the skies. 
 What curses of men guard the bridges you built, dear? 
 What doorways, what star-gates have you left behind? 
 So I'm following stardust, what's left of the twilight, 
 To get to that last jagged line. 
 To the edge of the earth by the age of rebirth. 
 I'll dissolve, end this realm, and reclaim what is mine. 

 Take in the knitting air, 
 Part with the cleansing breath, 
 Destiny turns the soils in which we manifest. 
 Suffer the burning coals, 
 Yield to the spiral tides, 
 Peer into the darkness, that all may be defined.