The Forest
A semi-epic experimental poem I wrote at university around four years ago.
PROLOGUE:
It was almost Halloween and the cold air chilled a near-midnight close to the empty space by the town. I always wondered about what was there, but Halloween was no time for that. My grandfather would come to the centre of the village every year on the same day to tell the children ghost stories.
'Now little ones, this one is called Reuben’s Forest.' They all gathered around a campfire to listen to him.
The wind was getting colder and began to stagger, as if it was trying to run from my grandfather's anecdote. 'No silly fairy stories, grandfather!' I chuckled and suggested.
'This is no story.'
Canto 1–'Look like the innocent flower...'
His mother and father died from a disease
that staggered around the village. The mayor was to fault
for the destruction of plants for they were the remedies;
and, in turn, many died. His parents' spirits did haunt
his attempts to remain perfectly sane.
Again and again, he hid deep in his brain
and concealed the vain pulse of his veins.
He would come to destroy their passions with his pain.
His eyes like the ocean, caused a harmless devotion
to watery elements like rivers and streams.
But, in the silence of the woods in the dead of the night
he's wanted to play back their intense, stifled screams.
His hair like the bark of the most healthy trees
and hiding it under hat to protect it from harm-
much like those trees he protected as people ate them,
he killed and with their ashes, created this macabre
detail of the woods. Under it lies the secrets. Like he was
once good–now the serpent that lurks inside the deepest
wounds. He poisons what he touches like a grenade exploding in
An unsound land. His face is charmed, his mind a mess
of a thousand revenges. His arms like the clever branches
that hid the punishment of their crimes. The condemnation of
the idea conceived left nothing too far behind. And these hands would
come to do far worse the he knew. Capture, kill, burn–
lost.
His hands like the twigs, long and intricate. Growing with
enlightenment. Solar famine makes them shrivel and die
with the great wind–they will snap.
It is inevitable that he will embrace them in fire.
Legs like the roots of trees he has. Firmly planted
in the ground. The mind of the legs is stealthily adapted
and wasting away, he brings back the runaway child inside.
Proud of nothing; he hid in isolation, captivated imagination. 'Enchanted
forest, why do you hide he?' Cried the townspeople.
The runaway Byronic hero of his own dream entices the grass as he
is God's gift to the green of land. The bark of the rough tree stands alone
until he returns to call it home. Wherever it may be;
attention is paid to detail. Filling in the blanks. Taking away
the unnecessary people from his god-forsaken land. His Divine Comedy
of ash and dust. His Paradise Lost, his Sunday cost. The hunter-gather becomes
hunted and gathered in composted piles and heaps of soil. This remedy
beguiling! Sensory. Smiling. His smile like sharp teeth; canines ablaze.
His looks harmless, until his smile does amaze the eyes of the beholder. Younger
and older. Confound and bedazzled by such charm and morality in looks.
But mad fancy dwells deeper than surface and such tricks are for conjurers.
Canto 2–‘Beguile the Time…’
His hands speak for themselves. Unintentionally, unpredictably;
converse this conversion to travesty. Nature makes a fool of his Time;
owning and bonding his movement. His God doesn't scare him
but the haunting endures. And if imagination could kill? His crime
to shame. Would be the baffled eyes and ears that remained
long after he was gone. Not dead. Just gone. The stars above don't speak
of that Time. They erase it from History. They erase it from sensory– everything.
They lost that time–the Dark Ages of the village. Looking bleak
it was imagined he left. Just gone. Not dead. Just gone. His own mouth
would never tell the tale. Some say he comes back to look so harmless; but be
the demon that entails every fairytale. The wolf that devoured the rose. The monster
coming so close. Defeated. Or not? Maybe God does not want us to see–
so he ran from the History books. Time devoured him as the Earth devoured us.
The ash. The dust. Composted from bottom to top. His secrets taken with him.
He stops. Stares at you. 'Do you pick from Reuben's forest?' The townspeople cried.
But could do nothing for this–hero? Does a hero break you limb from limb
for destroying a forest he tried hard to preserve? Let us turn the tale and
beguile the time! For the remedy was not allowed because of witchcraft laws against
the cure. The botanists–could do no more. Banned and banished, left to reward
the dead. Compost and ashes. Bury them to create new life again.
He paid attention to gaps, like this one we see. The one where our dear
woods used to be. The Time has changed itself and masked with green it has grown to
make-believe nothing was there. He was indefinitely gone. Whether burned alive
or vanished. We may never know the full truth.
Canto 3–‘False face must hide…’
Named the beast. He had inquisitiveness in words. Attention to detail
he hoards gold from his internal schemes. Poetic like a flowing
river. His eyes give off this detail. Precarious, he waits in the distance;
the hunter-gather is complete. Ash and dust. Like bestowing
a crown of defeat. Of thorns and leaves. The bush hiding, ambush
and loathing of the complete. The broken monster lies harmless in looks
and believable as he seems. Spoken words are falsely conceived;
conceited! His smile, eyes and mouth make them believe the crook.
'Is it too soon to summon Him?' The priest speaks up towards the cloudy air
and red sunsets are filled with the 'bloody business' of all composted
in that vegetable patch of harmlessness. May it be forever forgotten; for we eat ash
and dust. Forgotten like a lie. Secrets destroyed lives. Think positive
and believe him! 'Tragic ends have honourable burials!' If burials could be
called that ash and dust. Burn, tragedy, burn; the woods ablaze like the teeth of a wolf
encased in the inflamed tomb of wretchedness. Wicked intentions heighten the feeling
and cut from its bonds like the hellish hound released engulfed
in sanity. 'What do they call it?' The bloody business of gaps in this village.
The great visage of travesty! One by one, undignified bodies of ash and dust. All
of them composted; roast like coffee beans under the heated sun. Gaze upon thy
brow and make them one with God! 'You creature!' One dared. 'What do they call
you?' The darkest day begun. From one he took the child inside the depths
of Hell, roaring like Dante's lascaite ogni speranza voi ch'entrate. Abandon all hope,
ye who shall enter here. Adders and snakes, let this Faustian breathe awhile! 'Take thy
name from off this woods!' They call and torment him. So he took them in a fell swoop.
Like a vulture. Have you not the senses to see this travesty of man? Who shall
be God in this maze of grass woven by ash and dust? Who shall be those we love and those
we distrust? Can we begin by telling those of oracles to expect the Nero in our Time to oppress
the chains that cage him? Dement the minds that hold to oppose
Nature.
Canto 4–'The Wood began to move.’
They, in the town, predicted that one day the wood shall set ablaze and whoever be inside
should die an awful death. He was terrible in the sense that with one corpse he gutted it
before burning. God only knows what he has done since with the organs. Some do prate
that he buried them with the bodies, or kept them in jars. But whatever stock and store
could you have sympathy for him? Does Sympathy give out the same vibe to those
who damned themselves? Or does she, too, hide from his wicked impulse derived from a
near cure not yet reached? Out of grasp for superstition did not think it so, believe it to be
too much of the Devil? 'Have no fear. Grasp your coat and follow me here.'
He spoke like the angelic words escaped his thin, ice-bit lips. Cold and red like the
winter rose. His farce is exclusive to those who dare enter the woods. Whenever they cut the
thorn–they stare death in the face. The mask is removed. The farce is over.
Who could replace the winter wind of the trees, now an open space, sadly formed?
His nature like the anti-hero of his own story. Blank pages fill his free will and cut
like knives. Endangered; they run for cover and he proves, by sleight of hand. That he can
move; unpredictable. The wolf of a fairytale. Something like amazement washes over
him as he gathers the hunter. The ash and dust is solemn and blood drained has that
unclean colours about it. These buckets of blood; washed over and never clean. Vats
and tubs that gather life. The hunter-gather relationship sits, never still, in a depth of that
sunset. Red and uncanny. Not dead. Just gone. The ash and dust of the rest lies composted
to set trees on the great path of life. Lest we forget
Travesty.
Canto 5–‘Something Wicked this way comes.’
All the townspeople defeated; with their spears and
indecent sins made from the heads and limbs of
those falsely accused and repeating the same thing. Like vows.
They call upon the wolf. ‘Stop!
you madman of terror! You look as innocent as cherubim
does, but act as human Lucifer!’ They stood peering deep into
the darkness of the woods. It was midnight falling and the Moon; ashamed
to show her face; took the life from the trees. It was too soon.
With those vats of gasoline; clear as sin could possibly be.
They sat and awaited him to move inside the woods; they have a
course. ‘Bleed like the heinous monster you are!’ Fire ablaze,
like his teeth did once. The burning of the woods would astound a
man. Could you call this ‘Man’? Is it not wise to believe that
these hearts of Man could of course be damned for killing thy neighbour?
Respect him! For he is the one with the cure! People die left, right and centre;
you shall not press against him. But, it was too late to forge
a new idea. This belief was as good as God to them. In the woods
they were kings. Here, they were Man to God. Secondary. They must feel
superior. In the sense of making one feel inferior to them. Have you the humanity
to see that once was ash and dust is not lost to the Devil’s dreams?
The bark from the trees flash-fried in the cursed woods. Plants withered and
separated themselves from the ground. Petals falling. Leaves singed.
Stems burned. Who are the bad now? Sympathy shows her face and leaves
the heart broken with pieces lost in fabricated lies of religion. ‘Bring
here the water!’ The townspeople cry as the fire carried the woods.
Engulfed. Enraged. Encompassed. Endless. Fire; everywhere. Up in the strange
orange of sunset. Thought-provoking; of who to name the hero and who to
villain. Perspective will come and go with the change of age
and ageing.
Canto 6–‘Out brief candle!’
The light was soon out and the fire died away with the
thought that maybe; he was still out there. ‘The monster
is dead!’ Cried each and every one. ‘The monster is dead.’
But, wherever we believed Heaven was–was it far?
Here? Everything seemed to fall into place.
Whatever we believed about war–about fight.
The star, wherever this path to Heaven is, did not
think two wrongs make a right.
His rights. Taken and cursed into a remedy-driven,
poverty-stricken, fore-granted and forsaken. Demented
and derived from his drive to imply that inside was much better
that the faces of the outer world. Fragmented;
he did press. The very nature of Compassion
that transgressed from pain to pain in this glorious
compost of graves. Ash and dust follows the dirt of
Man. The filth of the land. Even the worse of us
did not believe in the system of wrong-
wrong-right. Hunter-gather became hunted-gathered
and finally hunter-hunted. Failed. Burned. Death of
the Naturalist. Death of the Naturalist. Nature is-
dead.
Canto 7–’Tis safer to be that which we destroy…’
Clearing up the last of the land; trees and all,
landfill of land. Provoking reaction from naturalist.
But the naturalist is dead along with the songs of his story.
Erased and blotted from the books of History. Impressionists
live longer than he. The art of their predecessors attain
too much blasphemy. But together, they are a movement. One
man cannot change this ground between the skies and cellar.
Grown up, growing up in this growing world is so much to stun
some to think that of witchcraft. Burned–without stake.
Stake and risk are never the same thing. Think about these things.
One man; alone. Alone with ash and dust can create this macabre
sense of nature. When we die we become ash. Ash is composted in
the ground. Buried. Made for those trees to grow. They shall
grow to grandness whilst we feed on these to keep ourselves alive.
When we should stop? They devour us limb from limb. Ash and dust.
We are nothing more. We can no longer survive.
This cycle he believed. Retreating in the idea that maybe, one day,
they would believe this too. But no. The ideology conceived
made religion the hierarchic archaic dictator. The magician of
fear. Dictating and hypnotizing the area around wherever it was received.
Ground still shaken. They cleaned for days and months.
No trace of the Naturalist. No trace of the ash and dust.
Buried underfoot. We knew the bones we trod on be those
of people set ablaze for damage done. ‘He must
not have known what you were planning. So,
how could he get away?’ You ask. Well, there was a
sudden fear in the trees the day we went down to the
woods. They seemed silent for the first day in a while.
They were not accustomed this way. They would seem
to move. Wind rushed through the green, beige,
brown, red leaves to make them trip and fall across the air.
Only for them to reach the deathly ground. Savage
man makes death of it all. It is all dead to him.
What is Man? Is he a cultural-based-no. Is he Socialist?
Is he Religion? Is he Nature? What did God truly intend? Is this
not just an ironic death or disappearance of the main miss
of a hit swung at the jealous nature of Man not being
as agile as he used to? He was agile once. Remember: he’s not dead.
Just gone. Gone away from the fire. The woods ablaze and the
Naturalist disappeared amongst the orange gaze of the world on a
thread.
Canto 8–‘There is nothing serious in Mortality.’
But they were not baffled by the disappearance.
All was going back to the way it was.
Some say he was seen beneath the surface of the church.
A criminal incognito as a priest because
those that did get their revenge. Before the parish
must perish for their sin. They believed it this way. In that
cold December month. The ice falling straight to kill–
In the shadows they believe they saw him-In fact,
falling from the hills. They believe they saw a man.
A man climbing to the mountains. The snow beneath his feet;
the captivating sound of dragging his feet. The rain drowning him;
cleansing him. The repeat
of shock. The mortal man drained of his ego. Prevented
from commercial cure. His ocean blue eyes frozen over like ice.
His hat protecting the wood-tinted hair as he would protect
the trees. Erected for the Naturalist. Here to entice
the nightmare. To repeat the song. Fire ablaze,
they did not require another problem.
He was gone. That’s all they knew.
But, something wicked-still-this way comes.
After he was passed–not dead. Just gone.
They looked to the clouds in agony; the rain seemed
to heal itself. The clouds were no longer grey–
But, their sin was not washed away.
Every cloud ceased their water. The sin
remained there. Never cleansed. Ravished and
contained. The perishing person made to suffer
damnation. For each died an agonising death on land.
Ash and dust, what they had become.
Burned for sin; anyways, not by he. Composted into
dirt for the filth they were. Murderers. That was
all it was to the priests of afar. He was not to be made a-
Due to the laws of the Catholic Church, under the acts within ‘Index Librorum Prohibitorum’ (Pope Paul IV) , the rest of this story is unable to be read and has therefore been censored appropriately for your safety.
Every day since, I look across these cloudless skies
and think with my spacial heart and eyes:
‘Who would be doom’d to gaze upon
a sky without a cloud or sun?’
About the Creator
Annie Kapur
190K+ Reads on Vocal.
English Lecturer
🎓Literature & Writing (B.A)
🎓Film & Writing (M.A)
🎓Secondary English Education (PgDipEd)
📍Birmingham, UK
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