Babel

We built the tower

To hear the secrets of God.

Though, if asked, we couldn’t have said so.

Our land was silent dreams.

Just away from darkness, we traveled,

Following traces of sun like a flower.

And we were real, like steel or magic,

Stealing through twilight’s symphony,

Building stone stairs and rising on language wings.

We were thieves, standing in the shadows,

Measuring the darkled hours in heartbeats

While inside prayers crashed against the walls.

Never wanting a gift of what could be taken,

We hungered and skulked, seeking the power of rebellion.

All of our land was the spoken word.

Every stone minded, Life swirling in the dust.

From this we rose,

Seekers of horizons,

Never dreaming of the consequences of thought and mortar.

Son of Swords

I stand in the dark, under the pouring rains,

While I pray, and the world eats my soul.

My song is all of my roaring pains,

Buried in the shadow of the black totem pole.

All that I used to be is just a memory,

A prayer crashing against the stone ears of devilry

As I long for zero,

Singing my song in chains,

I long for zero.

(Every step is dogged)

I am the son of swords

Born to follow the lines of force

With my blood beating with the swollen words

Written on my soul with no remorse.

I seek the palace and the sonic throne

The Chalice and the broken bones,                               

So I dream of zero

With all my tattered dreams,

I dream of zero.

(Every hour is devoured)

In my lonely tantrums,

When my entire world is ice and steel,

And I am the only sighted man in the kingdom,

I lose my way and cannot feel

The dark kiss of the maelstrom,

The omega sunshine bliss of the atom

So I go to zero,

Holding close to my shattered soul,

I go to zero.

(Every breath is counted.)

Somewhere there is a great black mountain,

Looming under a twilight moon

And under it a great marble fountain

In which I bathe by the light of a wormwood noon.

Call me the lord of pain; call me the king of sorrow

Call me silent apostle, son of mourning on the last tomorrow.

Shadowlands

I was born in these shadowlands,

Haunted by dreams of memories

From those who despise my blackened hands,

As if nightskin were a disease.

I have been cursed by those from other lands

With lighter skins and haughty gaze,

As if I could be their’s to command,

I am the Man they try not to see.

But still I thrive in shadowlands,

Living life in pantherskin,

Walking tall across the moving sand

Loving the sun that I absorb within.

Nothing can shame this proud Man,

Proud of heritage and skin,

And though some scoff at my shadowed hands,

They cannot repress the Man within.