literature

The Town that Angered Sky. (anthology)

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XSwan-SongX
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Literature Text


I. a church with no God.

a dark outline of an
ancient steeple reaching skyward
against the night sky,
an outstretched needle
wishing to prick
the clouds and unleash the floods
within. yet, it does
not rain.

it is silent, both outside
and in with lines of uniformed
pews that once held
crowds of residents dressed
in tight-fitting, stiff-to-the-touch
Sunday best. now they
are empty, even the preacher-man
has abandoned the comfort
he once found here.

the walls themselves seem to hold
an atmosphere of wildness to
them, almost as though whatever
dead God once resided here is
angry. almost as though He is
the one who cursed this
untameable place, this jungle

and in doing so,
doomed all the beasts within it.



II. lion-king.

he has inherited this
broken kingdom,
this wretched land
that comes with a
crown of thorns -

the beasts have pledged
themselves to
follow him. each a
desperate face that
knows they are bound
to this ill-fated
patch of earth that

didn't know it wasn't
supposed to be part
of the heavens. he stands at the border,
the point of no return -
a silent vigil, the silver mist
mocking his dreams
of escape. then, he turns
back

to face his fate.



III. enter the wolves.

they are sharp-kneed and
bright eyes; frail claws
with strong paws
and titanium bones.

she is older, now the
oldest when she wasn't
before and guards
with the fury of a
demon -

he is younger, has always
been the youngest; he is
the soft-coat pup
stumbling in the snow
behind her safety as he
has not yet grown
claws
like hers.

they sit beneath the
apple tree on the hill,
even on the coldest nights
and howl
into the mist for the pack
that left them behind;

in the morning,
she digs her claws into
the new day
so they
can see the end of it.



IV. tiger-striped boy.

the tiger wears his
striped arms proudly now,
a mark that he has
survived hell once before

and now, he's going
to do it again. his teeth are
sharp, hungry, as he paces
back-and-forth in his den,

growling quietly to himself. he has
no parents, they were swallowed
by silver yesterday and now
he is alone. he wonders, briefly
if he will give in to the desire

to escape like they did. if he will
run before his own brain threatens
to tear him apart. he glances out towards
the faint drizzle that has taken
everything
from him. he sets his jaw, defiant in
the face of hell itself.


"a man's gotta do,
what a man's gotta do,"  

he mutters, repeating the mantra
that his Father has drilled into his
bones. today, though, it sounds
more like a prayer.

tomorrow, it may sound
like an epitaph.


V. a pack of laughing hyenas.

they cackle in the night,
dancing down streets that
once upon a time,
they would have crept
down lest they should
wake the neighbours and
their parents find out.

nowadays, they prance on
cracked tarmac holding
cigarettes with
wicked grins. they are starving
with sharp edges and hollow
stomachs but this dry
desert under the moonlight

stops them from caring. trashing
cars that they already
trashed last night and yesterday
night, they wait for the lion-king
to come and chase them off
again

because this,
sure as the hell they live in,
is the life.



VI. two old chameleons.

they are not as young
as they once were and do
not speak as much as
they used to. these days,
she sits in her rocking
chair and knits and he
plays the piano when
his arthritis isn't
playing up -

they pretend this town
still remembers
the weight of gravity,
like they remember
the weight of the
years pressing down
upon them. together, they

have accepted
that their fate
is to die here and
together, they blend
into an ordinary daily
routine because
anything

is better than fading
into the grey.



VI. mad monkey.

she's been losing it for
three days now and her
brain burns with
colours of a startling
intensity -

there's
a caged animal in her
head trying to
tear it's way out
and she wants
to survive,
she does, she does,

but she's going mad in here
and becoming part
of the quicksilver ocean around
her is a fate worse
than death. she's always been

a multi-coloured soul of
defiance so when she can
take no more, she steals the shotgun
from the two old chameleons,
presses it to her temple

and with a sob that could have been
a rainbow-shaded laugh,

she

fires.



VII. the aftermath in the jungle.

it's the tiger-boy
who finds her body and takes
her to the lion-king. the lion
knows her -

the girl across the street
who lived on her own when her
parents went driving
into the mist.

there is no point in holding
a funeral, since she
won't be the last,

but since she is the first,
he gives her one
anyway, in
the church without
a God, in a town
that is trying so
desperately to live

and in doing so,
killing
itself.




VIII. the tiger-boy and the hyenas.

they might all
be trouble-makers in the end,
both stealing what they
can, both making
trouble for the lion-king who's
just a world-weary man,

and in another world,
he might have joined the pack.

but it's been three months and
tensions boil in everyone's
veins and memories of past
friendships decompose in
artificial arteries


and this is the law
of the jungle.

no-one will ever know who spoke the first insult.

but the leader brings out her
knife and lunges, claws
out and teeth bared. he retaliates
in kind 'cause

a man's gotta do
what a man's gotta do
as his father would say and they
grapple - silver and
red painted claws ripping
and tearing - six against
one.

with a final roar,
he falls
to the ground.

where once was a pack there
are now only three, but the last
tiger has fallen. the leader pauses,
horror-stricken eyes that make her
seem more human instead of
hyena,
more girl instead of half-woman.

she flees back into the streets,
heedless of the last two packmates
and
finds it funny his blood
was crimson
instead of orange.



IX. strong-spined snake.

she has always been a strong
woman, her tongue forged
from steel and bones hammered
into shape from her Father's belt,
hands and broken ends of
beer-bottles.

death has never held any fear
for her. she is the kind of woman
that the devil himself fears -
the one that isn't afraid
to spit poison. the one that will dance
in the flames even when she's
burning.

so when the silver mist raises
its gun in the form of the town and
threatens to pump her veins full
of death,
she laughs in its face and runs
to embrace death,
dancing in the
rain

like a child going home for the first time.



X. lone wolf-girl.

where once was two
now is only one. she does not
howl at the moon
tonight, but instead
carries his body

to the old apple
tree where she digs
her claws into the
earth and lays him
down to rest. the lion-king has
stopped holding funerals.

she is hurting, her shoulders
were not made to hold up
the world and a lone wolf
has no purpose.

but she is a survivor, has
always been since the town
was lifted skywards and so

in the morning,
she digs her claws into
the new day
so she
can see the end of it.

even if he can't.




XI. the last hyena.

he is the last since
she went mad, running into
the carnivorous quicksilver screaming
about crimson and orange blood.

there is almost no-one
left now, the town is silent
and the bodies are
many. those who remain
survive
by roaming the streets
or by resigning themselves
to a quiet death like the
two old chameleons
who were found wrapped in death's tender embrace
one morning.

her face lingers
in his mind and the taste
of her lips on his tongue. he loved her,
he thinks.

one morning, he finds
himself staring up at the church
steeple like he's looking for
something. anything, really. but
when he stares up at the door,
her face swims in his
vision.

so he curses the church with no God
and turns away, snarling
as he leaves.



XII. he is still the lion-king.

a starving one, but a lion
nonetheless. there's only
three left now. himself,
the wolf-girl and the last
hyena. he's sitting

in the church with no God
praying to the empty
air with his hands clenched
together. he's wishing
for a miracle, that they
can all live even though
he knows there can only
be one survivor.  he could rip them apart,
the hyena and the wolf-girl,
he could do it. he'd be
the last one. the survivor.
this nightmare would
end.

but he couldn't do it. he is
the lion-king and he cannot
kill his subjects. interlacing his fingers
together
he prays, quietly,
in the silence of a Godless world
and wishes for an
answer.

he never gets one.



XIII.  under the apple tree (that has no place in a jungle)

unlike the church,
the apple tree on the hill
does not hold an atmosphere
of wild, reckless abandon
but is peaceful. today
though, it is sorrowful.

because the wolf girl lies
motionless beneath the swaying branches
as the tree watches over both
wolves. she did not dig her
claws into the day fast enough
and it slid out of her reach. below
the tree is the younger,
encased its roots like a Mother
embracing her child.

only one remains now,

the hyena-boy who scavengers
in the dirt after the lion-king never
walked out of the church. perhaps
he has found his answer in the next life.

spring is arriving, and with it there
will soon be apples. new life has
no place here, but the apple tree
was never taught this just like
the quicksilver void around the town
was never taught the laws of nature. softly, silently
a man who used to be a boy approaches.

he kneels before the tree, tenderly brushes
the fringe of the wolf-girl as though
surprised to find her here. then he picks up the
shovel she used to bury her brother and
the tree embraces her too - keeping them
both safe, both sleeping forevermore.

when he is done, the man sets his
shoulders and faces the silver-grey
void before him. there, he walks
forward and does not look back -
vanishing into the mist as the branches of
the apple tree sway questioningly
behind him.

perhaps he reached the other side
when no-one else had before, or perhaps
he did not and was reunited with
the girl he loved who never lived
enough to see him become a man. either way, it
does not matter,

because ever so quietly,
the first apple breaks away from its branch
and falls to the ground.
For Aerode's poetry contest which you can find the information for here: aerode.deviantart.com/journal/…

This 13-poem anthology is set in 'The Town that Angered Sky' which is a fictional setting created by Aerode and that you can find the original anthology for here at: aerode.deviantart.com/gallery/….

The central theme for my pieces is 'The Jungle' and the anthology begins with the description of the church and then describes people as it progresses, all of whom are compared to animals to tie in with the theme. The people become more desperate as time passes, and the ending is deliberately left ambiguous so the reader can decide if the man makes it to the other side of the mist or not. I was inspired to create this after reading a brief description of 'The Town that Angered Sky' in Aerode's journal and after reading some of the pieces for myself. I set it in 'The Town that Angered Sky' and used 'The Jungle' as my theme to contrast humanistic traits with animalistic ones and to show how in survival situations, people can very quickly lose their humane traits and become more animal-like, but can also redeem themselves as shown by the final piece.
© 2016 - 2024 XSwan-SongX
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