A/N: Please no one ask why I've taken to writing iffy poetry – I couldn't tell you, except this weird thing wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it out. I haven't tried poetry before so feedback would be appreciated.
Dedicated to Elizabeth's Echo because I am so happy she is better! Apologies for such a paltry offering.
If you're bored by this poem see if you can spot the (some subtle, some less so) allusions to: Oscar Wilde, Lady Macbeth, a classic nursery rhyme, Coldplay, Beth Crowley and the poem 'Not Waving But Drowning'!
The (Noble and Most Ancient) House That Black Built
I
This was the (Noble and Most Ancient) House that Black built.
Four children stood in the ruins,
Of its shattering, rotten foundations,
And laughed
At the empty Black sky.
They were all in the stars,
Looking at the gutter:
One scornful,
One confused,
One torn,
One curious;
But some part of all of them longing
To be in the gutter too.
Because you can't fall
Off the floor.
They did though.
II
First they fell
From the Black sky.
Then, somehow, they fell
Further.
One fell into a darkness that smothered
Her light;
One fell into such lightness that he appeared
Dark;
Becoming Black holes
That no one can say for sure
Which consumed which.
All we know is:
Those two were falling all along.
The others fell quite differently.
One jumped
(Instead of fell)
And was caught
In someone's arms.
Landing safely in the gutter
Made it no easier
To watch the others
Fall.
The other fell all at once.
Fell much too far out.
His light,
Which had already been smothered in that Black sky,
By that Black sky,
Blazed up as he fell,
But reached no one
Until long after
He was gone.
III
It is hard now to say who was more
Broken.
The one who was tortured by them,
Was nearly killed by them,
But fought against them?
The one who tortured for them,
Killed for them,
Fought for them…
Until he didn't?
The one who never could see
How broken she was?
Or the-one-that-got-away,
But,
In the end,
Escaped least of
All?
They four burnt so bright
They burnt themselves out.
Fierce fire rained down,
So they stood in the wreckage –
The craters of their own downfall –
And laughed Blackly with dry eyes.
IV
Then they were gone.
Only a feeble phoenix of truth –
Too little…
Too late –
Of what they were
[And should have been]
Struggles from the ashes
Of lies and cracked promises
And whispered memories.
V
A fragile, delicate flower is left,
Madly,
The last one standing,
But then, the Blacks always were
Mad;
Invincible, unquenchable dazzles of fire
Burning so bright
They burnt short
Then out
…out, brief infernos…
Leaving only an incongruous bloom
Rooted in the ground
(So she can't fall)
To bear silent,
Aching witness.
She cannot fall.
But her petals can.
And they do.
One for every star that fell:
A slow torture
Instead of a quick
End.
Until a desolate, bare flower (stripped naked) sways
In the scorched ruins of the
(Noble and Most Ancient?) House that Black built.
A house that crumbled
From the bottom of the generations
And the top of the world.
She droops,
Crumpled on her hands and knees
In the ashes
Of an ancient tapestry of
Hate,
Frayed away to
Nothing,
In just
One generation,
Soaked in Black blood,
That, after All, is
No Blacker,
Nor purer,
And knows that even though
She did not fight,
Was not,
Is not fighting,
She has lost anyway.
?
Once four stars told her,
They shone for her…
But then they burnt out
And what is left
But a hole
In a black sky.
So she breaks
Centuries
Of deranged stoicism
And four decades
Of personal practise
And cries.