The Elder Gods Saga - Learning to Match Art to Verse

There is something very magical to me about using the written word in art. I would hazard to say that anytime one creative discipline is merged with another, that it becomes something new and amazing. 

The Elder Gods was my first attempt at matching written verse to art. There were five pieces of art created first and then I made an attempt to create a poetic saga, that merged the five pieces into one ongoing story. 


Mind you that I am not a poet, so the verses may not be perfect and the art created was in the early stages of my development as an artist. But I was proud of the work because I felt it represented something new in my creative abilities. And the concept of verse with art is something I have used in many ways over the years since this was originally created. Like any good technique, I've learned to use it subtly and apply it with many other skills. 

The Revenant Cycle is a work in progress with over 60 pieces of art so far. In essence it is a much more complex form of the Elder Gods Saga. While the story is very different, it is basically a hyper form of this concept. 

Comments are always welcome as are examples of cross-overs from one creative discipline to another. 

The Elder Gods

Part of the First 

The Argent Rose

My world was seen through stained glass shards

The pampered life not rough or hard

I sang my songs and lusted life

My eyes were closed to any strife

I could not see, nor wished to look

At that which like an open book

Surrounded me and spoke of pain

I was merely young and vain

Twas then I spied him all alone

Sitting on a wall of stone

His eyes did glitter, beckon me

A thousand secrets those tears did see

He looked in me and struck my soul

And took me in his arms so bold

He whispered words I could not hear

My ego made them disappear

Mere sounds within the darkness whisper

No meaning came, the words no crisper

He finally sighed and shook his head

“You’re blind in youth” he quietly said

His arms unwrapped, my mind went cold

I pled with him, “You’ve bought my soul”

“I must leave now, I cannot teach”

He shook his head while I beseeched

He placed a kiss upon my head

A thousand words had gone unsaid

And with a silent flash of dread

He disappeared, his spirit fled

And in his place upon the wall

Lay four red roses, one to fall

Upon the empty stone-paved path

I stood in pain and growing wrath

The wine-red roses mocked my fears

Spilling forth in bloody tears

To mingle with the petals dying

My body fell, amongst them lying

I need you not, I vowed decrying

Part of the Second

Aurora Sun

Like dead flies on windows ledge

My pain and loss were hell’s dark edge

Who was he to leave me so

And tarnish life with harm and woe?

I suddenly saw a world of hate

My eyes then opened to the weight

The madness all around me hung

My stained glass life was finally done

He’d stripped it from my barren soul

And cast me in a corpse’s hole

I will not seek you, so I vowed

I’ll not be slave to love unbowed

I fled that moment, ran from all

I hid on mountaintops so tall

Solitude in northern snow

Aurora suns above me glow

But still I dwelled upon his face

His gentle touch, his warm embrace

And peace within me sudden stirred

Perhaps this ego has matured

I left the climbs to search the land

I’d find him once again, I planned

And show him even I could grow

And be the man he needs to know

For years I searched, and learned the way

Of mystic, guru, saint and sage

But of him I never found a trace

My heart was truly laid to waste

I would never fill this place

Part of the Third

Bleeding Time

Now I see the real world, my blinders folded back

If only he could see me now, not for what I lacked

The solution dawned, I’ll turn back time

I've skills beyond this mortal slime

I’ll weave the mystic paths that burn

And to his arms I shall return

To show him then what I've become

And he’ll be mine for times to come

We’ll cross the universe divide

Our love the beacon all to guide

And so I spoke an ancient word

And forced back time with occult sword

I slew the clock, I bent the light

The path submitted to my might

The hours fell, the past did bleed

The future melted, time concedes

I ran to where I knew he sat

A silent prayer to gods I spat

But in dismay he was not there

Merely a silent wall with roses fair

I cursed the gods in my despair

Part of the Fourth

Summoning of the Elder Gods

I wept for a better world which would not come

I searched for solutions to the numb

My yearning spirit cried release

My heart did ache for love and peace

I spoke to holies desiring answer

They turned me away. I was a cancer

Falsehoods, deceptions all around thee

Prophets and preachers set upon me

I cried to elder gods and asked why 

They were silent in their manors high

I cast the stones, burned sacred texts

Spoke the words and wrought the hex

I bled from face and fingertip

The drops to fall from lash and lip

And there they were, staring forth

Impassioned gazes judged my worth

Take me home, I wept, this world is vile

They merely mocked me with sly smiles

You are gods, I am but man

Ease my pain, share your plan

They simply watched, the silent mock

Until the shadows marched toward dark

So I made my peace and vowed

“If you will not take me”, I said aloud

“Then let the life drip from my veins

I take the journey without your gains”

I slashed then slept beneath their gaze

Until I rose and passed the place

Now I am only spirit lost in space

Part of the Fifth

A Mystics Rift

My mind did swell with cosmic beauty

I saw the universe so truly

I saw the errors of my way

Death had brought me light that day

For all my knowledge, I still did lack

The understanding of simple acts

Of kindness and of love in living

And the need to be forgiving

I’d missed the simpleness of message

Hidden amongst the furious vestige

Of a thousand preachers, rambling facade

Of how to act before an angry god

I’d squandered life with selfish acts

And now I truly made a pact

If I could call the gods to me

If time could bend beneath my knee

Then I could breach the walls of death

And walk once more and take a breath

I summoned all that was within

I sang of all that will be and had been

And slowly through the mystics’ rift

Reality itself did twist

And I once more became myself

The lessens learned and dearly dealt

To find myself upon the wall

That same dear place that began it all

Dark red roses in my hand

As a callous youth before me stands

And I see with eyes so wide

The only way to breach his pride

Is to leave and let him find

The path before him to unwind

I leave four roses there behind