Ah, but the fetters of faith do furl the sails,
The baying, and breaking, and biting at nails.
Howling to the hunger of want for escape,
A death, a dream, to escape doom fate.

Thoughts of the past, too far behind,
Of wishes and wants and days unkind.
Wafers and wines, body and blood,
Dreams of glory dashed to the mud.

Final of the fold, the closing of the cloth,
Fallen to fury, saddled to sloth.
Abbey monk of absinthian demise,
Pondering of thoughts, the lost deep eyes.

The tick tock tocking is a tintinnabulation doom,
The bong bong bonging is a fog to the room.
Lowered head from Pernod Fils lifts,
Eyes clouding with the moon’s dark shift.

Green Fairy dances to the cloudy mind,
Eyes too drunk are left too blind.
Ano domini, the trebled em,
Last of the fathers, our final anthem.

Smashed works that could have done,
The task to bring a glory won,
But Ludditian fervor did win the day,
And Cro Magnonic beatings became the stay.

“Begone thou beast of hallucinogenic fire,”
Cried the dribbling lips of the sick gaunt friar.
Holy, holy, holy the Seraphim cries,
And laughing, laughing, laughing the Fairy flies.

“What thoughts of doom have bled thy brain,
In dreams of Pernod Fils in vain?
Green Fairy summons you declare,
With each sip and gulp of thy drink fair.”

“In nomine Patris”, the Father’s name,
“et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” The closing chain.
“Begone the first I do declare,
The damnation in you that I do dare.”

Green Fairy replies with but a smile,
“Nay Father, I shall stay a while.
While in Pernod Fils dreams you die,
The world burns and flames go higher.”

Conflagrate coals do kill the heart,
That break and bend the beastly dark.
“In nomine Patris” the mumbled oath,
Warding off the dark, the numbing growth.

But eyes are blind, they cannot see,
Blind by absintine drink, Green Fairy.
Yet they can see through time and space,
See to the world and it’s full disgrace.

Last of the cloth the abbot mopes,
Thoughts of knives, thoughts of ropes.
Grandfather clock ticks in the dark,
Keeping time, keeping mark.

“Why do you dally, you of the late,
When it was your word that did take,
The path that lived, that path we free,
Were you all drunk, silken Pernod Fils?”

“We were not drunk, the book we saw,
To follow the Words, before the fall.
But what am I now? I speak alone,
To Green Fairy dreams, my sins to atone.”

Fallen, spinning, the brain a whirl,
As Green Fairy dances gaily a’twirl.
But would that enough this was,
A second speaker happens does.

The burning pits of perditionous fire,
The fallen Seraph’s endless pyre.
Flaming lakes of tortured pain,
Sulfurous blasts, of hurting pain.

Quoth the Seraph of the fallen wing,
“Why do mope? Why not sing?
You’re the last of your kind my fatty friend,
And so close, so close, so close is the end.”

“I will not give to calls of the knife,
Nor the rope to end mine strife.”
To the books he turns but faint the soul,
Too weak the heart, a mind too old.

Green Fairy and Devil now dance in the mind,
Of lost words and dreams unkind.
The pressure of pain of centuries dead,
The final priest’s pains upon his head.

Would that time differently had gone,
And fallen had they, broken as dawn.
But nay, fervor and feeling was too strong,
And Copernican belief was quartered and drawn.

Flat the Earth and unsplit the rainbow,
Mystical the rain, magic the snow.
Steam engines unheard of, heretical lies,
Atoms smashing, filthy demise.

But by God! By God! By God the Verse!
Why oh why had things turned worse?
A world of faith, a world of good,
Why then was black the sight of the hood?

Green Fairy laughs and mocks the man,
Who had he been less, long would have ran.
“You’re dying old man, the Days are up,
Give in to sleep, the final cup.

“Denmark prince that path you take,
And sleep now, perchance nary to wake.”
But Diabolic edict rings tolls irony at last,
And stays friar’s hand, holding it fast.

“Fool you are if you cannot see,
Beyond the grip of Pernod Fils.
Green Fairy lies of thirst to slake,
A body yet fresh, unspoiled unraped.”

He shakes his head and gives in to dark,
Drawing sweet slim steel, so soft so stark.
Last of the past, he cannot wait,
To see the end, to see his fate.

Green Fairy laughs a beautiful sound,
“Take your life, be unbound!”
But Demon growls and stays his knife,
“Fool you are to take your life.”

He gropes for the bottle of diamond sheen,
And pours the Green Fairy into cup unseen.
Liquid falls to table flat,
Lost more absinthian love black.

Tears a tripping down a tattered face,
Unsure, unknowing his final place.
But what can he do the final one,
When a grave is wrong, but escape none?

Ano Domini, the trebled em,
Want for wrong red requiem.
A slash a scream and he sees them last,
Green Fairy smiling, and Demon aghast.

Weeping the welts of ruined eyes,
But still he sees her, still she flies.
Clad but scantily she lures him on,
Delicate entrancing, the wounded fawn.

Green Fairy dances a temptation alluring,
While Demon fearful, anger a burning.
Pathways he stands, a choice of where,
Green Fairy or Demon, does he dare?