Five Sorrows - Prelude


02. Gate Keeping

The last time I checked we weren’t in tribulation yet
So while we’re shedding out our tears in lieu of breaking out a sweat
The father of all lies, he writhes in our disguise
To make the people forget
And I regret to inform the congregation
That we must not forget our vindication
To the evils that exist in a conspiring nation
Awake sleeper, shake the dust from your eyes, 
pull the flesh from your bones and arise, arise
All my days I weep as Jeremiah
As I watch my brethren fall and kneel before the fire
This compromise is the new world order
Those that disagree exist within a city’s border
To the reservation blocks and the ghettoes and slums
Through the prison walls I hear the supplicated hums
A calm within the sickness, beneath the eye of Osirus
This silent epidemic is contagion to the virus
We exist freely of that same old disease
We crucify our hopes on the dogwood trees
We breathe and bleed of the same revolution
We poison intellect on the same evolution
The mark of the beast will be the word of “religion”
Stamped cleanly on their heads as they declare the legion 


03. Burning Beds 

I had this dream the other night, you were there
With your harlot smile and your virgin stare
And all the angels wept as you closed your eyes
And fell softly on a bed of pride
And as the flames licked you up and down
You swallowed yourself and became the profound
And never stopped falling even after you hit the ground
I’m burning all the beds I have lain within
Emptying disease I have slept within
I’m burning all the beds I have lain within
Emptying disease I have slept with in
Your eyes, cool, like the ripples in the water
Your eyelids blink between the clicks of the shutter
Your name leaves something I cannot forget
With these ghosts in the bedroom and their chains of regret
Their whispers, like fingertips, on my neck and my shoulders and my silent lips
They dissipate with no sound
And never stop falling even after they hit the ground 


04. A Murder Paints Circles 

Moonlight, an aesthetic adjective upon your face
Smooth, exaggerated shadows run like water
Move like water
Immersing your body in the Grace
Forming pools within your eyes
As the shadows weigh heavy on your chest
Washing like waves between your breasts, 
rising and falling
A murder paints circles on the sky tonight
Like a ghost, His flame, behind your eyes
Like a shudder of hope against a shiver of lies
Carving trespasses in the flesh of men
These abusive perfumes written in my hand
Optimistic water in a pessimistic glass
My iniquities reverberate from my past
Number my wanderings like my breaths,
Disperse in the air and fade to the left
The stars fall, the moon descends 
at dawn you have much to tell of where you’ve been
“Jesus”, on your lips in sleep
The dream blooms, the words awaken
Your eyes break free from all they’ve taken
The flecks of gray infuse with blue
Like the streetlights on wet asphalt do
The breaths and shadows coalesce to blur
Like ellipsis points between her words
And the thought completes itself
I’m nothing to Your Royalty,
Just an anorexic animosity
I’ve kissed the lips of death the queen
And worshipped my own worthless dream
Screaming, writhing in the dirt
Until Your Blessed night took broken hurt
For I’ve done and knew not what
These transgressions beating in my heart
Forgive me in my condemnation
I accept my own Salvation 


05. In MEemory 

I do this in memory of You
She builds houses cast in glass
And she is the object behind which I am cast
But I am a shadow of that which was
I am the scar but no trace of blood
I’ve been mistaken for a beam of light
A ghost of a flicker on the glass to your eye
And I render these thoughts on the soft machine
It’s deeper than blue against the difficult green
I choose mine to bring them down
Because I spoke with Your voice but not to Your sound
Blinded by my sight I ran into the Son
I know what I am but not what I’ve done
I break Your back with the cost that I bear
Just another example of the skin that I wear
What’s right? What’s left?
Of all the everything I stood for,
Now lies and rests broken, bleeding on the floor
And my empty hands are tied before you
I hold an empty mouth and these whispers in the dark
Now in the light are crying out
And I do this in remembrance of the alabaster jar
In remembrance of the penance
Because of what we really are
And I love this and I need this
To fight the darkness in the air
So in memory of You I hold my heart open to bare
If only Your arms were sin,
It’d have been your embrace I was born within
But this is just flesh and breath,
Dry bones and blood
And a thirst, unquenched
And my fist, clenched around the stone
But I am sin so I cast it to the ground
With these media holders of kiss and betrayal
Judas stole my apple and my holy grail
But am I justified if I steal them back?
Would I steal from the Thief what I feel the night lacks?
Even my ghosts have left their adornment
I’ve laughed by the day but by night fell to mourning 


06. Eulogy

Dearly, beloved, we are gathered here today
In remembrance of those who have not yet died
But have refused eternal life…
Pray they will be comforted.
In your pretty, little head, conveniently displaced
Lie these acts of permanence, so easily erased with haste
Your mother knows better yet we gather here today
To pay respects to a soul who pays its own way
So what does this hand do behind your back?
While you ponder on this question
And the other one tries to clap
Despite the fact
That all flesh dies and fades like the grass
And in time too this beauty will collapse
So count the bones you’ve picked from the ash
And hide your questions
From the God you didn’t ask
Push, pull because the soul is heavy
Push them, the pretty little daisies
Push up, to make your grave pretty
Push hard, because the dirt is heavy
Push in, and hold the blade steady
Pull out and make yourself ready
May I Apologize now?
It seems I’ve pissed you off
But I’ll defend the offense, like my Savior defended us upon the Cross
So ashes to ashes and dust to dust
And when the Reign comes down this halo’s gonna rust
And just
Because you familiarize with danger leaves no excuse to consider Him a stranger
The writing is on the wall
But all you’ve seen is an obstacle
Just another excuse to allow the fall
And count your bones
But ignore the scars