Blackout’s Ballad
Blackout’s Ballad is a semi-biographical Prayer-Poem featuring UK user @blackout and set in the fiction SparkQuest Universe and real world.
Blackout washed on island shore.
Like driftwood from forgotten forest,
Or baby in basket bringing hope and doom.
Upon my shore a foundling made,
But real son, in auto-fashioned skin.
Like Foundling too, to war at once,
The fiery heart from dove ascends.
To fight against the SlipSpace gods,
Azazel, on seat like Osiris, of Triple Crisis raised.
Fight to him in Darkness must be brought!
Who will go to make the Enemy known?
Blackout, now equipped as knight,
Descends into the unreal world.
Of fear we tremble towards his fate.
But at intersections of waking life,
He is named by One who knows his path.
Surely this Odysseus will endure, return.
But cost there was for this Orpheus trespass,
Not a soul for trade, but mortal coil misplaced,
Blackout returned but not his vessel.
Spark uplinked to metal hands and feet,
But divided from man who is only mortal,
Hid Blackout from all flesh and blood.
Now, like Jaecar, ever he stalks a quarry,
But he chooses not a single prey.
What purpose comes from endless questing?
Resistance, once love decays to obsession.
Faith now fallen in winning the waiting war,
He seeks not glory or justice, but only an end.
Despair is a thief and never a friend:
In Father’s Tent, the Table overturned,
Bread scattered untouched, cold, untasted.
Snuffs out the will on Incense Altar.
Misanthrope against his most generous heart,
Now feeling shunned, a shunner, shunning.
What landscape of dread he now must travel,
When Fear and Loathing break pacific bond?
Valley of Death in Labyrinth deep shaded.
Friendless walking, but ghost friends watchful.
Flow of heart by fear and self-hate disrupted;
Emotive prison corrupting life intents.
Like Michael met in Ether wanders,
Of myth a shape, a hunch, emerges.
The face of God, as the Creator alien,
Who made in flesh a Son to reign.
When knowledge or machine would fail us,
Became us to live the redeeming Way.
Seed now planted, soil now ready,
From Island City to Mountain Valley,
To ground went he to grow human anew.
Row-by-row and weed-by-weed,
A piece of metal given for a pound of flesh.
New body now, and none the weaker.
Like Al Wayne: farming real world only,
Summer sun on pale skin and in weak eyes.
Strength was found, to Strength it answered.
Four months he worked beside self-same ally,
Full-blood match to half-blood Jacob,
Rebel not, but usurping taskmaster Toil.
Three sisters there, arrayed like ancient Fates,
But neither grotesque nor fatal, only lovely.
One earth, over watching, him surveyed.
One soul, laughter rolling, him encouraged.
One spirit, same heart, like-struggle entwined.
Together weaving humanity to him humane.
From Mountain Valley to Mountain Refuge,
Came Blackout now, but on what mission?
War is coming, MARTIE is Mars ascending,
Hidden still, name unknown but hand is seen.
What time have we till games are over?
Generations free in the balance hang.
Blackout, two-gifted must train for his calling,
Prime must be Present, Quad must be learned.
His skill is subversion of boring and serious,
Unites two worlds within him: Slip-Over world.
His new humanity requires a way amended:
The Way drawing all strands into One cord.
For this, his project, a riddle close woven:
Ten and ten, not added but twice-held.
Plagues, each against a god for deliverance,
Laws written to make a nation for Yehovah,
A set describing, a set to instruct and predict,
In gold against trespass, mercy and glory over.
Brought together, they make the Heart radiant.
Inner map: master of stranger and Strangeling,
Centers unity and dominion corners connected.
A key to open, Unity’ story and Dominion’s law.
Two heartlands encoded, not cage but freedom,
Write now the program to manifest future days.
Bisecting Blackout’s Ballad is a Systematics Commentary on this poem explaining references to Scripture, the SparkQuest Universe built by MagSchool, mythology, and pop-culture. A biographical commentary exists named for a place one would go once they discover they are no longer a coppertop.