They know nothing
Not anything
Never a thing
Never a word
A voice
A sound
A whisper in the night
A scream on the wind
Not even the hush of night
No
Never does madness reach them
Never do the spirits mutter through their thoughts
Never does a shadow of Vulcan’s reason
Smirk down as they struggle against their fear

Fear?
You DARE claim I hold fear?
I am no coward!
I’ll face any challenge you lob at me!
Any fast ball
Curve ball
Swirly ball
Any demon crawling out of your mind or mine
Flying, twisting, convulsing
I’ll take them on!
Guns blazing
Iron swinging
Soul raging
I’ll face the tide of horrors!
Any bloody demon who dares to question
My sanity!

Strength, not insanity, strength!
‘Tis there a difference, my ranting friend?
In this world of cowardice and dishonor
What force of man’s will still lives?
What aspect of humanity still hides within that cave of darkness
Breathing, watching, scared
Still alive as all the world
Tears humanity from humans
The last of the men
The last of the women
Why are the last human spirits
sent to live within the asylums of Hades himself?

Aye, Speak
Says The Rover
You may see your madness as power
A tool to change the crippled world
But the valleys and peaks show your true self
Standing at the top of Earth’s stony spine
You can never hide from the sun
As it casts its light upon those who refuse to see it
And melts away any trace of shadow
Revealing those who wish not to be seen

Silence!
All of you!
Leave me be!
Let me live my life without your constant questioning
Your bloody bickering that drives me mad
Madder than any of your own sanity can comprehend

Mad?
Father Moon
Is that really what life has come to?
A constant fight
Not with demons
Or spirits
Thugs or mercenaries
Not good against evil
But a race against my mind?
When did any chain
Dare to try to hold me back?

Chains, eh?
Long has it been
Since chains were only abstract
A thought
A foreshadow
Less than a prophecy
Only a moment in the breeze of reality
Even longer, it has been
Since chains brought me
The only benign feeling in the world
Home.

Long time ago, indeed
Long has it been
That these mountains have fallen away beneath my feet
That valleys and rivers have passed on by
Peaks and ponds
Streams and stretches
Plains stretching on and on
Reaching out to caress the horizon line
A silent storm of sunlight touching their outreached fingers

And longer than all,
Has it been,
That those mountains
And rivers
And caverns and seas
Have since left me with my soul’s stomach still empty
Empty with a hunger
That no nature can fill

Not even their eyes
Can fill the sheer, hungry desire
That fills this rover’s heart