Out of howling of prophets
And curses of the righteous
In the ivory halls
A new kind of champion is bred

Herostrates for the modern day
High on good conscience
A noblest of sufferers
On disinformation highway

At the end of the day it's the same old script:
Do you believe in victory or do you hail defeat

Those finaglers of justice
Expert wrights in deceit
Carvers of the crooked timber
And their finely tuned farce
Proclaiming anger and rage
Under the mortal threat it thrives

At the end of the day it's the same old script:
Do you believe in victory or do you hail defeat

Ersatz revolt
Ersatz rebellion

For a new world would come
Every once in a while
"Purer", "brighter", "clearer", "better"

And the last of misbelievers
Will be trampled in the greatest of marches
Toward the radiant future
Where sheep are promised fangs

And only after the graves are filled
With remains of dissidents
And the frame of reference is torched
Together with forbidden thoughts

Then, and only then
The disciple is relieved
The true believer has overcome the evils
Of engineering of dissent

At the bottom of things it's the same old script:
Do you believe in victory or do you hail defeat

Ersatz revolt
Ersatz rebellion

For a new world would come
Every once in a while
"Purer", "brighter", "clearer", "better"

Ersatz purpose
Ersatz alliance
Ersatz ideals
Ersatz communion

The stench of zeitgeist
Is the incense of discarded shrines
As the corpses put on powder and rouge
So that the hoax can proceed, ever sidewards
A cheaped-out incarnation into a shopworn sarx
The soul congeals into a grimy lump
Substance of the world, dreary and pale
At the feet of a spirit detached

Between the grinder and the abattoir
Such are the landscapes of grief
Grayness and glitz
Glitter and gehinnom

Between tedium and fright
Such is the song of the nether world
The hissing of rats
And the jarring chants of angels

A sacrifice to the gutter gods
Squandered redemption, misplaced grace
As an ailing mole burrowing in Eden
Living breathing downfall

Between the grinder and the abattoir
Such are the landscapes of grief
Grayness and glitz
Glitter and gehinnom

Between tedium and fright
Such is the song of the nether world
The hissing of rats
And the jarring chants of angels

It's a land of sun gone down
In comical grandeur
A sluggish danse macabre
Hyenas waltzing about

Would a new flood please finally come
A real rain and an assortment of plagues
And when all is said and done
Even the Devil won't care enough to spit in the mud
 

A species had been armed with a double edged blade
A guardless weapon of delusion
Forged of a mirage of inherent transcendence
In the tangled mechanisms of life itself

As the curtain is being unraveled
The ego writhes in a spasm of insight
Delighted gods grunt like pigs
At the mere notion of a raison d'etre

From the gardens of Semiramis
To the trenches of Ypres
A meaningless uproar

Sublime truths are revealed
In the hammering of hobnailed jackboots
And there's wisdom to be found
In the shameful epitaphs of cowards

From the gardens of Semiramis
To the trenches of Ypres
From the grounds of Comitium
To the cellars of Tuol Sleng
From the spores of presence
And a swarm of pest
Unto the ironies of being

Falling hopes whip the ground
Among laments of sunken millennia
There are no paths to follow
But a nightmare of endless repetition

Those who peruse the annals of humanity
Demanding patterns, connections, developments:
Were there any to be found?
And was it sapience indeed that kept pushing this broken cart?

The wonders
The misery
The ascent
The emptiness

Falling hopes whip the ground
Among laments of sunken millennia
There are no paths to follow
But a nightmare of endless repetition
 

As if you didn't know how it feels to lose
As if you didn't know how it feels to lose at dice with fate

At least have some dignity

As if it wasn't a lifetime spent on connecting the dots
There was no pattern
As if the irony was more than a defense mechanism
And we could actually laugh for a change
As if steel hooks in our backs were more than a nuisance
And we could actually feel something

Self crucified - missed the right tree
Tore the wrong eye out
The hissing of hellfire
Self crucified - missed the right tree
For this I have gained a victory
I burn as I ought to

As if everything was to be made right one day
Dreams don't come true for people like us
As if the gods were bored with peace in our hearts
And their fingers are itchy
As if we never broke people out of sheer boredom
And slept calmly among the wastes

And then we see bright and clear

As if we would be someone else
While mindlessly wandering through the mountains
As if we would be someone better
Expelling purgatory in Latin alphabet

Self crucified - missed the right tree
Tore the wrong eye out
The hissing of hellfire
Self crucified - missed the right tree
For this I have gained a victory
I burn as I ought to

As if all this was something more
Than another footnote on a postcard from nowhere
Another chapter in the handbook for exercises in futility

Blessed be the tailors
The masks are cut to fit

Blessed be the woodworkers
The crosses and the gallows

Blessed be the forgers of iron
And the spikes and the barbwire

Blessed be the stone cutters
It took a quarry to bury the dreams

Blessed be the misery, the filth, the discord and the horror
Blessed be the lies, the guilt, the fear, the woe and the betrayal
For these ones didn't need any outside source
For these ones come from within

And here it is
Grown from within
An invincible stronghold
Adorned with death

A suit of shining armour
Replaced the skin
And calligraphed sins
Are as coat of arms

Hollow