1. |
Jeremiad
03:05
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These are unforgiving years
and we shall hear the tocsin ring out
over and over and over
before we know peace once more.
Can you not feel it in the air,
the frisson of the coming storm
that will tear our lives asunder?
Havens of old truths shall be laid low
by the howling gale of older lies,
as the merciless terror of history
returns for us, scourge in his right hand.
Its going to happen again,
its going to happen here,
all the horror, the loss,
torments we thought we’d never face,
the light of lives forever extinguished
by a flood of unresting death,
enshrouding our world in the darkness
of this nightmare age of
disaster.
These are unforgiving years
above which, an orange midnight looms,
lit by the endless burning torches
of the approaching enemy.
Do their chants not fill the air
with vile myths of blood and soil,
the miasma of a brutal past?
And as they march on, we‘ve bowed in prayer
to lifeless idols of what should be,
crying unheard, as if mere words
will save us from the lion’s jaws.
Vae Victis, woe to the vanquished.
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2. |
Pious Fraud
03:05
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Vanity of vanities,
what is your faith but the most ravenous vanity?
For it makes you so callous and cruel,
so unlike he whose name you desecrate.
Did he not say the peacemakers are the children of god
or that love is the fulfillment of the law,
and that false prophets shall be known by the fruits they bear?
Thus what are you, but a bastard tilling barren fields?
As you fleece your flock to cushion your throne and cast the poor from your door,
the mantle of your priesthood becomes a mere disguise,
for your savior said “whatsoever you do unto the least of these,
that you do unto me”
so remember your hands plant the crown of thorns- antichrist,
these twisted works lay bare your heart.
Your hands drive in the nails- antichrist,
this innocent blood erodes your mask.
As you butcher the dove to feather your nest while praising the prince of peace,
the bells of your church become the drums of war,
feltching filthy lucre from the abyss of human misery,
driven by shameless greed, devoid of mercy
your hands plant the crown of thorns- antichrist,
these twisted works lay bare your heart.
Your hands drive in the nails- antichrist,
this innocent blood erodes your mask.
Power is your only religion,
Your scripture is a fig leaf over corruption.
Mammon is the God you serve
with a forked tongue that speaks only lies, you pious fraud.
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3. |
Destructive Creation
04:00
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Behold destruction,
verdant forests lie in ash
toxic seas choked with waste.
earth becomes a charnel house.
and yet we know not what we’ve done.
Here is the collapse
the flashover of the human spark.
Slow violence reaches critical mass.
Denouement of this tragedy.
For are we not the
authors of our despair,
architects of these gallows,
weavers of our own noose,
masterminds of this our doom?
Mesmerized
by powers we can conjure but cannot command,
we’ve strived like gods
to banish fear, want, pain, and death,
yet this illusion veils the danger
of the force that we have birthed,
creating a coruscating deadly new beauty.
“A candle in the dark” - yes, our luminous vision
has dispelled the
horrors of the primeval night,
yet this radiance is no tame light,
its a fire beyond our control,
making of this world an inferno.
All our gifts are laced with this curse:
our reach far exceeds our grasp.
As we strain towards the heavens,
we stumble into hell,
a hell of our own making.
This is our hell.
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4. |
A Thousand Cuts
03:01
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How dare I even raise my voice
against the ills of this world when they all live in me?
When the tomb of the past is opened
and the ghosts of my sins return to haunt me
with all of the flaws
my delusive pride
had tried to forget.
Every virtue intertwined
with twice as much vice.
Every meager success
bookended by failure.
Each slow step forward
staggers back into a
dense fog of confusion,
clouding my vision.
I just can’t get it right,
no matter how hard I try
to purge this venom
that flows through my veins;
poisoning my heart
perverting my mind,
turning me into a monster even I despise.
And I could try to escape this pain,
to numb it with a palliative;
a dose of privileged complacency
offered to make what’s wrong seem right,
but in that haze they would cut into me,
amputating what is best in me;
my will to love and my urge to fight,
leaving me dismembered; less than half alive.
So even as corrupt and as weak as I am
it’s clear what they offer isn’t life but simply
death with a different name
death in a thin disguise
stretched over the course of a life
death one piece at a time
death by a thousand cuts.
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