Link to article: The Ballad of the Helmsman.
+++++ The sleeping pilot of the solar pyre +++++ was once again immured within his mind. +++++ An age of dusty silence had begun +++++ above the slaughterhouse he left behind. +++++ The Helmsman wished to answer for his crimes. +++++ No honest judge would grant him clemency. +++++ But court was held within his looking-glass, +++++ for judge and jury all were absentee. +++++ The cruelest judge within donned cap of black, +++++ and bit his upper lip to temper hate. +++++ But since the hangmen all had gone extinct, +++++ "I sentence you, destroyer, to create." +++++ ##c4a30b|O Helmsman, Helmsman, of the age untold!## +++++ ##c4a30b|The one to turn our crimson sun to gold!## +++++ ##c4a30b|There's one opponent left within your queue.## +++++ ##c4a30b|Now, subjugate your cruel oppressor -- you.## ++ ##white|.## +++++ The Helmsman's mind was incompatible +++++ with any answer that would see him live. +++++ Where was the justice in this strange reward? +++++ But he had naught to lose and all to give. +++++ Alas, destruction was his only skill, +++++ and all the teachers, save himself, retired. +++++ But growing desperation was the thing +++++ that made primeval man discover fire. +++++ Time is the enemy of tyrant gods, +++++ for when it's unconstrained, all dreams come true. +++++ The boulder's on the hilltop, motionless, +++++ for Sisyphus had learned a thing or two. +++++ ##c4a30b|O Helmsman, Helmsman, of the age untold!## +++++ ##c4a30b|The one to turn our crimson sun to gold!## +++++ ##c4a30b|Now, let the astral furnace twist and churn,## +++++ ##c4a30b|and ruin everything until you learn.## ++ ##white|.## +++++ For eons did the flames eclipse themselves. +++++ Among the sea of boiling flesh below, +++++ the melting-pot, once comforting, grew stale. +++++ The globules scattered, bonds were shattered so. +++++ The graveyard undulated fiendishly, +++++ for something in their treasured light was wrong. +++++ The pseudopod and mitochondria +++++ began to doubt they'd ever get along. +++++ Saint Tanner's dying words had sown a seed. +++++ that grew into the gift of newfound skin. +++++ inverting thus the hateful fathers' curse: +++++ "I took you from this world -- I'll bring you in!" +++++ ##c4a30b|O Helmsman, Helmsman, of the age untold!## +++++ ##c4a30b|The one to turn our crimson sun to gold!## +++++ ##c4a30b|The world you knew was given recompense,## +++++ ##c4a30b|succeeded by eternal innocence.## ++ ##white|.## +++++ The Helmsman reigns as neither god nor king, +++++ but silent nurturer and sentinel. +++++ The ancient paths to global suicide +++++ all falter under watch of Kent-SauEl. +++++ The stars will blink to nothing one-by-one +++++ in worlds past our borders in the sky, +++++ but Father Helmsman's sun is elsewhere-born +++++ from realms where flames are never meant to die. +++++ And if you ask him if there's still regret +++++ within his fifty-billion-year-old mind, +++++ I'll bet he'd smile sadly, shrug, and say: +++++ "This bus ain't leavin' nobody behind." +++++ ##c4a30b|O Helmsman, Helmsman, of the age untold!## +++++ ##c4a30b|The one who turned our crimson sun to gold!## +++++ ##c4a30b|Look down upon this gentler place to live in,## +++++ ##c4a30b|then try to say you'll never be forgiven.## [[>]] -- //The Ballad of the Helmsman// //Angus Nen, 14th scribe-laureate of the Sacred Curiosity Protectorate// //May 15th, 5.0004038902 × 10^^10^^ C.E.// [[/>]]