Another Working Day Tarot

                                                                      Welcome Waking

Hornet hive dreams, venomous sleep. Sad stories at the bedside, runes glowing with blue witch light. Incredulous, a heretic regarding gospels, my burning companion a habitual liar; the witch that will never go to ash, that the pyre cannot consume. Her curses daily and exquisite; the breaking of Heaven, the rupturing of bliss; hallucinations of grey Hell whose solidity leaves us doubting all possibility of salvation. But welcome, welcome today, the night's promises sour, its raptures curdled, leaving me wary of angel's wisdom, the kindness of sleep.


                                                                      The Lonely Friend

Weary smiles, empty hellos. Throb, throb, throb; ugly, migraine music. Waiting outside, in the cold; green-eyed, grey beard; little, smiling man, alone, alone, always. Except for the limping and sad one, yellow eyes, a chain that binds, so old, now, near the end of a road that will never be long enough.


                                                                          The Fey Mound

Unseen by day, cloaked in mirages of haste and distraction. By dusk?; A crowned hillock, stained gold and red by the setting sun, a place where the world grows thin, where they clamour at the gates, whispering their sweetly cruel hymns to children and the dreaming alone, the shadows singing, dancing in welcome of the forgotten ones.


                                                                        The Siren's Heaven

Stirring from her blue, blue bed as day dies; as the first stars shimmer like dew on her flushed flanks, her fluttering eyes. A song like police sirens, growling seduction, husky and slurred, promising narcotic bliss in her arms. The sky the ocean in which she sprawls, too vast to see, to embrace, though the ache consumes me, as I walk, as they stare; the coward blind and silent, who wonder but never speak, never ask, and so will never know her ecstasies.


                                                                          The Enchanted Way

Brief, brief gold; angel's laughter, giving way to red lament. Liquid pools of amber on black and broken concrete, turning weeds to jewels, dust to motes of ground crystal. Fairies dance there, the smallest of their kind; heralding the hunt that will never come. This world...anathema to it, now; out of love with capricious beauty and unkind magic. The only whispers of it I will know, as I pass through the sunlight, as those dancing in it settle on my outstretched fingers. Dreams, and dreams only, dying with the light, as cold and concrete insist on themselves.


                                                                      The Vagrant Wizard

Faceless and unknown, yet smiling like an old friend, seeing, eyes sore with visions and the smoke of his pipe. Fetish-infested dreadlocks, gold in his grin. Ragged coat flowing around a magpie frame. Avoiding his eyes, though he steps into my path, though his goblin companions giggle and snear. Laughing eyes and friendly greetings hiding spit that can sear, words that can flay. Aching for me to join his story, though he does not ask, allowing me to pass with little more than a smile, silently cursing myself for denying the magic that will never come again.


                                                                       The Innocent's Fate

Destiny's cry, a dagger in the sun, shadow descending. Great wings stirring the breeze, making dust dance. Innocence hearing, disappearing into long grasses. Destiny waits, blinking its deep, dark eyes, talons biting into soft wood. Inhuman patience, engine obsession. A flicker, a heartbeat, all it requires; innocence barely having time to squeal before black talons sink into its flesh, before it rises, higher than it has ever climbed, into a Heaven it never prayed to, knowing in its wisdom, how empty it is.


                                                                     The Guardian Beast

White, waiting in the sun. Home so close, but beyond. The Beast between, eyes only for me; not for the children, playing nearby, nor its keeper, who strains to hold it at bay, whimpering impotent commands. The creature growling as I pass, its glare a warning: This is not the way. You can never return home. Turning away, until it breaks its chain, until it churns up the rain-softened earth, the dew-jewelled grass, its keeper crying spells that it doesn't heed, that barely graze it, the prophecy it didn't speak and the promise of blood and bone too strong.