The Storyteller

There are stories to be told.

And there's a storyteller to tell 'em.

Would you listen to a tale long untold?

Would you sit along the road with an old stranger?

Do you know the Tale of the Storyteller?

There are stories to be told.

And there are some who have unheard the dangers,

there are some stories never meant for weak and old.

And there are some for those whose hearts are truly failing.

Tells the story of the one no one foretold,

his tales are vast and wild, his spells unending.

His sight is lost and hear aloft the winds and fog,

there is no knowing when he speaks or is foretelling.

For words and songs come up and down his dwindling murmurs,

and no one knows the truth untold within his sighs,

he comes and goes to days unseen and years untethered,

from land, from sight, from those whose memory is still high.

Far the imagination colors the shades of grey within his speech,

of floating castles, almighty dragons, the demon lich,

you never know and never will his true intention,

for he has dosed you with a sense of high attention,

and now you've been awed by long sought words,

and you will seek the finish line of every sentence,

you will not sleep, you will not drink or eat unthinking,

the hidden meaning in each tale and its true ending.

You have been cast outside the box you once were held,

outside the bars of the great device of magic making,

that once numb mind, so pale of grey, so unbecoming,

of greater heights, of greater strengths, of tales unending.

There is no end, there is no end and more the stories,

of one who walks, of one who tells, of one who listens,

you'll never guess the final ending of the tale for which you've sat,

this is no paltry story for taverns, for inns or barracks

they wouldn't listen to a tale that comes so dark,

and at a price more costly than any you've ever had,

the more the stories the more you listen and so compelling,

the more you want the truth be false and lie believed,

the more you wish the lies you hear to be so real,

as for the one who whispers them to never fall from ill.

And so is told that stories so magnificent, so alluring,

have once and many times lured the happy stranger,

since songs and tales are mostly welcome without the dangers,

of real life, of a real event, of a real ending.

You've been blissed through the tales of old and new,

wishing, forever wishing they were so true,

you've now decayed and grown so old, without realizing,

the wish you sought but never saw became alive,

that this storyteller of many stories would never die,

and so you wished, and so you thought you'd still have time,

for one more story, oh one more story before you die.

And so he whispers the gently words you'd kill to listen,

and soft he smiles, and soft his eyes and soft his skin is,

where once an old, wrinkled and crouched man talked,

now over your decrepit body a young man talls,

you care not how you've grown to die within the hour,

for you've heard the voice of stories now long forgotten

and now it's you who knows the tales of the curse begotten.

The young and handsome man now walks away,

his laugh is strong, his muscles large and his heart brave.

You're left to die along the road you used to walk,

to change the pace of a dull life, of a slow grave.

And yet you stand, with your two hands, and a great effort,

your heart is weak, your skin is grey, your voice a stupor.

A young girl comes, her skin is soft, her eyes so sweet,

she helps you out, she puts you up and her arm offers,

so you can walk the same old path you sure now hate,

and hate is grown so fast no man can coffer,

but you are tired, but you are weak, but you near death.

Is there a place you want to go, asks the sweet lady,

you find your tears running along your wrinkled cheeks,

you damn yourself, you damn the words of the storyteller ,

you damn the curse, you damn the fates, you damn the glory,

of tales untold, of demon liches and dragon wyrmlings.

Place me along the bench if you would please, you tell the lady,

she smiles and nods and sooner than not she puts you there,

and she's the sweetest and she's the fairest or so you swear,

but before she goes, you grab her hand and say so gently,

tell me lass, would you like me to tell you a little story?

Because I know of one great tale I'd like to tell,

and it's a tale you'd like to hear, it'll make you wonder,

how has this world became so dull, and without magic,

how is the mind so trapped and with no feathers,

if you say yes, and she said yes, and you soon ask her,

Do you happen to know the tale of the Storyteller?