Spiritside

Something a little different for you this week! It’s a poem, but it’s specifically within the fantasy genre and is part of a little casual collection I’ve been building up to populate the worldbuilding of a project I’ve been working on. I thought it would be fun to include here on the blog, and I might post a few more in the coming weeks, so here’s the first one!

Spiritside

You know why they call ‘Spiritside’ as such,
don’t you? Most do, even if it’s a fact
that falls by the wayside of their lives,
pushed out by tasks that must be done,
coins that must be earned, traded, hoarded,
and all other mortal preoccupations.

It’s not sand that lingers in the gutters,
my friend. White sand in G——-,
whoever heard of such a ridiculous thing?
No, it is the crumbs of those beneath–
those whose bodies support the taverns,
alehouses, dens of depravity, and so on.

And the houses, of course – the collections
of squalid rooms in squalid buildings,
teeming with mortals and vermin alike–
there is a reason why the wall does not
extend its protective, if injured, arm
around Spiritside, and we all know it.

There is also a reason why that stretch of land
between the L—— River and the wall,
is devoid of life. They said it was plague,
when they tore it down, set flames to
wood – they said the inhabitants were all
dead or dying, each one of them.

They did not tell those who were not there
of the armoured guards pressing the ill in,
alongside the well, alongside the living-
and-still-to-live-save-for-the-mortal-vice-
-of-being-unable-to-withstand-flames,
and their screams were ‘a passing windstorm.’

Have you ever stood in a storm without clouds,
without rain, without even the faintest darkening
of the sky? Well, it is no matter; they died.
Their bodies were buried across the water,
to further preserve G——- from slum-plague,
and atop those graves was built Spiritside.

That’s the thing about you mortals – one or two
always squeeze through the cracks, and then
you must live elsewhere, and just as they ripped
the unsightly mess from aside their wall,
it sprouted again, a most resilient weed,
blossoming from a bed of skeletons and bone-dust.

Isn’t that a tale, friend?

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