2. Thirteen Autumns And A Widow

Spawned wanton like blight on an auspicious night

Her eyes betrayed spells of the moon's eerie light

A disquieting gaze forever ghosting far seas

Bled white and dead, Her true mother was fed

To the ravenous wolves that the elements led

From crag-jagged mountains that seemingly grew in unease

Through the maw of the woods, a black carriage was drawn

Flanked by barbed lightning that hissed of the storm

(Gilded in crests of Carpathian breed)

Bringing slaves to the sodomite for the new-born

On that eve when the Countess' own came deformed

A tragedy crept to the name Bathory

Elizabeth christened, no paler a rose

Grew so dark as this sylph

None more cold in repose

Yet Her beauty spun webs

Round hearts a glance would betroth

She feared the light

So when She fell like a sinner to vice

Under austere, puritanical rule

She sacrificed...

Mandragora like virgins to rats in the wall

But after whipangels licked prisoners, thralled

Never were Her dreams so maniacally cruel

(And possessed of such delights)

For ravens winged Her nightly flights

Of erotica

Half spurned from the pulpit

Torments to occur

Half learnt from the cabal of demons

In Her

Her walk went to voodoo

To see Her own shadow adored

At mass without flaw

Though inwards She abhored

Not Her coven of suitors

But the stare of their Lord

"I must avert mine eyes to hymns

For His gaze brings dogmas to my skin

He knows that I dreamt of carnal rites

With Him undead for three long nights"

Elizabeth listened

No sermons intoned

Dragged such guilt to Her door

Tombed Her soul with such stone

For She swore the Priest sighed

When She knelt down to atone...

She feared the light

So when She fell

Like a sinner to vice

Under austere, puritanical rule

She sacrificed

Her decorum as chaste

To this wolf of the cloth

Pouncing to haunt

Her confessional box

Forgiveness would come

When Her sins were washed off

By rebaptism in white....

The looking glass cast Belladonna wreaths

'Pon the grave of Her innocence

Her hidden face spat murder

From a whisper to a scream

All sleep seemed cursed

In Faustian verse

But there in orgiastic Hell

No horrors were worse

Than the mirrored revelation

The She kissed the Devil's phallus

By Her own decree...

So with windows flung wide to the menstrual sky

Solstice Eve She fled the castle in secret

A daughter of the storm, astride Her favourite nightmare

On winds without prayer

Stigmata still wept between Her legs

A cold bloodedness which impressed new hatreds

She sought the Sorceress

Through the snow and dank woods to the sodomite's lair

Nine twisted fates threw hewn bone die

For the throat of Elizabeth

Damnation won and urged the moon

In soliloquy to gleam

Twixt the trees in shafts

To ghost a path

Past the howl of buggered nymphs

In the sodomite's grasp

To the forest's vulva

Where the witch scholared Her

In even darker themes

"Amongst philtres and melissas

Midst the grease of strangled men

And eldritch truths, elder ill-omen

Elizabeth came to life again"

And under lacerations of dawn She returned

Like a flame unto a deathshead

With a promise to burn

Secrets brooded as She rode

Through mist and marsh to where they showed

Her castle walls wherein the restless

Counted carrion crows

She awoke from a fable to mourning

Church bells wringing Her madly from sleep

Tolled by a priest, self castrated and hung

Like a crimson bat 'neath the belfry

The biblical prattled their mantras

Hexes six-tripled their fees

But Elizabeth laughed, thirteen Autumns had passed

And She was a widow from god and His wrath, finally...

3. Cruelty Brought Thee Orchids

Hear Me now!

All crimes should be treasured if they bring thee pleasure somehow...

Maleficent in dusky rose

Gathered satin lapped Her breasts

Like blood upon the snow

A tourniquet of Topaz

Glistened at Her throat

Awakening, pulled from the tomb

Her spirit freed eclipsed the moon

That She outshone as a fallen star

A regal ornament from a far flung nebular

Her likeness hung in the black gallery

Commanding unease

Demanding of Death to breathe...

Midst the whirl and daylight fauna

Of society at court

Elizabeth bedazzled, Her presence sought applause

Though Her torchlit shadow

Thrown upon damp cellar walls

Greeted nothing but despair from slaves Her nights enthralled

Thirteen Winter solstices had shown

Her path, that the dark

Had marked its dominion

Spaying the confessor

Whose caresses she'd known,

As whipcord in the House of Dog

Her cold cunt meat on holy bone

Raped of faith, She now embraced

The narcissistic unrest frozen on the mirror's face

With this disdain, inside these veins

(Highborn wanton that She was)

She sought to keep what age would claim

Her soul was sold and for this toll

Reeking pyres ever smouldered

On the whims of one so in control

Elizabeth, mysterious.

Cruelty brought thee orchids

From the bowels of the abyss

Once upon atrocity when midwitches stifled cries

And carved abortive runes in reddened wombs

Exhumed by scrying eyes

Madness came upon

Her like an amourous lover's seed

Lifesblood splashed upon Her skin

In gouts torture unleashed

And to Her dead reflection

Twas as if Her pallor gleamed

Like an angel's warmed by candles

Where erotic stains had cleaved

So demons dragged this libertine

Lusts screaming for release

Upon the flesh of maidens preened

As canvas for caprice

Exacting obeisance

Her gaze held a seance

Of spirits too trapped under glass to commune

A sleeter mistress than Luna

Whose threats to consume Her

Met with torments giving vent to Her swoon

Flat on Her back

Pack-prey for the reams

Of verses and curses

That haunted Her dreams

Midnightmare chimed

Thirteen in Her mind

A disciple of scars

Branded years hissed behind

Ridden split-thighed

By the Father of lies

An ovation of wolves

Blushed the skies as they writhed

But Heaven is never forever

She came, a spent storm

From the clouds...

Leaving serpents in office

Inside every gate

To lick righteous holes

Blinding Lords to the fate

Of virgins forced naked

To defile on rent knees

Hacked and racked backwards

Menses choking their pleas

"More. Whore. More.

Twitching make me wet with thee

Carcass rub me raw"

And to Her dead reflection

Twas as if Her pallor gleamed

Like an angel's warmed by candles

Where erotic stains had cleaved

So demons dragged this libertine

Lusts screaming for release

Upon the flesh of maidens preened

As canvas for caprice

Raped of faith, She now embraced

The narcissistic unrest frozen on the mirror's face

With this disdain, inside these veins

(Highborn wanton that She was)

She sought to keep what age would claim

Her soul was sold and for this toll

Reeking pyres ever smouldered

On the whims of one so in control

Elizabeth, mysterious.

Cruelty brought thee orchids

From the bowels of the abyss

From the bowels of the abyss

4. Beneath The Howling Stars

Midwinter wrongs the rites of Spring

Her spinal chill rakes the earth

Whilst pensive souls at zero sing

Woebetidings of rebirth

Under cold stares of Mars maligned

Near-suicides cross their hearts

And unborns writhe in tepid brine

For something wicked this way starts

Beneath the howling stars

Elizabeth, paragon of vice

Watches the sun set pyres alight

As Bane and Tyranny, Her Dobermans sleep

Like spellbound paramours at Her feet

A chatter of bells without

Raise hellhounds, teeth on edge

From sleighs hastened through snow lit red

Guests espied from the garret ledge

Great gloomy mirror tell Her face

She will outblind them all

That heavenly bodies would fall from grace

To possess such a lustrous pall

For beauty is always Cruel...

For beauty is always...

(Let destiny in chains commence...

Damnation under Gods seeking recompense

Enslaving to the whims of this mistress)

As the dance ensued

Elizabeth's mood

Tempered by the craft of a vitreous moon

In slick black iciness it grew

To consume

The wench Her tower tombed

Tending to Her costume

Bore the brunt of the storm

When the needle askewed

She has Her dogs maul the bitch's wrists through

Restored to jaded bliss

This evisceratrix

Descended to the ball

With painted blood upon Her lips

Passing like a comet so white

As to eclipse

The waltz wound down, transfixed

Devoid of all breath in the air

Even Death paled to compare

To the taint of Her splendour

So rare and engendered

'Pon the awed throng gathered

There...

Beneath the howling stars

She danced so macabre

Men entranced divined from Her gait

That this angel stepped from a pedestal

Had won remission from fate

By alighting to darker spheres

Delighting in held sway

For She was not unlike the Goddess

To whom the wolves bayed

"Whilst envy glanced daggers

From court maidens, arboured

Who whispered in sects

Of suspicions abroad

That Elizabeth bewitched

See how even now the whore casts

Her spells upon the Black Count

Whom Her reddened lips hold fast"

Tongue unto tongue

Swept on tides without care

For the harpies who rallied

Their maledict glares

A halo of ravens tousled Her hair

Chandeliers a tiara

For passions ensnared

"Phantasies sexed

When their eyes, moonstruck met

Their friction wore a way

Through the sea of foreplay

Lovers at first bite

She an Eve tempted to lay

Gasping at rafters

Flesh pressed in ballet"

But caprice, honours leashed

She absconded the feast

To prowl wonderland

Beasts in hand from the Keep

Of Feudal dilemma

Well mantled in furs

Through cullis to watch

Dogstars howl at the earth

On this violent night

Unholy night

Winds lashed their limbs together

As the ether vent its wintry spite

She wished His kiss on Her frozen landscapes

To excite the bleak advance

From castle bowers

Wherein small hours

The Devil never came by chance

A lone charm tied to Her inner thigh

Sent lusts nova as hooves trod

Cobbled streets where lowlives fleet

Were flung to a wayward god

Midwinter wrongs the rites of Spring

Her spinal chill rakes the earth

Whilst pensive souls at zero sing

Woebetidings of rebirth

Under cold stares of Mars maligned

Near-suicides cross their hearts

And unborns writhe in tepid brine

For something wicked this way starts

Beneath the howling stars

Pounding upon the pauper ridge

Earshot of a hunched beldame

Elizabeth teased, would He dare to please

Such elderly loins enflamed?

To this He feigned a grim disdain

Playing to Her slayful eye

But the hag replied...

"This girl that chides

Will soon be as plagued with age as I"

Her consort laughed a plume of icy breath

For Elizabeth's grace could raise

A flag of truce in burning heaven

Or the dead from early graves

Yet still She seethed

This proud Snow Queen

Embittered with the cursed retort

And because He sought Her loves onslaught

He gutted the crone for sport

Soon in full moon fever they were wed

Lycanthropic in the conjugal bed

Littered with aphrodisiacs

To tease dynastic union

And beget them further maniacs

Elizabeth

Free reigned, now a Countess

Outwielded and outwore

Her title like a favoured dress

Whilst Her errant Lord

Whose seasons savoured war

Stormed black to fell the infidel

Her embers, tempered, roared.

5. Venus In Fear

[Instrumental]

6. Desire In Violent Overture

Nights came tralling ghost concertos

Heartstrings a score of skeletal reaper bows

Playing torture chamber music allegretto

Conducting over throes trashed to crescendo

Skinless the dark shall scream

Hoarse Her symphonies

Deathmashed as the moon

That had lifted Her dreams

And frowned on the winding steps down

To where the vulgar strayed,

Taunting sick Her tender prey

She glided in Her bridal gown

How sleep the pure

Desire in Violent Overture

An emanation of phantom madness

The Countess beheld in shroud

By girls bereft of future vows

Soon to wed in white the frosted ground

Burning like a brand on the countenance of god

A yearning took Her hand to His Seraphim, bound

Deep red hissed the cat whips

On the whim of ill-will

Whilst She entranced, nonchalant, abliss

Flayed further songs of overkill

How weep the pure

Desire in Violent overture

In a crescent-whime cellar of crushed roses

Pooled blood and broken dolls

A torchlit shadow theatre souled

With the echoed cries of lives She stole

Killing time

She struck the hours dead

In Her control

Thus menopaused

Her clock of hacked out cunts

Began to toll

"Thirteen chimes of ancient strain

I conjure forth with dirge

That fills the void with timbred pain

To fulfil my sexual urge"

Frights came wailing from the Darkside

Haunting lipless mouths a fugue of arcane diatribes

Velvet, their voices coffined Her in slumber

Bespattered and appeased

As pregnant skies outside bore thunder

How sleep the pure

Desire in violent overture

As when high winds

Attune whipped trees

Her savage nature pitched

Would once again conduct the pleas

Of those She loved to agonies

As if it were

The first time every night

That She carved Her seal

In the flesh of life.

7. The Twisted Nails Of Faith

"Mirror, mirror on the wall

Shouldn't not grave pleasures be my all?

For if I shall see thy Will be done

Grant Me the Witchcraft of thy tongue"

[Quoted words above are from Hammer Film's "Countess Dracula" (1970). The singer is Imgrid Pitt, the actress who played the role of Elizabeth in that film.]

Three moondials froze in the shadow of six

As another soul passed to the grasping Styx

Clutching their trinket crucifix

Bats blew from eaves in a dissonant surge

Omens of corruption from within the church

A fetid, dank oasis still clung to fool rebirth

Alone as a stone cold altar

The castle and its keep

Like faerytale dominion rose

A widow to the snow peaks

Wherein reclined the Countess

Limbs purring from the kill

Bathed in virgin white and like the night

Alive and young and unfulfilled

Was it the cry of a wolf

That broke the silver thread of enchanted thoughts?

Of Her life as a mere reflection

(As the moon's in narrow windows caught)

That opened like dark eyelids on

The sigh of the woods that the wind fell upon

Like a Siren weaving song

From the lilt of choirs choking

Where the vengeful dead

Belong...

To the Sorceress and Her charnel arts

She swept from ebon towers at the hour of Mars

'Neath a star-inwoven sky latticed by scars

To unbind knotted reins that kept in canter, despair

Shod on melancholy, fleet to sanctuary there,

In netherglades tethered where onyx idols stared

Was it the Kiss of the mist

That peopled the air with the prowess of absinthe?

Lost souls begging resurrection

From Gods upon their forest plinths

Whose epitaphs read of re-ascending to win

Remission from despair through a holocaust of sin

In a tongue hilted in invective rectums

Over signs and seals the sorceress prayed

To Death, to rend the slender veil

That Ancient Ones might rise again

As shadows swelled

The Countess fell

To masturbating with Her dagger

As the Witch gabbled spells

Cumming heavy roses all the way to Hell

As sudden thunder's grue harangue

Announced two pincered worlds

Exuding bane, something came

With the stench of necrophiled graves

To these clandestines

Who shrank from glimpsing horror

That the growls of mating houls inclined...

Resplendent

In pendants

(Natal trophies torn from bellies of desanctified nuns)

A demons, bewinged, bedight

In scum, prowled their circle seeking entry to run

An arctic tongue upon Her vulva

Where rubies smeared to alabaster thighs

Glittered like a contract in the purse of a whore

Receiving sole communion from the body of christ

"If blood is what thou carves, foul fiend

I will yield this witch to thee

If thou wouldst draw a veil for Me

O'er lengthening scars of age and grief"

As the Demon slavered foetid vows

And bore His prey away

In talons itching to perpetrate

The nausea of eternal rape

The Sorceress screaming in His grasp

Spat a final curse to stain

The Countess with the promise

That Her lord at war would be cruelly slain

And She would rot.

Alone