{103}

So life will meander through
                youth and love
                smoke and trees,
                sadness and loss
                - sunshine‘s gentle breeze
                we win for a while and then we lose
                freedom from stagnation you've got to choose
                move on through
                from a familiar world of understanding
                to a brand new birth
                clean, fresh, frightening
                and tall,
                still standing.

Wherever darkness resides, lies a hidden light, which flickers, ignites and sparkles into effervescence.  First slivers of mercurial silver, mix silence in their midst;  then entangle they golden;  in her hair woven.  Like summer's honey, sweeter when stolen.  And any bright that alights the night is but an eye;  and any eye that enframes the sight, is then an I;  so darkness is the dawn of mind, and pains the eye to open into life. . .

{104}

For how many days the Knyghte had lain as dead is unsure, for only such enormities of dread can be sustained by a heart born of joy, and pure love bred.  However noble and of steady stature was the Knyghte in battle, yet how easily rendered pitiful by a cute girl's prattle!
 

Cloy tasted the sweet-salt of blood where he lay.  A sprinkle of joy, at that red taste, not un-like Bachus's best Cabernet.  Yet all the while his mind inside itself, his pride in unkind agony;  he realised that what had saved him, appeared to be quite Dragonny.

Its glittered flitter was unlike any he had seen, with silvering wings and shiny scale of morning dream.  It beckoned him with joyous heart and embraced him to another path.  Its tendrilled warmth, the Divine Goddess' most tender nurtured hearth.

And as he lay there helmless before the sky, he felt a tingling warmth, a sigh of silver tipped gold light gently entering the topmost part of his mind.

It fulfilled his body with laughter, essence of earth, presentient mirth, from the dawn of eternity, and then onwards ever after.

Naked stood up the Knyghte, new born shame unfurled, no-one else to blame in sight, and began the long walk back into the world. 

He gathered up some clothing, to prevent the scorn of those still stuck in loathing, and carefully placed each foot, perfect placed en route, to a cavern in the mountains of Dawning.

Upon entering the cavern’s glittering walls, illumined with bejewelled light, the Knyghte did find a Presence of Silver Dragon and Mercury eyes, iridescent wings, and satin smile.  And without words at all, right into his heart, did the Angelic Creature this message impart:

                I will sing to you of soft things my gentle friend

                though you may laugh at their frivolous gaiety,

                I laugh with you and them.

                Where some seek self in passionate drives,
                my light-feathered faeries hope
                to slightly sway some mighty warrior,
                to the lotus-flower of his mind.

{105}

                How the world looks from this end now
                where you really be
                                and believe
                you can feel love for what you are
                and all else
                until you're tired, and then you just got to push a little harder
                but somehow
                some people seem locked in their own realities, where
                they view themselves above all else.

                Do you really hear the words you say
                the saying you think.
                Those wordless thought conversations
                where you complain to the world

                in self-indulgent illusion?

{106}

                aah. . . more light
                to finally see clear
                no more useless angers

                to soothe with strength
                like the dove's call

                to be a tune just hung
                and passed us in the air.

{107}

Pain:  What Divine Grace could have created such pure poetry as a broken spirit?  But enthral your pain in all the lesson it teaches you, learn from it to be stronger.  Learn from the illusion of love that illusions are best treated real, if reality is dim.  If you can not believe then pretend you can.  Dance sky-clad;  sky-clad in Eden.

{108}

So the Knyghte bowed down his mantle of Knighthood, soft and gentle in the arts of war, and surreptitious as the singing of brittle scorn.  The Golden Light of Fire twisted, turned, and let out a soft plea that should the Knyghte ever fall from the saintly peaks of gilded cloud, then he should bespeak this verse to himself out aloud:

                Awaken us!
                  for we seem always in a wondrous slumber
                  on the verge of truth

                And help us!
                  for eventually even the greatest souls
                  might rest for too long by the wayside
                  and fall simply to the darkness of stagnation
 
                Rejoice in us!
                  for we are, and will always be!
                  yet never the same as what we were before.

                Humble us
                  for we may become vain
                  in all the glories of our Earth

                And soothe us
                  when we are lost
                  within the tumultuous panorama of the rainbow-light
                  which divides itself from the simplicity

                of white.

{109}

Rightly judged the Dragon, that she herself had faults, her worst moments being much darker than a mere mortal’s sin.  Being a creature of such high note was not without mishaps,  or weakness.

Yet the conqueror of war, itself is not war;  and neither is it love as some might assume.  For the succubus that sucks her partner’s venom in the night, relies on love not war for her horrors delight.  The Knyghte listened intently to the Dragon's words and thought them miraculous, their essence beyond mortal, of the nature of Divine inspired supra-genius.

The Dragon continued:  what conquers war is certainly mysterious, powerful and peculiar enough to be most precarious, yet instead of another formulae on how to be virtuous, perhaps this little verse might be of more service:

                Grey mist pirouettes in a primeval in-between place
                where Gods meet with mortals and mortals with their fate.

                Light fog silhouettes a slightly bent figure;  where
                dancing clouds reflect a darkness looming further.

                The mortal's face is rough but mild;
                Just partly weather-beaten

                neither old nor young,
                But youthful in its season.

                The shadows twine and mix with twists of shifting vapour
                collect around a shade;  grey, opaque and dimmer.               

                Around and spiralling the vortex starts to clutch
                pulling all and luring any vague dark patch.

                A brown or purple form takes shape inside the curl
                growling above the mortal, towering with the swirl.

                Its laughter cracks like thunder;
                The fearful mist lies still

                A sharp-toothed smile gleams,
                Below bloodshot eyes of thrill.

                “I am power!” its cataclysmic chorus calls
                “I am master, strong and muscled tall!”

                Its trunks of limbs are gnarled and tense
                as down it sees the mortal wince.

                “At you I laugh in contempt I sneer
                to my heights of glory you'll never be near.

                I am wealth and comfort and strength at war,
                women love to serve me as they humbly beg for more.

                I am at the heart of your pedastalled desire, I cling
                to only the most beautiful, I drive onward passion's fire.

 
               Yet who are you in that ragged body
                your spindly arms so common and shoddy?”

                The mortal shivered, as up he peered
                at the lithe firm figure whom desperately he feared.

                His gesture faltered, his endevour shook
                he trembled as he spoke and could barely meet its look.

                “I am but a man wondering over all I find
                seeking strange beauties and songs of any kind.

                I've seen withered flowers, loved vaguely pretty girls;
                I've clamoured and stumbled all through this world.

                And oft times I've failed, lost hope or grown bored,
                but once at least, I know that I soured.”

                The mortal then looked up and saw cool crystal eyes
                and thought how magnificent it must be when it flies.

                “I have a moment of weakness, it seems” the creature said,
                I will tell you my secret, and it turned its mighty head.

                Its  hair billowed lushly actually blowing the wind
                a great golden torrent with unearthly music summoned.

                The creature's form then changed
                from muscled grace to pale frailty

                Yet always it kept
                a most divine face.

                She was sensual yet kind, both exuberant and coy
                she flirted and pouted, the mortal bathed in joy.

                Its offerings were infinite:  gold, wisdom, glory and bliss;
                its efforts for nothing, somehow they went amiss.

                After listening a while the mortal said “fine”
                and held up his hand - “with respect, I decline.”

                “What?!” lashed the creatures tongue,
                velvet skin turned to ash;

                “I'm offering you infinity:
                might and power in a flash -

                You're a fool!” it said laughing
                so loudly with tears,

                “you're so helpless and small.
                you must have a thousand fears!

                You could be the one to whom all others would bow,
                and offer you themselves, you could own their lives now!

                I cannot understand”, said the creature at last
                “please tell me why you've rejected me fast?”

                The mortal looked up a puzzled glimmer on his face
                his lip quivered slightly and he stated his case:

                “My reasons are many, not one will just do -
                some might be petty according to you.”

                His eyes then widened as he gave a soft grin
                “I still just believe true happiness lies within,

                And were I to be  the most wonderful, then
                who would I have to call my equal friend?

                And the Bard said then lightly
                “you do not really exist”,

                chuckled softly to himself,
                and the shadows turned to mist.

{110}

Then the Golden Dragon's shape of swirling luminescence revealed the Perfection of his Celestial origins:  “This world, indeed is dark brave Knyghte, for on the far distant outskirts of the Glorious Mansions of the Celestial Galaxy does it hide.  And your soul is that of a willing Angel, whose mission is to bring this world into the heart of the Divine Navel, and birth it to the Glory of Eternity. 

And such is the nature of Logos:  The form within the formless, the responding contradiction that is all things, the sheer impossibility of being, the purity of the lucid moment, when order enmeshes chaos and mathematics reverberates off ethics with the rhythm of music.

Observe the nature of numbers:  Who could deny that one plus one equals two?  Take one pool of mercury and add it to another pool of mercury.  Yet, we still have one pool of mercury do we not?

Who could deny that the product of two negatives is positive? 

If this were true then

if it is not true, that something is not true, then it would be true.

if an apple is not an (orange)

and an (orange) is not a banana,

then

an apple is not an (not a banana)

but if two negatives make a positive then

an apple is a banana,

which is not true, so

two negatives cannot make a positive.

Similarly :

If blue is not red

and green is not red

then blue would be green

which is just obscene.

We are even told, with clear conscience, that two wrongs do not a right make

{111}

Can we ever un-entangle good and evil from each other?  For even sad Adam and Eve were tricked by a laughing God.  For contrary to what He said, when they ate from the forbidden fruit - the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil -

they did NOT die!  So the devil told the truth, and God did lie.  And that's the literal legacy of why we must forever scream out into the silence:  “Why?”