Elisheba (1911)

/ Daniel Swearingen


Open thee skies, come down, come down, open thee skies come down, where silence sounds, where silence sounds.

A soft touch of air lights down on her shadowed nose, in the coldest of winter, in best of her dreams, she climbs through the storm, and counts as she goes. The seams of her thoughts the daemons take hold. Blonde locks of her hair freeze to her cheeks, a character flaw, when she’s not pretty and neat. The gentleman waiting, her husband some said, cares not for her soul, like the one enclosed, in memories of light that she’s had. One hundred and ninety-nine steps, steady not led, a shiny eyed specter, a past that’s not dead. Her eyes on the goal, somewhere, she knows, another world it waits, so different, then Whitby. There beyond the reach of her still living breath it flows. She’s still not a princess, a lady of class, yet now all those whispers tell her instead, she’s the queen that’s unbridled to ghost in her head. A wanton fire in need of the king’s bed. The whisper’s say, he’s just ahead.

An unmoving light in darkness, reflecting on the snow, the empty still, still darkness, not empty that, she knows. The Abbey a high place, a graveyard for the mass, the place her grandmother Lucy taught her of the pact. The contract in the shadows, the moving of the blessed, the points that part the curtains, when there’s nothing to hold her back. She thinks herself, an angel now, no broken wings, from her past now, no memory how he dragged her cross the floor, and beat her till she cried, the blood it ran, to something outside. They came those specters how they replied. Tore his thickened bones, with a curse they moaned. In your coven’s name, a culture oh, our sweet Beth your designation we claim.

She moves past stones her face now clearer, the whirling snow of judgment with her. The clouds they break, and all things are with her, now. And through it all her history heard her, she thought them lost, but how they drew her to this final place.

And Beth she calls the Daemon down, from this lost Abbey, the howling sounds, and from across the space of time and grace, her life of bruises becomes replaced. Elisheba, come and be my bride.

Open thee skies, come down, come down, open thee skies come down, where silence sounds, where silence sounds. – 05.23.2017 – דָּנִיֵּאל

55 thoughts on “Elisheba (1911)”

  5. I was thinking this might be the day, that you added to the Whitby Ladies, and I was correct. Daniel I don’t know where to begin, this is pure occult art, and Mike Masse’s cover of Beth, was just wonderful. I LOVE it! ❤ ❤ ❤

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  7. My old heart is beating, and I’m in love again with another Whitby character, if you ever make it a book, I shall die in happiness. Well done Daniel!

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  15. Daniel I have been following the “Whitby Ladies” with great interest, and for me this was a favorite. Lucy was wonderful as well, but this had a hidden savage bite so as to speak in it.

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  19. Pingback: The Invictus 1896 | Daniel Swearingen

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