The hallucinating laughter of the drunken scholar, bleeding on his script, burning parchment warms his face, sleeping...
Outside the children gather, dancing with skylarks in splendour.
The fire dancers surging towards the heavy clouds.
A celebration blasts forth, the headless swans now perform.
The scorching scent of brandy, it stains the marble archway.

Now... the clocks fail at seven.

Artist of cruelty, sculptor of grey things, weaver of foul song; offspring of no-one, father of no child, writer of torrid ballet; mentor of bleakness, poet of torment, melter of amethyst... somnium.

"Oh what a magnificent feast for the eyes, every decrepit wall burning brighter than the very sun, and from where I stood crows and things crowded the highest tower and the orchards bowed and moaned in deep agony.
Strange it was I think how small young children laugh at this."

Like witches brew of snow and leaves and sleeping through a storm.

Bairns be warned now the hornd scholar will come, through his novels his coldness and hate will run, thus it was true the brains of children did swell, my blood runs cold as to you this tale I tell.

Bairns in rags are swept aside, make way for the bell ringer.

Artist of cruelty, sculptor of grey things, weaver of foul song; offspring of no-one, father of no child, writer of torrid ballet; mentor of bleakness, poet of torment, master of death's string quartet; the author of the burning flock.

And so to the cliffs...

"And then quietly and without fail, one hundred weary peepers amid the grass, peer out among the waves, frozen deep to the bone preparing to be driven into the sea."

Picking apples in the moonlight was pleasant, we stood on the corpses to reach them, and now we are hostile to birds and creatures of the undergrowth; dine a meal of wrath, sup thy whiskey of the night and be gone.

One by one they are swept into the cold watery depths.

Beyond the clouds, as they fall like ice.
Marble, raging, steeples, crashing.
Revenge is the sweetest fruit.

Black and sour to the summit we soar, within the feathers of depression.
And oh how we craved a fresh spring morning.

Here a flower for you, we often think of you and your siblings buried shallow in the grass, the grass upon which at night I lay drunk on red wine, singing to the sky.
(Endeavour / Conatus)

At the bottom of the winding staircase and out onto the cobbles, in a drunken rage I burst, things leering, towering.
Then...

Children and family track him back to his lair, torture his soul by the burning of books and scripts, ripping them down from the shelves and rewriting this story in hope of salvation from destinies past.

Picking applies in the moonlight was pleasant, we stood on the corpses to reach them, letting the radiant summer morning creep through our windows stirs no memories, but the fattening well-fed rooks help us to remember!!