The Star’s Lament: A Ballad of Exile and Ebony Tides
Beneath the clawing vault of heaven’s wrath,
Where waves like wolves devour the brittle shore,
A figure stands—a shadow half-erased—
His cloak of tattered twilight soaked with brine.
The wind, a dirge, unspools his nameless past,
And in his hands, a violin of scars
Sings whispers to the storm’s insatiate throat.
He was a minstrel once, his strings aflame
With ballads spun from ember, moon, and thorn,
But now the frets are worn with salt and time,
His bow a splintered bone of some lost beast.
The sea, relentless, gnaws the splintered rocks,
As if to mock the frailty of his craft—
A symphony drowned deep in its own roar.
Above, a single star—pale, tremulous—
Pierces the tempest’s shroud. It does not blink,
But holds its breath, a silver tear suspended,
As though it knows the burden of his chest:
A locket, cold, its clasp corroded green,
Where sleeps a portrait painted by the dawn—
A face now blurred, yet etched in every chord.
He lifts the instrument, his knuckles white
As gulls that plunge through curtains of the gale.
The first note rises, frail yet unrelenting,
A thread of light through labyrinthine dark.
The star leans close; the waves, for one stunned moment,
Hush their primordial chant. The air grows still,
As if the world itself forgets to breathe.
*“O guardian of the veiled and voiceless skies,
You witnessed when her laughter filled the pines,
When every string I plucked was but her name.
Now grant me this: carry my final verse
To shores where shadows cannot clutch her hem.
Let not the deep devour what’s left unsung.”*
The star burns brighter—sharp, accusatory—
Its light a needle stitching shut his plea.
But still he plays, the melody a vessel
For all the years the tide has yet to steal:
The amber afternoons of wildflower vows,
The nights her voice would tame the shrewdest winds,
And dawns when exile was a word unborn.
The sea, enraged, reclaims its stolen silence.
A wave, colossal, arches like a sickle,
Its underbelly choked with shattered keels
And bones of those who dared to bargain grief.
The minstrel’s song becomes a ragged cry,
A duel of steel and rosin, bow and brine—
A requiem for paths that led nowhere.
*“Remember how the willows bent to listen?
How rivers paused to parse our twin reflections?
The world was once a hymn we shared, unbroken.
Now I am but a phantom of its verse,
A rest between the measures of her breath.”*
His fingers bleed. The strings, now stained with crimson,
Weave counterpoint to thunder’s brutish psalm.
The locket trembles, as if stirred by ghosts,
And for a heartbeat, through the star’s cold prism,
Her eyes emerge—not lost, nor yet at peace—
A flicker of the sun through storm’s clenched teeth.
The cliff, eroded, crumbles where he stands.
The earth dissolves; the void inhales his frame.
Yet as he falls, the violin ascends—
A winged thing, unyielding, toward the light.
The star receives it with a mournful shimmer,
Embedding strings amid its ancient fire,
While far below, the waves compose his epitaph:
*Here lies the bard who bargained with the abyss,
Who traded breath for one unshackled note.
The sea, his audience; the star, his witness;
The wind, the only keeper of his ode.
No grave, no shrine—just echoes in the foam,
And in the locket, salt, and endless roam.*
Years later, when the tempest tires of howling,
And hollow caves exhale their stored-up sorrows,
Sailors swear they hear, beneath the moon,
A strain of music no mortal throat could shape—
A duel of shadowed bow and astral string,
A elegy for love and exile’s wage,
That fades where sea and sky conspire to weep.
And in the locket, lost to kelp and current,
Her face, though featureless, still turns to hear
The star’s reply, each dusk, to his last question:
A single note, sustained, pristine, forlorn,
That hangs between the living and the drowned—
A bridge of sound where neither finds the shore.
Where waves like wolves devour the brittle shore,
A figure stands—a shadow half-erased—
His cloak of tattered twilight soaked with brine.
The wind, a dirge, unspools his nameless past,
And in his hands, a violin of scars
Sings whispers to the storm’s insatiate throat.
He was a minstrel once, his strings aflame
With ballads spun from ember, moon, and thorn,
But now the frets are worn with salt and time,
His bow a splintered bone of some lost beast.
The sea, relentless, gnaws the splintered rocks,
As if to mock the frailty of his craft—
A symphony drowned deep in its own roar.
Above, a single star—pale, tremulous—
Pierces the tempest’s shroud. It does not blink,
But holds its breath, a silver tear suspended,
As though it knows the burden of his chest:
A locket, cold, its clasp corroded green,
Where sleeps a portrait painted by the dawn—
A face now blurred, yet etched in every chord.
He lifts the instrument, his knuckles white
As gulls that plunge through curtains of the gale.
The first note rises, frail yet unrelenting,
A thread of light through labyrinthine dark.
The star leans close; the waves, for one stunned moment,
Hush their primordial chant. The air grows still,
As if the world itself forgets to breathe.
*“O guardian of the veiled and voiceless skies,
You witnessed when her laughter filled the pines,
When every string I plucked was but her name.
Now grant me this: carry my final verse
To shores where shadows cannot clutch her hem.
Let not the deep devour what’s left unsung.”*
The star burns brighter—sharp, accusatory—
Its light a needle stitching shut his plea.
But still he plays, the melody a vessel
For all the years the tide has yet to steal:
The amber afternoons of wildflower vows,
The nights her voice would tame the shrewdest winds,
And dawns when exile was a word unborn.
The sea, enraged, reclaims its stolen silence.
A wave, colossal, arches like a sickle,
Its underbelly choked with shattered keels
And bones of those who dared to bargain grief.
The minstrel’s song becomes a ragged cry,
A duel of steel and rosin, bow and brine—
A requiem for paths that led nowhere.
*“Remember how the willows bent to listen?
How rivers paused to parse our twin reflections?
The world was once a hymn we shared, unbroken.
Now I am but a phantom of its verse,
A rest between the measures of her breath.”*
His fingers bleed. The strings, now stained with crimson,
Weave counterpoint to thunder’s brutish psalm.
The locket trembles, as if stirred by ghosts,
And for a heartbeat, through the star’s cold prism,
Her eyes emerge—not lost, nor yet at peace—
A flicker of the sun through storm’s clenched teeth.
The cliff, eroded, crumbles where he stands.
The earth dissolves; the void inhales his frame.
Yet as he falls, the violin ascends—
A winged thing, unyielding, toward the light.
The star receives it with a mournful shimmer,
Embedding strings amid its ancient fire,
While far below, the waves compose his epitaph:
*Here lies the bard who bargained with the abyss,
Who traded breath for one unshackled note.
The sea, his audience; the star, his witness;
The wind, the only keeper of his ode.
No grave, no shrine—just echoes in the foam,
And in the locket, salt, and endless roam.*
Years later, when the tempest tires of howling,
And hollow caves exhale their stored-up sorrows,
Sailors swear they hear, beneath the moon,
A strain of music no mortal throat could shape—
A duel of shadowed bow and astral string,
A elegy for love and exile’s wage,
That fades where sea and sky conspire to weep.
And in the locket, lost to kelp and current,
Her face, though featureless, still turns to hear
The star’s reply, each dusk, to his last question:
A single note, sustained, pristine, forlorn,
That hangs between the living and the drowned—
A bridge of sound where neither finds the shore.
“`
