"The Grimoire" - Sebastian Michaels - Photography and Poetry

Home Books "The Grimoire"

Where the Dust Remains
by Madam Wren

You came in quiet, eyes like ash
Worn by time, chasing past

You asked for answers, begged for signs
But some truths slip between the lines

I cast the bones, I watched them fall
The candle shook but did not stall

The smoke curled once, then held its breath
And pointed east of pain and death

There’s a place where dust remains
Where silence hums forgotten names

Go not for gold or holy men
But you will not return the same again

I spoke in riddles, not in lies
For books have teeth and pages spies

The door you seek won’t bear a mark
But still it waits beyond the dark

There’s a room where time won’t tread
Where ink remembers all that’s said

Don’t look for light, don’t seek a key
It finds the ones it’s meant to see

You’ll know it by the scent of storms
The air too still, the air too warm

Where leather binds what truth unchains
And nothing speaks, but all explains

So go alone, but leave your name
The path forgets what once it claimed

You asked me where your soul must go
Follow the shelves that do not show

The Case (English)
translated by Unknown

It's blurry...
But
I opened something that wasn't meant for me.
Not really a book, more like a piece of voice,
pressed between dead pages.

It stuck to my fingers.
like old honey or cold blood.
I read. Not out of desire,
Just…
You know, hands sometimes do things without asking.

Since then, it hasn't been the same.

There are shadows that sit where no one used to sit.
Dogs bark without direction.
The mirrors...
No. Don't talk about the mirrors.

Oh, the suitcase?
Yeah. That one.
I had it for a while.
Lots of stuff in it.
Bones, a key that doesn't open anything,
red thread, and a blurry photo (it wasn't me in it, but it smiled...too much.)

I had to go upstairs. somewhere in the ridges,
where the air stings thoughts.
There was a map. An old map scribbled by someone
who just signed with a circle.

But the suitcase fell.
Slid? Flown? Vanished?
No idea.
I saw it one last time between two thin fir trees.
Then…
Nothing. The silence began to breathe.

Since then, things have been moving.
slowly.
And names are fading from the letters.
The clocks make a funny noise.
And there's a voice at night, not mean, just tired.
It asks: "Do you regret it?"
And I don't answer. Never.

My hands are still dirty.
Even after all this time.
And the book?
I think it's reading me now.

Cursed Secret
from Traditional Folklore Vol. III

no title
just weight

no spine
but
it bends

                       when
                                     no one
                                                    watches

whispers stitched
in ink
that never dries

turn one page
it turns you

a name lost
a face
smudged
from time’s
sleeve

the letters breathe
but won’t
exhale

(read me)

(read

me)

it never seeks
but always finds
(eventually)

behind the shelf
behind the wall
behind
the whisper
in the crawl

and if you
knock

it knows

you

did

so
let it rest
beneath the ash,
beneath the skin,
beneath the world

but
if
you do
open it

do not

speak

your

name

Nowhere Sky
by Patrick Granger

I looked up
and the sky wasn’t there.
Just absence.
A silence stretched too tight.

Clouds walked backward,
rain rose like regret,
and I knew then, I’d slipped.

The stars?
Wrong names,
wrong eyes.
All seven blink in patterns I can’t unlearn.

I walked and found no direction.
The compass bled.
The ground turned to glass.
My feet left no story behind.

Something watches from the seam
where dusk never finishes falling.
I try not to think its name.

But the Nowhere Sky always listens.
And it knows I tried to find her.

She Was Late by Sylvia Cross

the stars blinked out, the air grew thin,
her breath was sharp, her pulse too fast.
he stood there, hands raised high,
the gate began to breathe at last.
his shadow faded, slipped away,
and all she could do was sway,
her knife still cold, her plans now past.

he vanished, gone without a sound,
as if the world had swallowed him.
her feet were still, her vision blurred,
the sky now choked in endless dim.
her heart raced wild, her hands were numb,
the gate had opened, she had come,
but it was over now, the hymn.

she turned and ran, the woods too close,
the night too loud, the air too still.
she told herself she’d failed this time,
and yet she chased the growing chill.
no second chance, no hope to find,
just whispers trailing, sharp behind,
as darkness swallowed all her will.