I: Man Made Flesh

Light made life
Shapes come in
Undefined and strange
Until the figures change

They smile through tears
They laugh through pain
They have a million fears
They would go through it all again

After the baptize
They have no fear of demise
Under uncertain skies

II: Ever Loving Soul

Two souls entwined
Born under a bad sign
They felt the flame of the other’s breast
Lost in their love without egress

They kissed in the heart of the sunrise and didn’t get burned
They danced in the tides of the moonlight and weren’t overturned

In you I forget life
But not fear
When they’re both made burdens
Unable to carry alone

Will we always see and meet and touch and sing
Until it’s hard to remember anything

Let’s take each other’s name
As you wrap me in your dreamday serenade

I’ll always be glad we once had a time
When all that mattered was to love you
And to be loved by you

I cried in you
I bide in you
And I will live and die for you

III: White Rider

A peal from a hallowed belfry
Drowns out a hollowed plea

She held a letter of his sunken cries
When phosphorus lit the darken skies

He awoke to smell the morning glory
Freed of his foxholed worry

Now they cry tears without eyes
Waiting for my next reprise

In due time I’ll have her believe
That there truly is more earth than sea

IV: A Picture of Home

We saw him off that day
When two and two no longer made four
I couldn’t find the words to say
As I emptied the drawers
The world we build is easy to destroy
But never can be rebuilt the same way
I close the door
So the shadows can’t come in
But have they ever left

I’m surrounded by ghosts
My nightstand is covered in memories
A desk weighted with burdens
And the walls have a million eyes

Now the night has set
And day is drawing nigh
Light of morning
Rends the sky

For the first time in my life
I have wandered into the Valley

V: Warring

How High! How Bright!

Shall shine the Star of Remphan
And bring about the Fall of Man
See how I await your death
On bated breath

The Wicked takes his sword from the hearth
A Coat of Arms to take peace from the earth

I am destructive, cataclysmic, atavistic
Have you not seen me before?
This flaming sword?
This fancy word?

Mothers goodbye Sons die
In your final cry
Who will you tell of your darkened sky?

It’s all but the price we pay
For the wages of yesterday

Oh! Mother mother Mother
Please forgive a wayward son
And everything done and unsung

To think I once had life allowed
Who will tell you of my darkened cloud?

Is this not my Arm?
My face
My disgrace

VI: In Ages; an Epoch

My eyes are glazed
I drift in haze
A mind in daze
Everything left is razed

Once I woke up to a face I couldn’t recognize
Was it yours?
Did I forget your smell
Your voice
Everything we once could save

I age in color now
I’m White
I’m Red
I’m Green
I’m Pale pale pale pale p-
And I’m cold

Tell me the things we once said
The love we once shared
The time we once could waste

Where is he buried

I don’t know
He now belong to all the earth
Like every child does

…Don’t bury me there

VII: He Carried a Balance

He came when the cross became a weathervane
His body both able and caned
Under the light of harvest moon
Leaving but vineyards in bloom

Starving and helpless it’s my turn
The ground beneath us spurn

How will you reap what you’ve never sown?
How will you keep what you’ve never owned?
When every grain exists by my refrain
Every leaf by my relief
And I choose the flower’s hour

He kissed my lips and they became a flowerbed
He kissed again and everything beautiful was dead
Whispering sweet nothing in my ear
Oh no, the end is not yet near

Our future is rent
Our present spent
Our past a screed on some monument

What do you think is the scent of death?
You think of decay and dismay
Of a desecrated grave
When death smells just like life
Of earth and rebirth
And what a seed is worth

He left as he arrived in a single wind
Leaving all the Earth dimmed

VIII: Fallen and Felled

The light no longer turns on
In this room
The sky
My life

Snow fell
But it wasn’t snow
Gray and black
Burning my tongue
Unable to wash away in tears

I damn
But who shall be the Damned?

Still I pick up my fists
But all I hit
All I hold
Is myself

The building outside our window is no longer there
All news filled in despair
The lights blink and flicker
Every candle burnt to the wicker

I’ll breathe in toxic air
Because it’s there
We’ll live without Time or Space
In this forsaken place

My only solace is your hand
Limp, Languid, Lethargic, Listless
Because you’ll always be my man

IX: Beyond the Pale

Was it when a single drop fell in sanguine cascades
That we all found ourselves adrift in hades

We looked on at sword and flame and beast
That we wondered when love’s last would be deceased

I saw you I met you I touched you and sang to you
That we forgot our fears in a world once so blue

You remember when our souls coalesced before the debate
That was to determine all of salvation’s fate

It was then when we saw every land strewn with garland
That you realized the world belonged to no man

X: A Promenade of Ashes

The earth is a sunken sea
The ocean is a parched desert
This is my Domain
My Kingdom
Of Pest and Conquest
Of War and nothing more

I wander without beast
In this land of Death
Struggling to find peace
With bated breath

Is this mine
Is it mine…

Is Death all but to be
A faded memory
Of Time grown old
Set in motion
And then ceased to exist?

How I wish to be
What Spring is for a cherry tree
Summer for a rising degree
Fall for a gentle breeze
And Winter for a child’s first freeze

But that is not me
I am no Lord of Lords
No King of Kings
I have no New Jerusalem under my wings

Am I but a record keeper
Of work never complete?
Woe is me to find the record of every death
And every life
Lost in the indeterminable period
Of Dust to Dust

I am the King of Dust
And cremation, conflagration
My Domain

XI: The Lamb

Once in my heart I had a great weight
A little seed of hate and dismay
And all emotions that are astray
A view from atop a horse gray
A bad way never left to contemplate

Forever will I be in the afterglow?
To live where nothing will grow
A sky of fire
The world in a pyre

I can be unforgiven
But never can I be lonely
I can bear my own death
But never another’s

In void without form
In darkness without light
In being without figure

I see my path

Filters in the firmament
Of Life nonexistent
I am released
No longer deceased

I breathe in light
And tears fall
Tears fell
Light is breathed

Didn’t I know you once
In a world forgotten?
I remember nothing
But that’s fine
I am everything
I am everyone

I am Death

No longer shall I fall for the dance of the Cormorant
Now I sleep in the Everlasting Arms of the Lamb

I cried for You
I bide for You
And I will live and die in You