Night on Bald Mountain: Episode 1

Hey folks!

Inspired by the writings of Kayleigh and other literary-herberts, I thought I'd give poetry another go - plus I'm feeling particularly angsty at the moment :)

This poem is inspired by / rips off a lot of things: the classical piece by Modest Mussorgsky and the Fantasia movie. I will also use it to respond to poetry of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and fiction of Neil Gaiman. We'll see how it goes; this is not normally what I write about. Cheers. SM

Night on Bald Mountain
I.
A green glow threw the crags of Bald Mountain into light. Spikes of rock jutted against the sky, a wash of blue and black, light emitted from the mountain’s roots, outshining the full moon that hung round as cheese nestled in the veins of cloud.

It was midnight. Not a soul was stirring in the peasant village nestled at the foot of the mountain. The publicans had all reeled home to their wives and their beds, the taverns doors closed, the chestnut seller’s coal extinguished and his barrow parked in the stable.

Not a soul was stirring in the humble peasant village, save one. Jarred awake by some evil, abstract and instantly forgotten dream I arose from my chamber to take a turn about the garden and clear my head – grumbling all the while; blaming the reveries on the richness of my supper.

Looking back on that fateful night, I believe that my soul had some foreknowledge of the events about to ensue, a foreboding felt deep within my sub-consciousness that worried and warped my lonely dreams. Whether right or no, I found myself awake and starring up at Bald Mountain.

Starring up at that imposing sight, the breath-taking mass of immovable rock of inconceivable scale, an overwhelming feeling of insignificance hit me in the chest and its sting brought tears to my eyes. I could not explain it, but I felt confronted and humiliated, heart-broken, spurned to the edge

-- not banished to the perimeters of society, but of existence itself, the perpetrator of some metaphysical crime, a desecrator of the laws of the universe. Those were my feelings, (as best I could describe them) as I looked up at that terrible grey mount that filled the world, its sharp stabs raking the sky.