Bitter Pills

By Nick Gauger

Inherent in mans nature is the question of our origin. Many believe that there is something inside of us that compels us to rise above the other species that we live with and have come to term this condition the human soul. It is said to be the piece of us that goes in once life ceases, but does it really exist? Is virtue truly the salt of mankinds character? Or are people simply another creature in love with their notions of a higher order and ideals that they are unfit to achieve?

Finally with faith being uncertain, is there cause to live a good life and how do we satisfy this compulsion?
This book is a composition of over one hundred poems that ask the questions; does virtue end before humanity can begin? Do people being people undo this very virtue as they deal with the shades of themselves? It will look introspectively at modern society and in poetic prose depict the destruction of a man who attempted to embody honor, respect, and chivalry, morals that seem irrelevant in his time and to his culture. Is he noble? Finally does he earn what he searches for in life or does it change as his time goes on?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 8, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462852826

Nick Gauger

Nick Gauger is currently a student at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill Ca. He is enrolled in the culinary arts program, and is studying to be a business administration transfer. He started Playing Dungeons and Dragons when he was nine and took up writing as a hobby in 1993 to help him cope with a troubled young life. In addition he taught kinder karate at the age of fifteen for Dan Tosh he was a lead singer for the drum group Deer Creek and has always loved the Native American culture that he grew up in. Currently he is a member of the Natural Twenty gaming league in Antioch and takes an avid interest in local folklore, dreams, and parapsychology which is where some of the inspiration for his writing comes from.

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 by Nick Gauger.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011905649

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4628-5281-9

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4628-5280-2

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4628-5282-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

The Poet of the Dammned

The Price of Knowledge

Shattered Dreams

Sundered Heart

The Season of Pain

Reaper

The Fallen God

Loving from afar

Sentiment

Time

Crimson Ashes

Contemplation of the heart

The Impossible Redemption of the Meek

The Face of Truth

How to Bend a Reed

The Garden of Eden by Darkness

Unrelented Heart

Dreaming of Love

The Crimson Rose of Paradise

Lord Of Death

Lifeline

Ravager

Death’s Pupil

Rebirth

Shadows of Death

Succubus

Happy Thoughts

Suicide in the darkness

Divination of Skulls

Love Ever Faithful

The Veiled Observer

The Grim Harvest

My Distant Love . . . So Sweet to Me

I am . . . .

The Charnel House

The Sonata of the Night

The Descent Unto Darkness

The Seasons of Love

The pains of the heart

Eternity

For Lost Christy

Plutonian Shores of the Night

The Seduction of Death

Praying Upon Roses

Season’s Bliss

Pure Lace

Candle Light

Sky Queen

Dreams of the Damned

The Ocean’s Right Side

Sable Diamond

The Snake of dawn

A Soul’s Worth

Requiem For the Selfless and Kind

Mortal Requiem

Bringing in the night

Death to beauty

The Battlement of Paradise

Misery

Divinity

Shadow’s Caress, Shadow’s Release

On Being Night

He who comes

The Foot Falls of Other Men

Unconsoled Love

Salvation

The March of the Black Sun

Puppet Macabre

Night Traveler

Bringing in the night

The Duties of Mirrors

A Side of Mirrors

The Unremembered Dreams 1

The Unremembered Dreams 2

The Unremembered Dreams 3

The day that never comes

The Affair of Seasons

The other side of mirrors

Where Have They Gone

The Frozen Shrine

Of Two Maidens

Lie in Light, Lie in Dark

The Hall of Ice

A Living Scar

A Grave of Earth

Beyond the River

Alone I Wake With Half a Heart

What the Snake Taught

Love In Black and White

The Lord of the Dim Shores

The Dark Seed

Mortal Redemption

The Perfect Woman

Bare Pages

Aphrodite’s Ire

Cut my heart, To Spite Your Face

The Taking of Anne

The Fire Bloom

Turning aside

Teddy Bear

Gabriel’s Wish at Dagon’s Altar

Requiem for a Romance

The Wanton Three

The One Who Mends

At the walls of Cania

The Muse

Persian Delights

The Devil’s Lullaby

A Romantic Life

Of Flesh and Envy

Asympathy

The unremembered dreams 4

The Outsider

The Matron

Crystal-britttle

Kneeling

Memory

The Sting of a Dozen Petals

A Glass Romance

My Tattoo

Love and shame

Lethal Charm

For the Sea

In the Dragon’s Coil

The Children Beyond the River

The Blue Women

The Architect’s Debt

Angel of Ecstasy

Beyond the Library

The Poet of the Dammned

Know now as I know now, Be all that I am now

For I speak of the dead, the dying, and the condemned

The baffling mixture of chaos, passion, and torment

That consoles us through this life

The odd mixture that carries us through eternity

To our rests, or our pains

I speak of the souls that come to me

Ready for the bitter harvest only I sow

I am the bearer of judgment

I alone shall lead thee to Perdition or Paradise

The places that you have readied to receive you

I have never been the devil, nor have I been god

I am the ender of all that is

I am the keeper of all that was

And the watcher of all that shall be

Fare thee well o faint of heart

Tread lightly in reading the truths I shall show you within

For the world has bled a million times to show you them

What I shall speak of

It is a process, a terrifying process

Growth, maturity, death and rebirth

The macabre scale of life

Be prepared to take your place within it

For even now as you read these words

I watch, patiently, waiting for the time your destiny shall be fulfilled

For you are destined to be apart of this book

As I am destined to claim you in my name

Live well

By: Death

The Price of Knowledge

Fog rolls into the islands and its sea salted mists cloak the valley in a veil of gloom. I turn my head from the glass and with thunder’s crash the storm doeth come. Hastily, as to not let my thoughts wander, I take my plume and dip it in its well and paints its black traces across the age-cracked, yellowing papyrus pages. I scratch onto it my nightly archives, if only to drive my thoughts from the tempest outside and its oppressing shade. Hopelessly I scrawl by the flickering firelight of my stubby candle. The dank smell of antique texts, ones that would crumble to dust at my fingers touch, make me sick with their odor. Forked lighting illuminates the sky crashing down to the earth and thunder crackles from its loft.

With a crash, the windows flew open. Icy finger’s reach and prick my skin with the heartless chill of the maw of death. My curtains filled with their gusts and they begin to waltz about as horrid ghosts upon my fatigued and fearful brain. I rise from my recliner and slowly shut and bar the windows and pull the drapes. I return to my chair and with my numb hands pick up my pen to write again and stop to gaze upon my library to ensure myself all is well. In the light of my fleeting flame I see tomes of interests long forgotten, animate to become mockeries of life. They look back at me with daemon—spawned grins laden with pointed teeth upon their jackets. The titles of my past endeavors, morph into hellish orbs upon their faces all of which are aglow with the unnatural reddish gleam of the crimson moon. In whispers they conversing in the unknown dialect of their fiendish inexistence. Terrified at the sight of these small devils I force myself to stare at the near blank pages of my journal for sanity’s sake.

I take my quill and focus on my writing and the tiny chatter of these small beings ceases. The fetid air seemed to writhe with power as I spy movement from the pages that I have written upon before. The words, my words below, spin like a maelstrom that engulfs the page. I look deeper with horrifying curiosity as the words themselves begin the chant and then are joined by the possessed books. They rise in a growing hymn, an ungodly chorus.

At the climax of the song of the damned, tranquility overtakes my reading room and slowly I calm and write again. Then with repressed fury the wind howls and rushes against my apertures. They fly back and shatter the flame within my lamp blinks and then abruptly fades. I leap to my feet filled with panic and vigor toppling my desk. Plunged in shadows as I now was my curtains renew their evil dance. They seem to flap freely from their clasp and rotate about the darkened room. Panicking helplessly with the books gibbering, the curtains frolicking, mist creeps into my study and solidifies into my sweet Marianne, the one woman I ever loved and lost ages ago.

She was a swirling temptress in her sweeping green gown of deathly fog. Her reddish blond hair cascading down her comely breasts joined now the blinds chaotic shuffle. She drifted about to face me, and raised her hand to touch my cheek. With a caress she lured me into her loving embrace. My heart ached with fatigue, entirely overwhelmed by her eloquence and renewed memories. As I looked deeply into her black eyes I saw in them the reflection of the youth that I once was. Captivated, she finally drew me closer into a passionate kiss. As we pulled away from each other her body convulsed and fell into a heap. Agony crossed her face as she gasped from her exertion and a sorrowful screech rent the air. Then her hands began to melt away as entropy claimed her, returned to the grave she had laid within for near a century. In a moment it spared none of its vulgarity. She became a haggard crone once more and I wished at that my cruciation would cease. However my torture would not end there. She yelped and pleaded pathetically but to no avail soon she was nothing more than worm-eaten tissue in rotted finery, her eyes were pus in her sockets. I gagged and wretched with anguish.

What was left of me was but a mass of tears, my heart ripped from me like ripe fruit. Over the gentle breeze she called to me and said:

Forget me not for all your years and parted with the glimmer of sunrise. Grief stricken and overcome by madness, I ran for my window. I leapt five stories to the wicked stakes below. They bore my body upon their points as daylight crested and I was finally granted peace.

Shattered Dreams

I sit in darkness

Alone under the moons silvery light

Where my thoughts stray

From the shackles of its mind

And in their silent wanderings

I stumble upon a gorge

And am filled with the grief

That its memory

Its significance has left in me

And would break in somber tears

If I had tears but left to shed

My heart falls heavy

With the thought of one

Denied of life at life’s prime

For in my thoughts she still walks

A portrait