Sigurd's Dream

The dead greeted me in the early morning

with their delicate songs of Valhalla, as the wind

awoke me from my blinding dreams of paradise.

White bats swung upside down from broken limbs,

while black doves floated on bobbing heads

down the rippling brook beside my sword's bed.

Faceless women in black robes stroked

hopeless men from their hair in droves.

Bloody hooves stomped victory throughout the landscape.

Am I dead?

The answer to that question arrived swiftly

on the serrated spines of ancient cryptids -

whose eyes were mirrors - reflecting my image

just as the Gods predicted.