Saxtor

I am Saxtor! Aspiring poet and full time technologist student! As the title says, I write sometimes. Though my various artforms and hobbies (that I would like to post about) include:

Poetry

Short Stories

TTRPG's of many varieties (GM & Player)

Lancer RP Blog over at @ras-favourite-balor

Miniatures (Warhammer + Turnip28)

Lancer Sprite Kitbashing

Carving/Whittling (Wood + Bone)

Idk how to describe it but like mixed media framed art focused on bones? Framed skeletons?

I have a love of anything horror, especially the usual queer horror podcasts (Magnus Archives, Old Gods of Appalachia, Welcome to Nightvale, The Silt Verses). I pour far too many hours into weird indie games with mind bogglingly expansive worldbuilding (Caves of Qud, Rimworld, Sunless Skies/Seas). . .

I also have a weird "Biblical Horror", "System Agnostic" TTRPG worldbuilding project that I may post little snippets of here. . .

Fuck Idk what else im supposed to put here, anyways thanks for reading, thanks for checking out my shit.

Below the readmore is a linked list of all my posted poetry for convivence/binging/pseudo-portfolio:

I should have thought it through,

I should have considered you.

Before I murdered Time beneath the blue,

The cold and dark, the watching-waiting sky,

The hidden moon, it's veiled, yet un-closed eye.

Keeping vigil over gnarled oak and twisted yew.

I really did not think it through.

But, oh, what a m a g n i f i c e n t view:

Time's corpse, with it's limbs all eskew.

But Time's missing touch, leaves nothing new,

Oh my darling, Oh my love, Oh my precious dove,

This is not holy. We are not holy. Not to them, at least.

To them with pitchforks, To them with hateful tongues, To them with frozen, scared hearts.

We, my sweet prince, Were never going to be holy, Especially not to this proverbial them.

We are unclean, We are wrong, We, are, Apocryphal!

But holy is subjective? No?

The only god above I ever believed in was the green canopy overhead. Though I have found another as of late. . .

But I am quick to remember the thousand-thousand gods below: The writhing worms, the crawling beetles, the sprawling mycelium. Gods of the soil, gods of rebirth, gods of decay-as-an-extant-form-of-life.

I pray in the green chapel, Root churned soil serves for a pew, While sacrament is wild apple, and morning dew.

I pilgrimage the rivers and the valleys, The forgotten places, wild and not. In the heart of man-made caves o' concrete, I seek tombs of a thousand unburied bodies: They are small, and fragile, bearing eight spindly legs, Gilt in silk, trappings made to catch and conquer.

My room, is a cathedral, A temple to lost and forgotten things, Un-Holy ground filled with un-consecrated dead.

But above all I cherish, all I worship and hold dear, Above the rot and the green, And the sun bleached bones, Above my tattered tapestries, And fading brass.

Only You, are placed upon the padded pedestal of this strange little church.

So I will pray at your altar 'till my knees are bloody and broken, Until my tongue is dry and withered in my mouth, Until my back is bent broken from the weight of your praise.

So I will love you as the green does, As the worm loves the soil, As the beetle loves the corpse, As the mycelium loves the forest.

My pelvis will grind into yours, Like two dancing bone butterflies, Our ribs will tangle and intertwine, Like fern fronds in a summer storm.

We will fill each others mouths with our tongues, We dig bleeding graves with ivory shovels, Burying love and soft words into weeping wounds, Seeds that will bloom beneath our scarred and sacred skin, Bearing fruit of flame upon our blood, upon our vessels.

We will fuel that flame, let it course through body and brain, We will pour the wine and draw the drapes, The light of our hearts is all we'll need.

And the shadows will run like prey before us, We'll chase them through the once-dark wood, A thrilling, ritual haunt, ending grand in an ancient grove.

A pyre is waiting there for us, my love, We will shed our skins, Now charred and flaking, Charcoal blankets for the forest floor.

We'll dance upon the pyre, A dance of flame and fire, While shadows pile the fuel, Ever higher and higher.

And when the night is through, And all the fuel is spent, And all the shadows die, And all the world is bright, Bathed in our light,

And we shine as gods,

Then they will not deny us.

They will have no choice but worship.

When we sit upon the blackened husk, Of their god's throne.

Today I feel like a war-torn cathedral.

There were planes overhead last night, and their bombs shook the crumbling foundations upon which I stand, proudly stooped.

And I am riddled with glancing blows; uncountable pockmarks left by stray rounds from that not-so-distant battle, a (rather poorly aimed) hand grenade has torn one of the great, oak and iron doors from it's hinges.

Errant shells, destined for a real target a few clicks to the south, have scarred the saints upon my skin, half-shattered, outlined in soot and scorch marks.

The cobbles outside are an archipelago in a sea of blood, strewn with a carrion feast, already the ravens prove the rooster of war, their cries herald the coming dawn.

The stained glass above the altar was set free long ago, and the spiders weave nets to catch the morning dew there now.

Just as, if not more so, beautiful than before, the way the droplets catch the dawn.

My bones ache and groan as the earth settles, the distant fighting sounding through the stone, explosions far away, tickling my spine.

And through the gentle ache I smile, a smile of ruined ironwork and crumbling bricks, of charcoal pews and one-armed gargoyles, a smile like the now-twisted form of the cherry tree in the courtyard.

I beam like the break of day as I watch the refugees sleep soundly at last, swaddled in 'holy' tapestries, serving a better use now than ever before within the my vaulted halls, cradled by my bruised and battered ribs.

The stars here are wrong. The colours are off, in a way that I can't quite place. The constellations gaze down, through red alder branches. While a strange lit moon watches my face.

I know not how it happened, nor what, when, nor why. But I find myself smiling, at this, most unfamiliar sky. And cats don't talk! No secrets writhe on those slithering tongues. And pigs now walk! For they've no wings, on which to fly. So I breathe deep, I breathe slow, and I take this strange new night into my lungs.

I walk along a soil-ed spine, towering, wooden ribs my guideposts. I wonder-wander this most curious wood, Where the trees know not my name?

Perhaps I should be worried, instead I feel oddly divine. This wood is deep, and dark, full of ritual corpses. Full of sigils, laid in earth, writ in blood, carved in bone. Fascinating things they are, to draw me, from my old home.

The red-green giants whisper shrinking secrets, As I stride, heedless, between gore hung limbs. I barely notice the voiceless, breathless chant, Fading, wilting, dying, as the forest thins.

The unseen chorus is silent now. I stand at a threshold. Rich, hearty flora shrink, and die. Loving, caring, pleading soil, Gives way to a rough black stone, Etched with gleaming xanthous seams.

An ocean of stone and steel lays before me, A leaching, sea-glass mirror, Reflecting the strange, new sky: A thousand lights lay below, while the heavens above are not quite so, They exhibit a dull glow, a hollow, empty lie.

I charter a ship, through the shining concrete sea. Course is set by nothing so tangible as a sextant or compass, A dull thrum, subtle in my chest, pulls me onwards instead. Fallen stars reflect glimmer-shimmer in the captain's eyeglass. We weave a path amongst the looming spires, Our path's a tapestry of red string, a tapestry of a forced fate.

Again and Again / Cool Rock Love:

I have not felt this way before.

And I know, As a poet, That does not mean much.

For it is in our nature, After all, To bend truth and tale to task.

So, As you listen, Or as you read, There is one thing, That I, Will ask.

-

For I have fallen in love before;

Fallen hard, and from great heights, Fallen into cruel and wicked arms, Fallen through great rings of fire.

I am well acquainted with with falling, Like the ox knows the plough.

--

But I do not feel as though I am falling now.

Not with you. Not for you. Not Falling.

I am slipping slowly into a too cold river on a hot summers day, laughing and, swearing and, smiling all the while.

I am falling in love in much the same way as anyone might fall into a warm, and soft sweater, fresh from the dryer on a cold winter's night.

I am gliding, sliding , gentle , and , comfortable, into love.

For you are strange and fascinating In a most pleasant and curious way.

Like a puzzle you know you're just On the edge of solving, Watching all the pieces Fall perfectly into place.

You quote me words, And they are strange, Just as your are, like "Polymorphic" and many more.

And trust me, There were many more, More curious and fascinating words.

But I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

A cool rock and something that has always been difficult.

A cross of stone, and your soulful orbs, framed in bone.

So I will be honest (as I do try very hard to do), and say I do not remember exactly most of what you said.

Something about "carbon dating" (I think) about how useful and fantastical this small piece of "Staurolite" in my hands, really is.

I was far too busy, tearing down my walls, in a frantic, "Helter Skelter" panic, getting ready to let you in.

Like last minute cleaning When you've entirely, And completely, Forgotten, That you have guests coming over.

So heres the question I promised I'd ask.

That you have waited so patiently for, Hanging off my every word, (I hope) Wondering what point, I could possible be working up to.

Thus with this question I break the mask:

Will you tell me again?And if you do,

I hope I can smile again, ear to ear, like a complete fool.

And if the answer is still yes; Then you should know, That I will keep asking you again and again, to tell me, again and again.

And I will smile again and again, as your words slip past me, again and again;

Tonight was prophesized. Dark and dreary, a dreadful night. Full of woe, of bleeding hearts. Yet still, I ride; under shadow, out of sight.

Yet I do not ride alone, Through the storm. Hope, rides shotgun.

Their smile is full of crooked teeth. Their l a u g h t e r borders on a SCREAM. Their eyes hide something, just beneath, The wide and wild, the blinding, high beams.

They are my itching trigger finger. The shaking shell, second barrel seated. The reason dread, no longer lingers. A dozen reasons fear felt cheated.

Theirs is a ragged, sing-song call, A call for battle, for revolution. They know well of rise-and-fall, They know well, of execution .

They are healer, prophet, and priestess, Serving last rights at Agincourt. Under the broken walls of a crumbling fortress, They are the dying soldiers last resort.

I did not know them well before, before tonight. But Hephaestus' hammers sets a steady beat. A march to war, a dance of spite. So march I shall, and worry not, of grim defeat.

So I ride to battle, a knight of old. Decked with brass and dressed in rags. With highest hopes, despite the mud, despite the mold. We fly a thousand armies tattered flags.

Wrath and ruin, both run empty, naught but dregs, For the night burns bright, Hope's made well, their mark, tonight. Fear has tucked it's tail betwixt it's legs, Ran to shadows, far, and dark.

So I go to brave the beating, the bleeding, the breaking. I dare pain and predation to try and drag me down.

They call overconfidence a slow, sinister killer. Well Hope is quick to draw, and a harder swing.

So let them guide my hand tonight.

For under their guard,

I will emerge from battle,

That is the last thing, they hear. Loud, like fresh grief. Gentle, as a desert storm. Bright, like a starless night. Just, as they lay in the dirt.

New Mourning Cloak for my fucked lil blorbo. Leaving their Enkidu behind after being made intangible and annihilating a human soul during a brief sortie into the biblical hell.

White Witch done up over the past few days for my new HORUS aligned side character: Sylas "Doorstop" Greenfelders.

I have a. . . strange affliction. One difficult to quantify, difficult to explain. A need to. . . change.

This need is driven by a sense of oneness, a sense of becoming. It is to bring oneself closer to the self than themself. To bring the inside outside.

It has always been satisfied before with punked attire. With black, funerary cloth adorned with sickle silver, and bleeding brass. Idols, statements, declarations, all outlined in shaky crimson fate. A mouth where once was a pocket, yellowed, tombstone teeth beaming an amalgam smile. . .

To mutilate the mothbitten was enough. The cotton, and leather, and canvas skeletons littering my closet. But it is not enough, not anymore, there is still a satisfaction to it of course, but. . .

But this urge is no longer sated. The need is no longer met. This ravenous desire burns deep in my gut and fills my head with smoke.

I need to cut skin, to tear flesh just as I would an old and useless, and thoroughly dead shirt. I need to snap the bones that live, just as I do the dead. Take these hands away and give me a scalpel, give me saws and sutures and rending claws.

I will tear my fingers free with filed, sharpened teeth, reveling in the destruction that begets creation. I will revel in that crimson flow, watch the arcing spurts as I measure a dying pulse. I will wait, head tilted, eyes distant, ready-ruined hands held to a wanting neck.

Then will come my joyous decree: "Stopped"

And I will laugh, breathless and mad, a high, keening, rasping, throatless laugh. For that fleshy flute is the next to go.

But I will need new fingers for that, so I will screw them in like the studs that line my coats. They will be long and slender, crooked too, with too many joints on just as many fingers.

Then, when my hands are finally my own, I will set myself upon my throat. So that, no longer, I may choke. Rip out the tangled wires held within, and build myself a new voice, with hardened strength of shining steel.

Next comes the cracking creaking, which has drives me mad. These crumbling knees, so quick to bend, so quick to break. And I will break them a, but once, and final time. I will build them back, build them better, build them sturdy, industrial, never again to creak and crumble.

We humanity have always found scapegoats for our fear of the unknown: Hades and Persephone,

Ra and his chariot,

Odin and Ymir.

The list goes on and on, for every facet of our world. For every culture,

For all peoples,

For each continent.

I have always adored myth and legend, tales of gods and monsters. Yet of them all, the one to catch my writer's eye are the Angels of the Old Testament. They completely and utterly fascinate me:

Terrible harbingers, bringing an arrogant god’s devastating ultimatums. So powerful, so fearful, that even observing them will kill. Passively destructive, while still displaying human characteristics; Such is the Archangel Micheal, head of heavens host, brave, valourous. The breadth and diversity of their number. The power they exhibit. . .

But with a caveat to their vaguely limitless power:

It is singular.

Like divine locomotives;  The unstoppable force, Designated to a narrow, Unyieldingly single track.

And yet. . .

The angels are all gone. Depending on who you ask, humanity had no more use for them. We had no more need for gods and myths and faith. We killed them, buried them in books, and stories. We founded a new faith, named it “science”. Science falsified the myths, killed the gods.

Named new ones in their place:

           Gravity:

That which compresses.

That which draws us about the sun.

That which holds us to earth.

That which arranges the heavens.

     Electromagnetism:

That which bonds all things.

That which births lightning.

That which draws together.

           Nuclear Force:

That which is hidden.

That which decays.

That which keeps.

We now know the stars are not “set alight, by a bunch of angels, every night”.

We ventured skywards,   and going. . . Questing for heavens gate,         and going Yet all we found,     and going Was a sky that keeps on going, and going and going and going, Up, into infinity.

We gazed up into that infinity, Up into the so-called “firmament”. We pulled back the drapes, Finding no sputtering candles, No melted wax, no spent matches.

We cracked open atoms, Expecting a makers mark inside, Instead we found only smaller and smaller particles. Extending down (probably) forever.

We slew myth.

Studied its corpse.

And life went on.

We keep shooting skyward, Kept delving down.

Yet we found no Heaven above, And no Hell below.

So the story is finished. The book can be closed, placed back upon the shelf.

Right?

You might think as much.

But then, we humanity did something incredible:

We built our own angels.

It was precarious work, Fraught with problems and setbacks, Not to mention the damage done, And I do not think an angel was specifically intended, But we did it.

We built an angel

From metal, 

   and wire,

      and concrete,

         and greed,

            and hate,

               and love,

                  and “just because we can”

                     and so many things that do not fit on one page.

With all our work, we split the atom. Even though we did it in the name of science, Is there anything more biblical than the atom bomb?

Built with singular, apocalyptic purpose, by loving hands. Is it not similar to the angel which tore down the walls of Jericho? How similar a message is the nuclear shadow to a pile of salt? How terrible the destruction in its wake? How horrific the damage? How?

Or take one of our greatest modern marvels, A thing built by a thousand hands, Pieces from every corner of our world, Designed and run by our humanities brightest:

Particle Accelerators.

The power to delve the depths of reality, Dredging never seen elements out of the dark nothing, Pushing the boundaries of human knowledge.

And is creation not a divine activity? Did God not enlist his angels to aid in creation?

Perhaps the angels of old really did light the stars with a match, Maybe the angels of old are not so different from those of today, They did, afterall, leave the stars lit, just for us. . .

Maybe we killed them, Maybe we just drove them away, Either way, We humanity, Have brought them back!

They hum as they race along the high voltage lines, Held aloft by their towering and still siblings.

Their smile glows cherenkov blue, Happily cracking atoms, Like walnuts.

They perch on mountain tops, In those towers we built them, Sharing our secrets, Chuckling to themselves, Singing new hymns, Into our open radios.

They lounge in high orbit, Basking in the sun’s light, Like a lizard in the spring, Keeping many watchful eyes, Fixed on us below, And space above.