1. |
Arise!
10:26
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Arise! Awake!
Lurking in the hall, I in darkness seeking
To wrestle with the dread of death
I in black moods reeking
Drink the sanguine chalice of self-sacrifice
To extinguish all light and hope to see the morn
Arise!
From darkened sepulchers,
infernal depths where ancients lie!
I cry, exalting inly,
"For thine, immoral one,
The vapors round the dim firs curled
and day melts into gloom.
The gale brings forth no sigh
for thee but trembles at thy name!"
Arise! And grieve gladdened eyes
who see thou return with creeping
things that revel in thy spoil
We Stride blind!
The wheel is loose, the ship is lost
Waves crash among God’s human hosts
Raise the chalice — it is filled with brine
sailors sing hymns to night
and breathe eternal air,
the salty scent of human despair
Lose hold of the book within the sea
My words [identity] will be washed away
My heart does not burn in flame
You know me by the books I read
I have no face — Eaten away
Hands — eaten away
Half perceive and half create
I rot in warm sand
What must I do?
What have I done?
Seagulls scream
O-BLI-VI-ON!
It’s cold on bare hillside
North wind cuts through to bone
Inexorable — Unnamable — Unquenchable
And all within the hall were left alone
I in darkness seeking
to wrestle with the dread of death
I in black moods reeking
drink the sanguine chalice of self-sacrifice
to extinguish all light
and hope to see the morn.
Each pulse beats quicker
and a quenched existence
crouches in the grave.
Arise! Awake!
Incubus feasts on rotting flesh
While guilty crackle in fire
Power hungry jackals rape the land
Stage explodes, bodies lie in pools of blood
My jaw detaches from my skull
I hold handfuls of my own teeth
Wrath and scorn poured down from the flames
Flesh sacrament from the black abyss
Arise! Awake! Arise!
(After Byron's Lara)
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2. |
Weird With a Beard
03:36
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Moose antlers through the mist
Turn your head to the west
He walks alone into the snow
You won’t see your son again
There’s a vision in the clouds
Perceptions shall remain unseen
Recollected from a dream
You had as a teenage warlock
Vertigo—as you turn to face
The enemy you missed
Burn the flesh you set upon the fire
You won’t see your son again
Neurological scope
Elemental Trauma
Manifested fears
Among the evergreens
In black smoke, it rises
In black smoke, it turns
In black smoke, it manifests
In black smoke, it burns
Out of the depths of primordial swamps, the rot itself rises
Throw it off, throw it off, let the body blaze, it will return remade
Throw it off, throw it off, let the body blaze, the rot itself will rise
Out of the depths of primordial swamps, it will return remade
In black smoke, it rises
In black smoke, it turns
In black smoke, it manifests
In black smoke, it burns
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3. |
Charnel House
06:57
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Gas light casts hue of yellow
I slink through night time's hours
And on the faces such sickly pallor
Step through the door
of the Charnel House
Scratch away like rats in darkness
Stealing secrets in my sleep
Humans die — our time ticks faster
My first draft will outlive us
in the Charnel House
Eight feet tall — cannot build to scale
Electrical his heart beat
Meat, veins, neural network
From the gods I have stolen fire
from the Charnel House
(for MWS)
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4. |
No Sleep
04:54
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Wizard toils through the night
Works until the morning light
Making spells to shock and fright
He really is a dreadful sight
Violet robe forged in sweatshop nation
Pointed hat, brocade of constellations
Leather tome, runic incantations
Dyslexic spell mutation!
He writes into the night
The lamps are burning bright
Making spells to flip our sight
He may dissolve in the light.
Is he real, or just a work of fiction?
Stumble... joke... must work on his diction
Cross his line, he'll clutch your balls & rip 'em
Sorcerer of dereliction!
I lie awake through the night
My eyes red with fright
Wish you may, wish you might
Death's grip will clamp us tight!
Wizard went down to New York City
Bought a ticket on the subway line
Had a date with destiny
He was willing to waste no time
(he was tracking down that mime)
NO SLEEP!
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5. |
Dwarf Rider
07:12
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O'er the horizon
They come lumbering like bison
Their beards are as long as they are tall
four foot four at the highest
three foot seven at the widest
Dwarves are charging across the plain
Towards Valhalla
Behind them a wizard casts a shadow long
O'erseeing the portly throng
Yet one dwarf tarries by his side
With a solemn vow he hikes his breeches
And over the dwarf his leg reaches
Then the other, and settled, he cries
CHARGE!
Going into battle
The wizard never rides sidesaddle
On the backs of dwarves they ride...
DWARF RIDER
Wizard sits upon dwarf shoulders
It's like sitting on a boulder
But a boulder that is halfway in the ground
He humors his assistant
He knows it makes no difference
His toes always drag on the ground
Stepping dauntless into the fen
The wizard's robe is wet again
But the dwarf defiant charges on into the bog
Such are the perils of the
DWARF RIDER
A mime spotted the hairy two-man bundle
And promptly mimic’d the wizard-on-dwarf trundle
'tis true, the site was quite absurd!
Much to the wizard's chagrin,
The imitation humiliated him
And with winking eye he cursed mimes, every one!
DWARF RIDER
How did such an absurd sight
Come to grace the moonless night?
I shall tell you in the next verse, aye I shall.
Shrewd negotiators!
The wizards asked for a favor,
And dwarves — being dwarves — bid their heed
A tinkle of a wizard's bell jar,
A tincture of toad's blood and feldspar,
And dwarves like taxis shall now and ever be!
Wizard Trucks? NAY!
DWARF RIDER!
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6. |
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Why — Gone — My Home
Dust storm rising
Fish come slithering
In schools across the burning sand
Gills are writhing
useless to resist
Pestilence across the land
Sahara — Gilf Kebir
Aral Sea — The Gobi
Whale Valley — Wadi al-Hitan
Why — Gone? — My Home!
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