Millstones and power

The sowing machine, millstones and power
seek no passage to the borders of grace
rather than be the darkness on the horizon’s face,
and hide my pain, I’ll choose the abyss this time.

Having overcome my spirit and its pride,
the seed of vengeance I sow like an old rite;
since what came before has grown stale, for you I’ll cast aside
the good that was turning into a poisonous bite.

So, burn my world or drown it in tears;
transfer your order and law into the heart.
With a scrap of paper, let that old consciousness be laid to rest
or, by all means create something new

Moscow

The unwritten law, the bloodied hound,
that left its trace along the boulevard.
The bridges burned, the passport where the double-headed eagle frowned,
has filled my lungs with sombre, heavy sorrow.
Here, a crust of bread was once enough for many,
and shows were staged for every twisted taste,
yet memory will keep, with scorn uncanny,
the exile’s temper and the ace up his sleeve, disgraced.
Two centuries on and self-immolation again,
the spirit crushed in my own Moscow still;
and those untouched by freedom’s fevered pain
await their train in a stiffened, heartless mill.

Outcast

In the courtyard, the pagans gather—
beneath the dome, an uneasy quiet.
Before the storm, the fading flower
wilts in silence, soft and crushed.

A coil of wormwood winds in prayer,
bleeding through the lustful night.
Al-Aqsa’s mosque crowned with worldly glare—
power’s thirst foretells its blight.

The Promised Land will march to war,
drawn into a hopeless round;
where once the covenant was law,
now only ash and exile’s sound.

The four horsemen of the apocalypse

We will not slay the foe by sight—
he comes again, as ever fated,
upon a horse of ghostly white,
the nameless rider consecrated.

A crown he wears, a bow he strains,
his gift to man: disease and guile.
The fever spreads through blood and brains,
and they shall name him Plague the while.

The second came—an Angel of Vengeance,
his mare a raging chestnut flame;
with blood and battle for his sentence,
War was the burden of his name.

To him was given a mighty sword,
and right to seize the earth entire;
the martyr’s blood became his hoard,
a draught to feed his holy fire.

Then came the knight in sable shroud,
his steed as black as sleepless sin;
through war’s long smoke he rode unbowed—
Famine was the shade within.

The scales he bore would weigh on men’s trials,
the meagre grain, the broken yield;
and want would walk through dusty miles—
the fourth one now takes up the field.

And lo — I looked, a pale horse came,
and Death rode out, his visage bare;
the living left were but a frame,
a quarter clung to poisoned air.

And he who’d passed the former three,
through torment, blood, and choking breath—
had faced his final prophecy,
and drawn his last—resisting—death.

Exodus

To chords of springtime expectation,
we trust again, as once before;
to rainy, sullen declarations—
and losing ranks once more in war.

Enough of dreams of flourishing;
illusion blooms within the dell.
The brittle leaves, for all their colouring,
now serve the privy’s purpose well.

So hoarse, uneasy, in these verses,
with words half-scratched and half-believed:
you swore devotion—false and cursive!
your people stumble, self-deceived.

Foretelling still, my lines awaken
a fist of rhyme, a dawn intoned;
and every dusk I praise, unshaken—
your final leaving, carved in stone.

Diamond and coal

Prologue:
Thus spoke Zarathustra:
“This new tablet, O my brothers, I give to you:
Be steadfast.”

The beginning

From the dark womb under the weight of the deep,
where time lies sleeping, and light is but one,
nursed by pain, through fire and dust,
two brothers rose from the earth’s crust.

The first—he sparkled, brief yet bright.
The second—mute, a stone of night.

Dialogue:
COAL

Tell me, brother, why so cruel—
why gleam eternal like a blade?
Once you were as I, in darkness ruled,
burning in that tomb we made.

Remember the depths we shared, the heat,
the iron womb that forged our breath?
You rose in stone, in fortress set,
I turned to ash beneath the death.

DIAMOND

I remember—all the gloom,
the weight that pressed against my chest.
You burned away; I bore the wound,
and centuries sealed me to the test.

You give your warmth but for an hour,
your light consumed, your embers vain;
I shine within, a soul’s cold power—
your dust forgets, my facets remain.

You’re smoke and restlessness combined,
I am the star—the essence, refined.

COAL

Yet who brings more good to men?
I labour in their daily flame.
You gleam in crowns of gilded den,
while in furnaces remain.

I warm their flesh, I bake their bread,
you are the chill of vaulted tombs.
In me burns life, in you—the dead.
Perfection fits in narrow rooms.

The speech of the diamond

I asked not for praise, nor worship’s fire;
I suffered long beneath desire.
I sought no mountain’s pride or fame—
I only learned to bear the name.

Ages pierced my silent core,
darkness pressed and pity tore.
No cry, no curse—I turned within,
transformed by patience, not by sin.

My visible light—mistake it not for pride.
I became myself, with no goddess as guide.
I became myself, to guard what’s true,
to hallow life with stony hue.

No blood I hold yet pulse I keep—
the earth’s own breath runs slow and deep.
Your surface fades, but every scar,
each cut I bear—a lived memoir.

Had you endured both pain and shade,
your fear and glory unmade by trade,
we’d stand together, crownless, whole—
two faces of one mortal soul.

The speech of coal

You speak in truth—you’re strong, complete,
granite-born, without deceit.
You blaze reflection from within,
while I burn out for others’ kin.

Still, you command, you make men shake—
is perfection a gift, or a grave mistake?
Is life itself but will’s sharp edge,
where warmth alone unlocks the pledge?

I forge the metal, I warm the home,
for smith and dreamer, I become their loam.
I need no glory, I bear the weight—
to pull the cart is my estate.

My brother eternal, you choose repose,
I choose the toil that mercy knows.
To delve, to fade, to sometimes fall—
some are born to shine, and some—to fuel all.

Finale

So, in the dark where mirrors cease,
where every soul is pressed to peace,
we’re crystals forged by fate’s command—
to cut, to shape, to understand.

Shall two together conquer all,
or sever creation’s fragile wall?
To rule by bliss, or yield by fire—
in bronze or for the true empire?

If noble grace is what you seek,
then learn my final law to speak:

Knowledge is the sharpest blade,
Flame with steel—the crowned arcane.
And all who forge truth from the soul,
shall gleam and warm as diamond and coal.