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A Legendary Tale for a Legendary Team.
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Previously: Josh of Allentown is the Gunslinger Hero of the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He’s led them to stunning victories in battle across time - but recently fell short - as the history of past failures and the pressure to be perfect hangs over him. After this loss, he awakes in the dark…
Weak four
Lamar Allen Poe
Once, in the dreadful, darker Near Ages,
I desired a lead-full marker for pages,
So that from my slumber I may cement, a verse invented for Hyde’s lament.
For it seems to be on the verge of dreams, that into thoughts our soul it streams,
Or be it that I was closer to pains, that for eulogy I conspired refrains.
Write this lyric but not the score,
Record this line, and nothing more.
I opened my eyes from this bed,
but sleeping still they were instead,
Then goosebumps tore along my spine, Could it be that I was blind!?
Up and down and left and right, I gazed around and prayed for light.
Then smiled did I at this interception, dark took my thought, but not perception.
I moved my toes to touch the floor,
And trudge the trap, nothing more.
A sudden shiver shook my breast,
this cave was cold, and I barely dressed,
I must leave soon to find a fire, light and heat now my mind’s desire.
“Hello!?” Asked I, or did I shout? I might have murdered for a signal out.
But the answer, worse, a curse, a scar, it birthed from my mind, the word, “Lamar.”
“Where am I trapped!? This house of Horror!”
The black whispered back, “Baltimore.”
I dove for a wall. I crawled the floor.
Mold covered my skin as I clawed for a door.
This wasn’t a room, as I felt a bone, it was a tomb, for men far from home.
If I can’t make soon an escape and go, my skin it will feed the demon crow.
But Lo! — Before three seconds clocked, I clutched the door! — but no! “It’s Locked!”
A monster was I who ripped off the door;
…Darkness there and nothing more.
“Lamar!” I cursed as I kicked and pried,
a solid stone wall conscript me inside.
Sealed in a dungeon, until death, my home, I heard a tap-tapping, I wasn’t alone.
Still seeing nothing, and wearing little more, my spit became poison, my spirit obscure.
And here, I fear, we must agree, that a tear appear precisely,
Upon my face, upon thy floor;
When quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
This ebony bird of ancient wandering,
had croaked a word, the word worth pondering,
The noise itself, from a fowl, bizarre; But I spoke the full name, of prophet, “Lamar.”
To blackness, I asked its, purpose be clear, “Buffalo believes me a savior, she heeds me, sincere,
To right ancient wrongs, to crown regent a king, is my might also song that this year she may sing?”
Anchored for answer, breath held until sore,
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
I’m grieved to admit it, as shameful as sins,
I ‘Doubted’ the instant, we left the dolphins,
Resigned to my role, in this hole where I lied, could this year be a Jekyll we bury with Hyde?
This ‘Doubt’ was a cancer, my mind its hearse, so then become the martyr, pressure for worse.
This raven responded, I recall in dread; it pecked out my ear and knifed into my head.
“‘Doubts’ leave my mind! Return as before!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Worry flapped and squawked in place of my brain,
I am the 'spaz,' inaccurate, insane.
So with raven inside, more reason to use it, I ran my skull at a wall if just to confuse it.
My collision it made but a glimmer of lighting, “If I am to fail, it will be by fighting.”
As a bison, possessed, made myself a rusher, I dove my horns at this stone cask of Usher.
“Lo! A crack of hope, a dimness to adore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
Head birthed from chink and breath dramatic,
this was not dungeon but tower attic.
But mist enshrouded my sight of the ground; nor stairs, nor ladder, no way down.
A younger Josh would have to jump, a prayer of youth for some pillowed lump.
But this Josh first plucked brick from wall, and instead counted the seconds of its fall.
The crow flew out, but knew ‘Doubt,’ still bore,
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
I might climb out, but slip to die.
A fight in me now, but no wings to fly!
Instead I dropped another stone free, heard it crunch, and made it three.
The raven he watched, then his circle neared, but I paid him no mind as I engineered.
And up I dismantled, the tower my quarry, tossing off doubts, from this crow’s allegory
“I loose these embalming stones, as one final chore.”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
But when I reached up for the tallest shingle,
and dropped it to the floor,
I took my time to kindle, Hyde’s lyrics from before,
“If a doubtful mind can cripple, then too, a hopeful one will soar!”
Recorded with a lead-full pencil marker, I added to the lore,
And saw each brick of castle tower, each brick I tossed and tore,
Each brick in time was dropped with care, not a ‘Doubt’ did I ignore,
These bricks now sloped into a stair, that descended to the shore.
That’s how I left Lamar’s haven, how I left his metaphor,
Then turned, did I, to see that raven,
But he followed me nevermore…
—
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