A
GOTHIC
TALE.....
(يقبرني)


Framed by our window, skaters, winding in and out the wind, as water reeling so kept in motion, on a well-honed edge spin out a gilded ceiling. Fish, reflecting glow for glow, saints around the sun, are frozen with amazement just one pane below. Skates flash like stars, so madly whirling one can hardly tell which is sky and which the watery floor... one night two straitlaced couples, a footman over them, rode out in a dappled-horse-drawn sleigh onto the river, a moonlit lark. The ice broke and they—sleigh, footman and all—riding in state, rode straight on into the lidded water. "That winter all winter folks twirled over them who—framed in lace, frost the furs, the shiny harness and their smiles the fire that keeps the place—sat benignly watching."

🫀 “One foot out, one foot in,
are we real,” thought one, “we who
wander sheepishly in dreams, or they,
the really sleepless eyes, under us? And every night who knows (a laughter
troubles us like dreams) who skates
(a thousand watch fires the stars)
above, peering through the pane?”

"The Gothic dusk" extends her serpent shadow. Ruined the hamlets on the northern shore, Ruined the walls of the entrancing cities, Ruined the walls of the unhappy craftsmen, Ruined the walls against the sea. The walls of the Sunday-adoring village have vanished, The walls of the liberal saints and the holy three.

You will meet it as a corner you cannot turn, a gate flung open, a muffled struggle offroad... in the woody murk where the old track hums under mulch and brambles. You will be a traveller in the midst, "alone". It will throw itself into your bag as a weight so heavy you cannot go on.

IT WILL BLOCK YOUR PATH IN THE BODY OF A BONE WHITE CALF OR LADY EYES LIKE SWOLLEN MOONS, IT'S VOICE THE SPLASH OF STONES THROWN IN DEEP WATER IT WILL HOWL.

It will carry its "coffin" or its "head" or its "child in its hands." It will follow you home. It will make you promises. You will try to rid your house of it - the radiant boy of it, heirloom drab of it you will take it still screaming, to sea, and drown it, you will bury it day after day and find it always back where it started, its lamp casting light through every window, its small "skull" shrieking..

(موت)
DEATH.

Why do you fear me? I am your friend. I but guide travelers rounding the bend-lead them to freedom from time and age, help them start writing on a new page....

Seek for me never, keep your course true when I am needed I'll come to you, then I will show you toads without end, why do you fear me? I am your friend.

GRIM REAPER.
(AZRAEL)

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME,
HE COULD TAKE YOUR SOULS ANYTIME.