Woe
Legacies of Frailty
1. Fresh Chaos Greets the Dawn
What fearsome beast awakes again to stalk this harrowed earth?
What thing beyond imagination, sloughing skin in timeless rebirth?
The dread of the new day, the threat of the last,
a fever dream breathing, the future aghast
The living lament of power misspent on history's profoundly shameful regrets
The brazen sycophants, the spineless drones emerge
To sway in craven veneration, drawn to its pure vacuous dirge
Somehow faith strains to nourish the garden that logic denies
In fealty to the madness that consumes the world and never truly dies
Against the wall, pushed to the ground, forced to a cell
Into a crate, into the flames, cast down to hell
A crumpled husk to feed the worms that feed the earth
That never cared, that could not stop the thing it grew
Tremble under the weight of the lurid contempt
For imagined slights against petty tyrants
and their tragic recompense
Against the wall, pushed to the ground, forced to a cell
Into a crate, into the flames, cast down to hell
A crumpled husk to feed the worms that feed the earth
That never cared, that could not stop the thing it grew
Joyous in conflict
Nourished by fear
The beat of an ancient drum
Legacies of human frailty
Carrion tragedy
Vultures of loss
A swarm for the sadness
Devours worlds in lucid horror
March of oppression finds gleeful embrace
Gluttonous masses
Gorge themselves on human failures
Drink the very marrow
From their bones
It comes again
Fresh chaos greets the dawn
You never see from where it comes
A defeated sun groans to its post
To weep away an endless day
Against the wall, pushed to the ground, forced to a cell
Into a crate, into the flames, cast down to hell
A crumpled husk to walk the earth
That dares not stop the things it grew
It comes again
It comes again
Mourn for the living
It comes again
It comes again
It comes again
Mourn for the living
It comes again
2. Scavenger Prophets
“Rise now, ye faithful!
Witness these auspicious signs
The riotous winds blow with terrible greatness
And sovereign purpose illuminates the grand design!
Behold clamoring chaos
Ripe for rapture, the multitudes await
Your leaden devotion
A boot to quake the earth,
a fist to wield the weapons of fate"
Scavenger prophets
These foul vultures of loss
Proudly aloft in their ill-gotten sky
A swarming starving cloud
The holy vermin
Desperate for burden
and flush with demagogue urge
The righteous impious
They see themselves as kings
Reap the spoils from the tributary herds
And unto a ripe world
Hiss the word of god
“Resurrect the esoteric words”
Liars tongue
Benighted reason
“A fist against the weakness of the world”
Coward strength
Desperate urges
“Arise! Arise! to meet a golden day!”
Mass affliction
Joyous rage, the work is never done
Scavengers, vultures of loss
Victims of their own invective
Lives turned kindling for the flame
The noble work is never-ending
Lest their prayers will not be heard
For every silent fear there crawls a shadow
born from where no joy abounds
and time becomes a shrill
reminder of a frail existence
Not bound by memories
but measured by the deepest sorrow
Wither hope and rise reborn
A vessel of the damned to claim the world
A just doom for a savage season
Cruel their purpose, cruel their death
A just doom for a savage season
Cruel their purpose, cruel their death
Glorious freedom, the hate lives forever
A just doom for a savage season
From the depths of loss something worse appears
Cruel its purpose, cruel its death
Glorious freedom, the hate lives forever
A just doom for a savage season
From the depths of loss something worse appears
Cruel its purpose, cruel its death
3. The Justice of Gnashing Teeth
Chaotic voices scream in frantic tongues
A savage din reaching from primal dark
Red frothing rage consumes the hearts of man
As if ordained to kill by hateful hands
The shining city's lights confess its truth
The living ruins boast of myths disproved
Its gaudy glow can't hide its dark charade
Hungry torches for the next Crusade
Walking the worn path
Onward, oblivion, the oldest face of man
Inside, they all know
Onward, oblivion, the oldest face
Hatred
The reliable refrain
Raze the rags of civilization
All at once retreating
Tribal warfare thrives
In the ashes of the world
Walking the worn path
Cast away the chains of enlightenment
The truth for all to see
Onward, oblivion, the resting place of progress
Sacrifice your convictions
Dominate your cherished virtues
New skin stretched over faded leather
Old refrains survive generations
Their songs, we sing
We studied all their failures
And gasped at all their crimes
And centuries past the primal rage that lingers
deep within our
weaker moments,
An ancient language
from a dark and twisted time
Still speaks its ageless violence
Vestigial tongues somehow survive
And now, where have they fled?
Bright-eyed champions of peace?
Gone are those better angels
Here we have familiar beasts
And now, where have they fled?
Here we have familiar beasts
And now, where have they fled?
Here we are familiar beasts
The justice of gnashing teeth
Chaotic voices scream in careful tongues
A savage din filtered through modern thought
Red frothing rage defines the worth of men
So gladly led to kill by nature’s hand
Walking the worn path
Onward, oblivion, the oldest face of man
And everyone knows
Onward, oblivion, the oldest face
Sacrifice your convictions
Dominate your cherished virtues
Every era thinks that it is different
Until it sees
The broken bodies at its feet
4. Distant Epitaphs
Distant epitaphs drain the world
of color so vibrant
and leave dark craters
A constant drone of loss howls the words
and rains in torrents
upon desperate masses
A frantic, captive throng -- prisoners
of men and madness
of hate and power
Gasps of snuffed-out light reverberate
like some foul wind
that tears through nature
Resentful eyes will track the men who destroyed them
Accusations pierce the silence
The unheeded testimony of stolen voices
Betrayed in contempt to an unmarked grave
Distant epitaphs roar from where sanity fled
and horror gives chase
Snarling and ravenous creatures emerge from the dark
Nightmare monstrosities shamble forth
Decayed and servile to rancid ambition
Dredged from a past of primal virtues
Wherein nothing grows but
dread machinations of violent compulsion
That stalk the virgin day and strangle dark crisp nights
In terrible campaigns
Resentful eyes will track the men who destroyed them
Accusations pierce the silence
The unheeded testimony of stolen voices
Betrayed in contempt to an unmarked grave
Fearsome echoes of death pang eternal
Conscript the world to war
The ever-constant pulse of degradation
The pounding drum of ceaseless confrontation
Awash in sorrow, we gaze from distant vistas
And thrash against the tearing claws of time
The helpless victims of an empire's failures
Chained to dark annals of a history that's already written
Unending screams, inhuman conditions
Forever to speak their deafening truth
Forever to sing their sorrowful dirge
Forever to command we cling to the future that they were all denied
5. Shores of Extinction
One final march to shores of extinction
Far-off trumpets call through the glow of dusk
Heavy eyes spare no glances
A haze descends
To still the world
Last rays of sun stretch shadows cold and vacant
No more home than fiery day
Heavy eyes spare no glances
A haze descends
To still the world below
The choking sky is theater to procession
Long-dead stars silently await
Heavy eyes spare no glances
A haze descends
To still the world
Where once grew forests rich with ambition
Now lie graveyards of ancient hopes
Heavy eyes spare no glances
A haze descends
To still the world below
A haze descends upon the masses
And stills the world below
Color drained from the faces
None remember how to mourn
Entranced by flames on the horizon
Nothing is lost, nothing is found
Under a silent sky that never heard prayers
Nothing is lost, nothing is found
One final march towards the end
6. Far Beyond the Fracture of the Sky
Every parent dreams of peace in wartime
Gentle reason that yawns throughout the day
Of simple sadness, of fading scars, old studied anguish
The kind that lives in other people's songs
Every parent knows the fear of daylight
The lurking dread of sorrow's fresh assault
Every shadow hides the next vicious invention
Of time's cruel march against the fallow heart
A world no child dares explore
Strutting, jeering in the despairing face of hope
Seethe a roiling, man-shaped multitude
Jerking to the greedy whims
of a hundred ruthless masters who manipulate the world
The promise of a moment that makes great what others took
And erases generations
Devours helpless young
Raises flags of victory over dead and salted earth
Blinded eyes gaze past the ruin
Of this world towards the next
Can you hear the trumpets blasting?
Are you ready to ascend?
Rushing down ever-further
No remorse, no escape
Nothing's left for the future
Beyond today there's only hate
A world no child dares explore
The lasting memory of our age
Their lasting memory of our time
Hatred, fear, failure
This is our gift
Hatred, fear, failure
This is our curse
The lasting memory of our age
Their lasting memory of our time
Hatred, fear, failure
Far beyond the fracture of the sky
Higher than the surging of seas
When the embers of cities die
What will there be to inherit?
When the age of reason is failed
When the word of God is law
When every man knows his place
What will there be to inherit?
Rushing down ever-further
No remorse, no escape
Every parent dreams of peace
And driven to lie
To those wondrous gazes
Somehow sentenced to life
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