Raid-Song of Kaelith Redwake (a Homeric folk-rock ballad with NYC ballroom fire) [Invocation] O Muse, sing smoke-dark waters and red banners in the gale; sing Kaelith Redwake, dark-elf, moon-blade at his waist, daggers sleeping in his boots like wolves beneath the deck— sing drum and brass and stamping heels, a ballroom storm at sea. [Verse 1] He walks the planks like thunder, red hair lit by pitch and star, his cutlass crescent-curved, a scimitar that drinks of war; the galleon Hush-of-Storms breaks night the way a rumor breaks, and cannons cough like iron bulls across the wine-black wakes. Oars bite salt; the figurehead grins savage cedar teeth— he counts the coins of constellations, knives asleep beneath. [Pre-Chorus] Band, strike brass; floorboards answer, stomp-clap, stomp-clap—hush— on the smoke-dark sea where the dancers turn like gulls in rush. [Chorus] Raiding—raiding—raise the warning light, bolt the doors and pray through the ballroom night; his name is whispered between the teeth of rain: Kaelith Redwake—danger in the vein. Raiding—raiding—bells and bodies sway, cannons to the cadence where the horns all say: hey—hey—hey— there’s a danger on the tide tonight. [Verse 2] The ships draw near like rival choruses beneath the moon; broadside answers broadside in a thunder-metered tune. Sparks like fireflies scatter off the iron-shouted hull, and ropes sing back like harp strings in a fist of squall. Helmsman curses, saints go pale; the decks are slick with brine— and Kaelith laughs, a lighthouse made of sin and turpentine. [Ballroom Call] “Walk—pose—turn!” cries the trumpet; “Step—spin—burn!” cries the snare; NYC hearts in the rigging, throwing glitter through the air. [Chorus] Raiding—raiding—raise the warning light, bolt the doors and pray through the ballroom night; his name is whispered between the teeth of rain: Kaelith Redwake—danger in the vein. Raiding—raiding—bells and bodies sway, cannons to the cadence where the horns all say: hey—hey—hey— there’s a danger on the tide tonight. [Bridge — Homeric Simile] As when a market wakes and every mouth is coins and cries, so wakes the coast at dawn beneath his black-winged lies; as ash drifts light and settles in the cradle and the nave, so fall his promises—soft—before the hard, hard wave. He hunts the weak and open gates, the small and sacred rooms, where candles fight the morning like carnations over tombs. [Verse 3] He beaches like a rumor with a thousand eager feet, the red hair bright with thunder and the smoke still in his teeth. Church-doors shiver; houses hold their breath like winter glass— he goes for purse and cradle both; he is the coming mass. Fathers bite their knuckles; mothers hide the silver cross— the sea keeps time, indifferent to the tally and the loss. [Break — Catalogue of Sails] Here came Needle-of-Dawn, and Grief-in-Canvas, Starling’s Bite; here came Black Viola humming murder into night; o Muse, count all his pennants till the morning sparks the foam— but do not call it glory; call it danger brought to home. [Final Chorus] Raiding—raiding—raise the warning light, bolt the doors and pray through the ballroom night; his name is hissed by shutters where the children hide from sight: Kaelith Redwake—danger on the night. Raiding—raiding—let the horns cry “No!” Stamp the floor, lift voices till the breakers know— we will name him villain, we will bar the lane, ’til the dawn unthreads his shadow from the chain. [Coda] O Muse, let drums fall silent, let the ballroom catch its breath; the smoke-dark sea remembers—and writes his name in salt and death. But hear the harbor answer with a steadfast human light: where villains drink the thunder, we are lanterns in the night.
