Some bullshit writing of mine: Dio Mio

Malkavian

I don't remember the first time I heard a Dio song. It seems like he always part of my life, like the way some people see Jesus or some president. I can't even say he was ever my favorite artist ever. He was always there, though. Songs full of demons and withces and power. If magic has ever existed in this world, you can bet it existed in his music; sharp and beautiful, subtle and powerful. Words the struck a powerful chord with each soul it touched.

And then one day he was gone. A little bit of magic left the world. Another bit of the original wizardry that helped to create what we now know as Rock N Roll and Heavy Metal. 

Maybe it wasn't as simple as that.

He was Dio: The man so metal his name meant God. He wasn't so simple as that. Perhaps his magic had finally fully manifested. Each incantation, with every one of us following and aiding in the ritual, helping him to ascend to a world beyond him. No matter what, Ronnie James Dio is still very much alive. Every time he played his music he put a bit of his soul into it, each recording has a little bit of that man whose voice was its own new sound. This was a man who whose magic touched all that it could hit.

Simple death was too simple an explanation for someone like Dio.

*****

"Come beasts! Bring yourselves! Bring your brothers! Bring your fathers! Bring your children! Bring them all tenfold!" screamed Jericho Kane, his damned sword in one hand, the pure magical essence of the universe in the other. "All shall taste my blade and feel my burn!"

Kane charged into the fray of battle, with one idea is his mind. To find The Man On The Silver Mountain. 

Battle was now like a trance to Kane, martial and magical arts working in accord, his power thrumming to the beat of a powerful steel drum unheard to any but him. Be they orc or goblin or even a man as foul as any creature, he could strum his sword to find their note of death.

Who was the Man on The Silver Mountain? Was he the devil? Was he God himself? All Kane knew was that he had to find this man, the one man that could show him what he was, where he belonged, and what he was meant to be.l 

And so Kane blazed a trail. This relentless man who stood between the Holy and the Damned, between Order and Chaos fought on, following every lead he could find. Across nations and seas he searched, a man who remembered little, and cared not of what he did remember. His goal was to find what lay in the future, and this was why he blazed across the world. Like a Rainbow In The Dark.

******

I don't remember my first Dio song, but I definitely remember the last one I heard: a rather simple song called Long Live Rock and Roll. No dragons or wizard masters here. No D&D imagery. Just the love for what he was doing. It was a magic meant for magic itself. A beautiful propagation of the very thing he loved to do. Certainly, plenty of musicians had done something similar to what Dio did, but no one could ever write a song like that man. 

It was almost a year after my mother died that Dio did the same. There's a large part of me that can see my mother in the same place as that huge celestial whatever as Dio, listening to his music and saying 'It's so loud! How could anybody like this!' And even more than that, I hope in that place that Dio's magic reaches her, helps her understand the comfort it brought and still does bring her son.

It's a nice image. Maybe it's even true.

Even so, it was a big shock. In less than a year, two people who I never even considered would not be in this world were gone. Each loss an atom bomb of a different kind, each tearing a bit of my soul, making me realize that not only were they a part of me, but through their magic I was a bit of them. It was a strange magic I never agreed to being a part of, but I wouldn't give up either ritual for the world. 

The magicks known as joy, love, and music can be surprisingly painful but in them is a power and beauty that no one can match with.

****

Jericho Kane was a brilliant man, though if asked he would never consider himself one. He wasn't a man concerned with comparing himself to others. No, he had a goal and he would stick to it.

After having used his magic to find the Silver Mountain from the mind of the goblin king, he began on a singular quest. The location was the hard part, now getting there would be easy. 

Or so he thought. Magic was powerful but it did not defend against all, particularly not against the world's most dangerous mountain where the most mysterious creature in all of existence was. Still, Kane could not deny the beat he felt both in his head and in his heart, nor the strum of his damned sword that helped to guide him to this beauty. 

The Man on The Silver Mountain was someone who possessed a knowledge that Kane himself did not. That he could not deny. He had never met the man, except for what he seen in legend and song. If only a fraction was true, this man was like none other. Kane even already had his offering to this man. A strangely thin lute that sounded like none he had ever heard. A strange sound: mechanical yet magical. Hollow yet beautiful. There was no sound in the world like it and he knew that the Man would accept it.

Kane's sword pierced many a monster and his magic burned through many a soul as as he descended that mountain.

Descended? Yes, despite its upward incline Kane was not going, he was digging, finding a world beneath all. Beneath the world, beneath the senses, beneath his own skin.

Kane had become a Holy Diver.

*******

Dio inspired me to write.

I know it sounds crazy, but Dio was something that made me imagine. So much music was easy to understand, but when I heard Dio's music, I couldn't help but wonder 'what the hell is he talking about?'

I've had the words explained to me, of course. People have told me the allegories and the morals behind the music and my mind gets that, but my soul still screamed in defiance. Dio's words, his cadence, his tone, couldn't be held to something as concrete as an actual point, or hell... as he would put it... If You Listen To Fools...

but who was the fool?  Certainly, I was, but perhaps a better fool for having heard him. 

It was in part these mysteries, these strange words that meant everything and yet nothing to me that made me pick up the pen and decide to look at how I could make words mean something to others. If there were some way to understand and recreate such an insane poetry I simply had to find it. It wasn't long before I picked up the guitar and tried my hardest to mangle Starstruck and Tarot Woman...

But if there's one thing I learned from all that, you can't simply say something.

You have to Stand Up and Shout.

******

Kane had finally come to ascent. There sat The Man on The Silver Mountain, his long hair falling onto his chest, his aged face showing a youth many younger than Jericho himself did not possess. Looking there, Kane understood. The Man was impossibilities made possible. The simple act of refusal. This was something that should not exist, yet did. The strangest of all powers. A Man who existed everywhere but simply here.

Kane could not bring himself to say anything. It was impossible for the Man not to already know. Kane simple stepped forward and presented that strange Lute at the feet of the Man's stone throne and backed away. Kane was prepared for anything. Perhaps Kane would ascend to enlightenment. Perhaps he would be killed where he stood. Perhaps Kane would take the Man's place, or perhaps he would simple stand there awaiting the man's answer in some eternal purgatory.

Finally the Man looked at that strange lute and spoke five words that somehow meant everything and nothing to Kane.

"Long Live Rock and Roll."

MadassAlex

Malk, I think you are a very good writer. That was very ridiculous and sincere in such a way that left me smiling, and I certainly think Dio would've smiled upon those passages, too -- or perhaps is.

MillerCross

It was almost a year after my mother died that Dio did the same. There's a large part of me that can see my mother in the same place as that huge celestial whatever as Dio, listening to his music and saying 'It's so loud! How could anybody like this!' And even more than that, I hope in that place that Dio's magic reaches her, helps her understand the comfort it brought and still does bring her son.
It's a nice image. Maybe it's even true.

fuck you, man... --wipes off tears-- fuck you...