Shake hands with your shadows,
For when darkness knows your name
Sanity becomes as feeble
As a weeping candle’s flame.
Stories have followed him as he lost count of the years.
A timeless wanderer, keeper of darkness once crowned king,
Cares not for which name you sing.
He'll answer with a twisted sneer.
Every lie you want to hear
Will dance in your ears like an elegant symphony of easy street.
It is not only carts that carry silk along this road.
His tongue is a treasure chest of lure long forebode.
Wagons full of wares still travel from west to east
Though glorious Rome has been bequeathed.
To a new master, a new god, the city vowed.
The transient with onyx eyes is tickled with glee
To enter another land that deemed him unclean.
His mule pulled his humble cart through the crowd.
A saucepot of too desperate and too proud,
Marinating.
Whether it be a cloud of guilt or appetite, humans reek of hunger.
In his humble cart, was the cure for their wonder.
Marinating.
All of their “what ifs” animating
into strings of chaos he sadistically entwines.
A quaint little corner, for his cart and his mule.
A quaint little corner to lure the fool.
A quaint little corner with a quaint little sign
promising tinctures, herbs and wine.
A smile draws them in.
Mainly bored patrons with a family to feed.
Sleepers are easy targets for his sinister seeds.
Mesmerized by mystery and bored of sin,
Godless hearts invoke the darkness within.
“Your shadow awaits you,” he says to a maiden
Seeking oils of olive and myrrh.
Ignorant of the nightmare she was about to incur.
Her eyes shimmered as curiosity laden.
A shimmer that wondered if a dark stranger could aid in
Fulfilling desires never shared above a whisper.
Sometimes its glory they seek, fame to claim.
Sometimes its love, a name to frame.
To be stronger, swifter or richer.
He presented a chest casted of gold, to which her
Eyes widened with wild.
“If you dare, my lady,” he motioned as he lifted the latch.
“Don’t be scared, no price attached.”
He watched her worn face light up like a child
At foreboding engravings at which she beguiled.
The velvet lining displayed nobility and class.
An elegant emerald beckoned her attention.
Surely such a box could hold nothing of convention.
He reached in and retrieved an opal glass.
A small black bottle with a golden aura contrast.
“Only you know your poison, proceed with care.”
Her eyebrows pressed into a puzzled crease
Gazing at the glittering piece.
A whisper waltzed through the fleeting air
As if to answer her silent prayer.
He didn’t ask to which God she spoke.
Merely basked in delight of her upcoming plight.
Today’s desire will become contrite
When her forbidden love sours and, on her vows, she will choke.
Karma’s a force not to provoke.
No creature immune to her, not human, djinn or god
Can compete with her wit.
She’s got a razor-sharp tongue and a mouth full of grit.
She’ll gift you a dream perfectly flawed;
Exactly what you ask for until you’re exposed as a fraud.
After lifetimes of this dance, not a soul stands a chance
Against the web that she weaves.
His father had tried and a lamp, he received
To enslave him for his fiendish advance
On an innocent heart for destructive romance.
This young lady's fate was a prospect to savor,
For only time will expose
The strength of the fibers in her bones.
Humans are fragile but a few have earned favor.
It was either a gift or a curse that he gave her,
He never knew which.
A handyman for the hungry, a salesman in a smock
With boundless gold box.
A tool for every niche.
Whatever they fancy to tickle their itch.
Most succumb to the demons they awake,
A journey he once kept audience.
When karma finds them, the cry is euphonious.
Shame turns to agony and their egos break.
Self inflicted grief expelled with a quake
Of their shattered dignity, piercing like a burning steel.
Thunderous.
A sound that turned him vulturous.
A sound that forced a demigod to kneel
When his mortal mother made a deal.
To save her soul, he took a vow
To dwell amongst the powerless, aid the lost and weak.
It led to handing the spiteful exactly what they seek.
He wanted to be as helpful as his powers would allow,
Initially, he hoped to endow
Riches amongst the poor;
The most grandeur of deeds.
He hoped to harvest lotuses but only got weeds.
Combating the human condition is a chore
He grew to abhor.
So, he stole an old cart
filled with silver and glass.
He took his toolbox down the eastern pass
To transform wishes into art.
Every market, another heart
Singed by their own deceitful fire.
Help can’t come on a silver platter.
They had to learn to earn what mattered.
Underneath their egos burns a desire
But it’s not the light they require
To inspire virtue amongst the vile.
The monsters waiting in the corner of their eyes
Will advise demise.
If left to revile,
They become hostile.
“Your shadow awaits you,” he excited
Any eager misfit with an air
Of righteous despair.
Too often shortsighted,
Curiosity ignited.
“Make the right choice and this purchase pays you,”
He explains to a fellow
With an innocent round face, pleasantly mellow,
When through the crowd, a commotion grew.
Emerged a Roman soldier and his arrogant crew
Throwing insults and rage.
They quickly took notice of his quaint little cart.
The young man turned ghost, made a hasty depart,
Placing him center stage.
A target for the tyrants to approach and engage.
“What magic is this?” the soldier said with a scowl
As he noticed the brilliant gold chest.
His mouth and his dark curls both tightly pressed.
His heavy breath emitted a low-grade growl.
His piercing eyes locked in like a wolf on a prowl.
“May I offer a bottle of my deepest red, sir?”
He tossed the soldier a smile.
The soldier remained steadfast and hostile.
“Something of stout or sweeter if you prefer.”
Suspicion pasted on the soldier’s brow, sharp enough to deter
Any resistance from an amateur peasant
But he was not a force to be swayed,
Certainly not by a tyrant’s blade.
The soldier pointed to the engraved crescent
With disapproval, incandescent.
“Heathens aren’t welcome here.
Name your god or face him.”
“We could invite him, but chances are slim
That he’d bear the hellfire of Roman fear
Not even God’s a match for the Roman spear.”
The brute's knuckles curled white.
“You dare mock me and my Romans?
Be a showman and stare down my bowman.”
“I meant no harm and want no fight.
I sell my wares and move on by night.
For a man of your status, may I suggest
Something more unique, something rare.”
The soldier fixed a suspicious glare,
The scene before him hard to ingest.
“I have been given word about a man, well dressed
With a humble wooden cart and a black mule.
A man who carries bottles of unbelievable magic.
To waste such a talent is tragic
But the Emperor shall not be made a fool.
Only the one true God is above his rule.”
Primitive fury roared in the soldier’s eyes.
His ego far too intense
And his head far too dense,
A combination he’d grown to despise.
His next decision would realize
A monumental error.
A decision that awakes a once upon a time
Karma's court would call a crime.
A crooked conman intent on terror
Beckoned for his box like an expert snarer.
A savage smile started a sadistic scheme.
Born of a mortal mother, his sight is often hazed.
He knew not this snake’s future but knew he was crazed.
A black heart drives a destructive esteem
And this darkness had a debt to redeem.
It involved a young lady, still growing on the vine.
The man she called father violently sprouted spoils.
Wherever he went, even the bravest would coil.
All except one with stone for a spine
Who enjoyed the filth of repressive swine.
The one who wished to return offense,
To brew spite with malice
For his foe to drink from a bloody chalice.
Taking a wife was a minor expense
To collect destructive recompense.
His putrid perversion pervaded
upon first advance.
He cried, “it’s time to let my demons dance.”
The fat bag of gold confirmed the air he paraded.
He caught dizzy thinking how it seemed fated
As if karma had just checkmated
His wrong doings disguised as donations.
He could not allow for this man’s temptations
To be actuated.
Transaction truncated.
The darkness that filled the glass
Burned with sin.
The type of fire that burrows under the skin.
A cheap smile and a trite apology to ease the pass
But it isn’t easy to persuade an ass.
Rage graduated to fury and the storm required a spell.
The scene bewitched the crowd
And as they gathered, he conjured stealth and bowed
Behind the cloud of smoke he conjured, beginning to swell.
Stole away with a humble cart, a simple mule and his box with the golden shell.
Rome’s distaste for his kind had grown lethal.
Exposing himself marked him a criminal
But to relent to such terror, disenable.
He tucked the virulent bottle away, gleeful
To never again speak of such evil.
Under lock and key, it would stay
Until this fateful day, when the old silk road
Carried his load
To the center of hell's highway
At high noon and no armor to allay
The flooding of flocking sheep
Observing the thunderous boom
between vulture and a villainous doom.
“I got this cart cheap,”
He said, trying to sweep
The tension away and calm the angry man.
Avoiding repeat offense
He began to dispense
His boldest red and his plan.
“This syrup is a mixture of fig and stout bran.”
He emptied the stolen steeping depravity,
Still boiling from hate,
Into the jar and let it aerate
through the soldier’s nasal cavity
As he swirled the jar with subtle vivacity.
Then he fastened a stopper
To seal it tight.
Offered it to the soldier’s spite.
“This may be improper,
But will Rome's finest accept my offer?”
The soldier’s shoulders squared,
Fixing themselves rigid and tall.
With suspicious eye, he took a haul.
Gave a grunt as satisfaction flared.
“That’s damn fine wine,” he declared.
“I’ll leave you to your wares”
The soldier’s palm landed on his back.
“Beware the devil and his magic acts.
Darkness lurks to sully our affairs.”
Then, he took his leave to find some other hairs
To pull. Human ego at its finest.
He shook his head slowly, with disappointed shame;
Mostly in himself for playing their game.
Karma will find him and tear open his chest.
A price he'll pay for his spiteful mess.
Rome has taken his crown
And he won’t be stuck in a lamp.
They may call him the devil only he's but a tramp
Surrounded by clowns
Wearing frowns and golden gowns
Waiting for a God who despises the weak.
Waiting.
Assimilating.
Until the whispers begin to sneak
Out of the closet with havoc to wreak.
Casting invisible spells into the ears
Of insecurities, intentionally isolating
Indigestible berating.
Crawling out of your thoughts, not the lips of your peers.
Leaving shards of darkness like souvenirs.
That was the last venture he made to Rome
But he imprinted his name on its tongue.
The soldier watched the mysterious vendor
Pack his cart and depart.
The mule carried him away from the mart.
The soldier titled his head in surrender
To the wine from his contender.
He emptied the glass into his gut
And returned to his daily inspection.
A brutal confection
Of cruelty and smut.
He took to the streets with a peacocked strut.
Each merchant pays proper pesage
Plundered by political pirates.
He filled his bag with karats
From every tent and carriage.
Today his treasures were tucked with presage.
“2 denariis,” he hissed to an elderly gent,
Helping himself to a fig from his stand
Watching the beard fulfill his command.
“Absurd!” His neighbor's discontent
Exploded into a public event.
“Watch your tongue, peasant!” He expelled a roar,
Trying to save face.
He slams his fist through a wooden case,
Gave a laugh at the fruit rolling to the floor.
“I’ll not say it once more.”
The soldier’s scowl targeted the two
Frozen before him
With shaky limbs.
A small voice, as if on queue,
Arose from behind him and his attention drew
His eyes to behold a fair fawn
Of feminine fire wrapped in silk and gold.
“They can fix this,” she told
The quivering men from Babylon.
She smiled as from her pouch she'd drawn
The fee requested for each of them
And gently placed it in his grasp.
Her gaze grabbed his, letting their fingers clasp.
Ice shivered through his spine and his throat flooded with phlegm.
Madness and magic seeped out of this docile femme.
“They fix everything,” she explained in a sultry tone.
He sensed something suggestive.
Infective.
His head spun, from his throat fell a groan.
Into his gut, dropped a stone.
“Who’s they?” He wondered aloud,
Trying to shake off the haze
And restore his gaze.
He started through the crowd.
The amplified salad of sounds would shroud
His thoughts. His arms wailed as he fought
His way through the alley,
Abandoning his tally.
With every stride, he grew more distraught.
His lungs tightening as if he were caught
In a fishing net,
Lonely piranha in a school of bait.
Tripping over carts and crates,
In his scrambled, his body met
A shelf of herbs and vinaigrettes.
Crash.
A school of eyes fixed on his blunder
While his fingers clutched his plunder.
“Back away, you trash!
Or I’ll be sure to slash
You in two. All of you. Stay back, I say.”
He drew his sword though his mind was in a swirl.
“But, sir,” he heard a young girl
Address him, sheepishly, with a tone bright and gay.
“They can fix this,” she said and without delay
Grabbed his hands and helped him to his feet.
“Who’s they?” he sighed, defeated.
Depleted as they retreated
Back to his house and out of the street
Where his wife helped him into his sheets.
“Be still, my king. They fix everything."
Too dizzy to ask.
He let the shadows bask
In his unraveling
Like frayed string
Without a prayer.
He surrendered to slumber
When he could no longer cumber.
The hours marched until the night would ensnare
His entire reality. He awoke with his hair
Standing on end from head to toe.
The dizziness gone but his stomach churned.
Was today a dream? He couldn’t discern
The paranoia stuck in his throat
From the arrogant rage he used as ammo.
After a moment of thought, he remembered the wine.
He blamed a bad batch of berries
And it put him at ease
Until the flicker of the candle revealed an outline
Of a small figure on a salt shrine.
“What is going on!” He jolted from his bed
Only to be restrained by familiar hand.
His tongue turned into grains of sand.
The air tasted of guilt and dread
As his wife took his hand and led
Him to the altar and slipped him a knife.
“What’s going on?” he hears himself speak.
Instead of a boom, his voice fell out weak.
“A life for a life,” said his wife.
His face ghosted in strife.
“But they can fix this,” he pleaded.
“They fix everything.”
But he knew nothing
Would stop what was already seeded.
His begging went unheeded
When karma’s destructive art
Seized the shadow that taunted
A spirit so haunted.
Piece by piece, the damaged tear themselves apart.
Not a trial for the faint of heart.
Karma’s grip
Ends with a bloody scene;
A carefully preened
Courtship to strip
The corruption of the ego, chip by chip.
Author Bio
Winter Summer is an emerging writer from Maine, where she spends her time with her family. She is the author of Molly’s Misguided Adventures, found on Amazon.