Death

And There’s a Lady in the Lake

~ Iyan Igma

In the silence of the night,
I hear a baby crying,
And the rain is pelting me
As if it were dying.
The wind is blowing with a roar;
The trees have set to shake.
Fire balls drop in lightning form,
And there’s a lady in the lake.

Her form’s the picture of mystique,
And captivated were my eyes;
And I could no less watch her there
Than a meteor’s fiery demise.
She speaks to me through the wind
And bids my soul to obey.
I leave the safety of my lodge,
And wend myself her way.
Enchantment aptly describes
How she has me transfixed,
And I count my curséd stars,
That it’s me the lady’s picked.
I reach her, and she leans in close
To bestow a wicked kiss.
Plunging her blade into my heart,
I feel only murdered bliss.
The hammering in my ears dies,
And my heart no longer beats.
But steadily she’s kissing me,
Winking as she my dead gaze meets.
Without the utt’rance of a word,
She tells me that I am hers.
By the tone I can tell that I
Mean no more than jewels or furs.
I try to flee, and she smiles
With the smirk of wickedness.
I take a feeble step away,
And I stumble into darkness.

I awake as underground falls
Crash like a weary drake.
I feel bound and gagged like a fish
Swimming for survival’s sake.
Resurfacing at last, I feel
Alive and totally awake.
I’m free of the enchantress now.
But there’s a lady in the lake.

“Pet,” she whispers through the wind,
“Do you not see? Your force is mine.
I can slay you when I want;
I can make you beg and pine.”
I knew the truth of her words
And wondered why she would do this?
She laughed at my despair and said,
“It was just a little kiss.”
But what I lost with that kiss
No mortal should have to bear.
But I’m no more mortal than
The wind e’er blowing her hair.
She sent me forth to conquer all,
My lady’s gallant knight, indeed!
A soulless wretch lab’ring for
Her honor! Her monstrous steed!
Her fear I carried to regions
Where I “died” repeatedly,
But in the instant took back “life”,
For she never would set me free.
Slumbering kings and their dead guards
And battalions arrayed for war,
Would glimpse me for a second,
And then glimpse nothing more.
Their shafts and screams could not affect
Me, though they made me ache,
For they ne’er once affected
The lady in the lake.

How I prayed they could defeat me;
How I welcomed every slice!
But the mem’ry of her lips
Was my soul’s strengthening spice.
The salt I sowed in the ground,
The carnage I left behind,
Were blessings, if others could see
How she poisoned my soul and mind.
I am not my own, and no one
Should feel the harrows on the soul
From hating the one you love,
Who you’d love to make you whole.
Through the desert she egged me on,
And I hoped my thirst to slake.
But in the oasis’s mirage
There was a lady in the lake.

And no matter where she did send
Me, I heard her tones on the wind,
“You can climb a mountain’s glacial crest
Or chase the sun dying in the west,
But you can’t escape, make no mistake,
For I am your lady in the lake.”

“It seems my task is now all through;
There’s none alive but me and you.
I do whatever you wish,
Now may I have another kiss?”
She leaned in, and the wind spake,
“Well done, my simple, soulless snake.
Now we can spend eternity
Together through my sorcery.
None shall ever my reign break.
Now serve your Lady in the lake.”

“What shall I do?” I queried,
Wishing that time would have tarried,
Though I knew the reply.
Her smile was as soothing as lye,
As she handed me her poniard.
“Free your soul. Thrust the blade in hard.”
The evil glowed which did imbue
The blade which was to run me through,
Which once upon a cursed night stole
My humanity and my soul.
It’s funny how I’d sought to die,
But looking in her wicked eye,
Dying made me want to cry.
Her murd’rous blade I plunged in deep
Where my useless heart now did sleep.
I feel the fate she did bequeath
Me as she shows her iv’ry teeth.
It’s funny that now as I die,
I miss her kiss and begin to cry.
She’ll be the last thing I shall see,
Caressing my face laughingly.
The lips I slaughtered nations for
Shall not caress mine anymore.
My knees and vision start to shake;
She smiles, the lady in the lake.

I wake up like a cotton gin,
And a storm is blowing in.
I’m at my lodge, safe within.
What a fright that must have been.
The dream gave me cold, clammy skin.
The wind brings me a familiar laugh
That rends my soulless form in half.
Memories cause my hands to shake,
And there’s a lady in the lake.

Where Lies?

~ Iyan Igma

The call cleared the sleep from my eyes
Like a plague of Egyptian flies.
I donned the first clothes I could find,
Listening to my morbid mind.
So I go down the broken street,
With no eager haste in my feet
And a heart that’s feeling wary,
To the curséd cemetery
Where I no longer go to mourn
The rotting wife from me torn
By death’s cold and unyielding hand,
Which destroys all that one has planned.
And as I reach the iron gate,
Whose cherub has a rusted pate,
My mocking mind says, “You’re too late
To stop the thieves who desecrate.”
Granite leans, and angels sag;
My apprehensive feet I drag
To the corner where lies a hole
And where recently lay a soul—
Lifeless, in supine position,
Waiting in decomposition.
How could this stench not have debunked
The desire to stir the defunct?
Carrion circle in the air,
And, lo, I see some strands of hair
Strewn in the grass the dew did wet.
Is this the hair I once did pet?
Ants bustle off with gobs of flesh.
Was this the skin I did caress?
But peering into the abyss
That seemed her company to miss,
Only darkness could I there find,
As would her eyes by death now blind.
I pick up a casket splinter—
Part of the one she did enter?—
And I wonder how this could be.
What could provoke such barbary?
Where lies the corpse that I’ve interred
Where worms and maggots oft have fared?
What hideous fiend would disturb
The sanctity of this suburb
Where souls reside far from the work
And toils the living’d love to shirk,
Except it be not by this end,
The path to which never does wend,
But goes straightly and steeply down
Some six long feet beneath the ground,
Where the living, gasping for air,
Would scarcely seem to have a prayer
Of managing a prison break
If buried alive by mistake?
Oh, how I did want to vomit
With the fury of a comet!
The police knew not who were the blokes;
The only witnesses were oaks.
Since there was naught that I could do,
To my home I speedily flew,
Thinking that there I could bathe,
While my mind spun ’round like a lathe.
And in my haste I never saw
The rotten meat that worms did gnaw
Scattered like jetsam on the way.
My mind was dark; the skies were gray.
The grimy knob I ne’er noted,
Thinking of the dead and bloated,
Until a pungent odor rose
Up to meet my pitiful nose.
Egad! Surely this could not be.
My mind is playing tricks on me.
But dirty footprints marked the path
Through the kitchen and past the bath.
Toward my bedroom the prints head,
And there lying upon my bed
Was a vision that did me chill,
For ’twas my bride that time did kill.
Surely she could not be alive,
For my lonely years have been five.
Yet lying there in her own goo
While aqueous humour seeped through,
She fixed me with a steely stare
That seemed to take away my air.
Though missing several of her locks,
She still retained her vocal box,
For I would swear I heard her say,
“My darling, why did you betray?
What is this thing that you have done
To anger your long-sleeping one?”
My mind must have started to fray.
Astonished, I managed to say,
“I know not, for I did cherish
You e’er until you did perish.”
She rose up like an addled swan,
A ghastly thing to look upon.
Her ragged approach did me stun;
I was too petrified to run.
I watched with incredulity
As she drew near ominously.
“Ah, now you attempt to be brave
When you are but a yellow knave.
There is nothing that can you save
From the misery of my grave.
Though you were true to me in life,
Dying makes me no less your wife.
E’en though you thought I’d never see,
My spirit watched your adult’ry.
And though you’d say ’twas just a kiss,
Your face was painted with sheer bliss.
If I cannot have you, should she?
I will never let you go free.”
Her languid advance did mock
The helpless state of my shock.
“With jealousy fueling my rage,
I entered my decaying cage.
Furious, from the ground I burst
To fulfill the plan I’d rehearsed.”
She reached the spot where I did stand,
Placing on me a gory hand.
There was no warmth left in her touch,
But nothing could have burnt as much.
Ne’er releasing me from her stare,
Her raspings once more split the air.
“Remember when youth crowned my head?
‘I’ll love you forever’, you said.
You vowed that death could never us part,
And sealed it carving out a heart
And our initials on a tree,
Which symbolized your love for me.
For this tree, like our love, should grow
Enduring even winter’s snow,
The cold of which would be like death:
Untimely, smothering my breath.”
And then she tried to kiss me where
Only mortal lips should e’er dare.
She oped her mouth and worms fell out;
My neighbors never heard my shout

White Mammoth

~ Iyan Igma

My fathers had spoken of this
White Mammoth that few had seen.
I thought it was a legend like
The grass that they said once was green.

They had painted stories of it
In the cold caves that we called home.
They told my wife and child such tales
While I went hunting beasts alone.

I sat fashioning a new spear;
My prior kill had destroyed the last.
I’d be crippled like these men who
Tell tales, if I had not been fast.

The flint I clacked made feeble sparks;
May they take weakness from my spear.
I only wanted strength to stay,
For this weapon should know no fear.

As I left the tales did begin.
‘Tis well to talk around the heat
About such meaningless legends,
While I freeze hunting for our meat.

I pulled the tiger hide in close.
He rued the day he’d ventured here.
I’m as grateful for his warmth as
I am for my unfailing spear.

The snow blew around me like smoke.
It was just as pleasant to breathe.
It froze in my beard and nostrils.
The wind was heard to fiercely seethe.

I descended from the mountain.
The cold my skin numbed and caressed.
I journeyed o’er the glacial plain
To where the mammoths made their nest.

I looked back on my footprints that
The snow was working to erase.
But instead of seeing my tracks,
A different set was in its place.

They looked just like a mammoth’s tracks.
It seemed like the beast was alone.
How had he passed so close to me
Without making his presence known?

I turned back from the nest I sought.
This beast would be easier prey.
I’d need the herd to separate,
Which might mean that I’d wait all day.

The snow hid the woolly figure;
I pursued its tracks stealthily.
I’d need the vantage of surprise,
And not just because it would flee.

These beasts were worse than a tiger,
And their pale tusks are longer, too.
The tiger might attack for meat,
But just one stomp could not crush you.

My brothers three and I once went
To proudly hunt a mammoth herd.
But I returned with what remained.
My parents never said a word.

After all, that’s just how it works.
We live. We eat. We breed. We die.
Sometimes we warm ourselves by fire.
We’re wounded, but we rarely cry.

What good is it to fight ‘gainst death?
We hunt here, and there we shall hunt.
We’ll eat the spoils of mastodon flesh,
And at our wives we will still grunt.

What figure’s that far up ahead?
Can that mammoth be made of snow?
Wasn’t the beast just a legend?
Should I turn around or follow?

I thought of what glory would come
From bringing his hide to the cave.
I’d be the most renowned hunter.
My legend would live past the grave.

I thought of the story I’d tell
Of how fearsome the battle was.
‘Twould be nice to share something rare
With my young hunter with peach fuzz.

I closed the distance between us;
The blizzard occluded the sound.
I raised my spear in victory.
I prepared for a vicious bound.

But as I stepped, my food slid through
The hard packed snow and ice below.
Black tar seized me and I struggled
For freedom. But beneath the snow,

Black tendrils waited to trap me.
My spear was wrested from my hand.
I sank more the more I struggled.
Would I reach the snow-covered land?

And in the middle of my fight,
I was interrupted by a stare.
Tusks and trunks framed two beastly eyes
Living in a snowdrift of hair.

‘How is it that this beast,’ I mused,
‘Doesn’t sink down into the tar?’
He looks at me with such intent
As I study him with wonder.

He seems to float above the ground,
He doesn’t have a trace of fright.
I recall few have lived to tell
Of seeing this mammoth so white.

The legends say it was no beast,
But rather an evil spirit.
Nor tale nor warning did I heed:
Hunters die who do not fear it.

Sight proved what I’d disdained, but ’twas
Too late to be saved by belief.
With the exception of death’s rest,
For dying there is no relief.

My spear broke free from the pitch muck.
In a second’s shimmering span
The mammoth morphed its appearance.
It was like me. It was a man.

I recognized his face from when
Melted water had shone me mine.
I was petrified in the tar;
Terror had firm grasp of my spine.

He grabbed my spear with a smug smile.
“I’ll be a good man to your child,”
It said, as it turned, heading home.
I fought again just like a wild

Creature, but I just sank and sank.
The last sight I managed to see
Was my body walking from me
To deceive my dear family.

Something in my black breast told me
‘Twould be a generation more
Before some hunter’d chance to see
The cursed white mammoth anymore.

Frozen Climes

~ Iyan Igma

Snow blankets the earth in purity,
As a maiden for baptism dressed;
Hiding beneath the iniquity,
Like sorrowful memories repressed.
You ventured forth with frivolity,
And gaiety your young heart caressed.
Now, like a warm wind so fair and free,
From these frozen climes you have vanished.
Our home gave no evidence of thee;
The solitude my spirits oppressed.
My hunting spoils seemed but vanity,
And with worry my faint heart obsessed.
The Borealis seemed a sentry
Signaling some wrong to be redressed.
In the darkness I searched franticly.
Never finding you, I grew depressed.
And suddenly, o’er this frozen sea,
Now appears your golden visage blessed.
“Wait, my love,” resounds my passioned plea.
But you never heeded my request.
Through the snow you glide spectrally,
Pretending not to have been addressed.
“Oh, then where can El Dorado be?”
Cried the sinking heart within my breast.
You turned and smiled quite eerily,
Like the ghost to the knight needing rest,
And beckoned to me daintily.
I eagerly followed your behest.
A wolf howling and a creaking tree
And silence as our journey progressed;
I never attained your company,
No matter how fervently I pressed.
“Let me see your face once more, Lily,”
I cried as the cold my soul possessed.
You blew me a kiss and waved good-bye,
And now Death has both of us purchased.

Like Dust on the Shores of Antiquity

~ Iyan Igma

“Do you remember when settled were we
Like dust on the shores of antiquity?
Scarcely did we e’er think to be disturbed,
Since love’s blindness is not easily curbed.
Ah, back then, so close to the beginning,
I still believed in a happy ending.
That was before the winds swept o’er us cold,
And death rearing its head we did behold.
Your head now is hoary, your limbs now frail,
But at least your faculties still avail.
I’ve watched you in your sickness and in your health,
I’ve remained through your poverty and wealth.
Our vows were fulfilled, though you cannot see,
That I was in the best and worst with thee.
Decades I’ve wandered in this anguished glade,
Hidden from thy sight and touch, my once maid.
Caressing you, oh if I could but cry!,
My ethereal hands can’t make you sigh.
Thou beast that destroyed our innocent bliss
And deny me forever of her kiss!
Oh, thou Death that didst too quickly us part
And garnered the wrath of my fractured heart!”

As you know

~ Iyan Igma

My struggles you shall never know
For before this day is complete
Ravens shall perch upon my pate
And ants will gnaw at my feet

Worms shall meander to and fro
As blind to my sorrows as you
But deep and intimate shall they get
Beneath the skin into the sinew

My heart shall finally fully burst
But not with love requited and kind
But with maggots indifferent as you
Who find my demeanor divine

Microbes will turn me into pus
As I finally learn to let it all go
Liebling, it was only a simple life
I wanted with you, as you know

Baptized before day

~ Iyan Igma

Your cum still stains my bedding
But all your affection is gone
And the dreams we shared in flashes
Of tender moments malinger on

Yet you with your scarlet tresses
Have stepped out into the sea
You plummet back into darkness
And riding air bubbles beckon me

You were ecstasy in anguish
You were tears and passions in the sheets
But these stains are the only proof
I tasted how your heart beats

Blackness swallows you and you embrace it
For the abyss to you holds no fear
And you have etched my soul with blackness
Because i sought to cherish and revere.

Burbles call my name on jagged rocks
Where the last breaths you took melt away
And these black rocks will find a friend in me
And our love will be baptized before day

Vječnost

~ Iyan Igma

I blame myself but never you
You’re too innocent to cause harm
Your words were guarded and ever true
I was the one that believed them warm

Times separates us as it must
My head is cradled in my heart’s hands
Awkwardness replaces care and trust
My rapture spills out dead on the sands

The fourth dimension kidnaps me
Your memory lies outside of time
Every moment caustic misery
How quickly your imperfections sublime

Don’t blame yourself, it is my fault
I had to escape the bounds of time
To reach the worlds that you exalt
To know perpetuity divine

Tuga

~ Iyan Igma

Tears, they are made for sorrow
But sorrow is subconscious hope
So, no tears now, my soul, be resolute
There are no illusions with which to grope

She is gone forever and happy
Should you not rejoice in her youthfulness
When she was here you were quite aware
Sorrow tinged every moment of bliss

But she is gone now; be gone sorrow
Let not hope ever stir your soul
Tears can never bring the recompense
That can end you and make you whole

Steel, it is firm and unmoving
Like the heart of the one for whom you care
Steel yourself and be unmoving
Prove to her that you loved not in err