1. A WHISPER IN THE TEMPEST

It's like a raging roar stifling all your cries
It's like a freezing drizzle soddening your flame
It's like a new day's dawn that won't shine for your eyes
A fading memory that won't recall your name

Paralyzed by fineless dread
As certainty unfurled
Your brittle thoughts have been misled
Since you were forced in this foreign world
You built your cell and locked the door
Engulfed by apathy
While derelict memories float ashore
From the depths of force fed misery

All that you knew failed you so suddenly
The trickling sands of time mock your agony
The deeds of misfortune raised bitterness and scorn
To face this inner toil will leave you drained and worn

Bleak isolation defiles your thoughts
Blinded by dismay, deliverance can’t be sought
Painfully longing for hours to pass
Fight back dim reflections
Tangled in a web of broken glass

Hold on to yourself though you're falling
All your instincts are lost at sea
Waiting for your dawn to arise
A star to be guiding your way
Out of the black

Stand!
You’re better off alone
Than one more faceless drone
Your doleful knowledge is the sword in your hand
For outcasts we may be
But past all trials we see
More land to conquer for those who never bend

Cherish your gutwrenching rage
Make it your iron fist
Break out of your sickly cage
These proud scars show we still resist
Strong and cold as sharpest steel
Your whisper is now a war cry
Not even death could make you kneel
We are the sulphur blaze that rends the sky

Death is a lie


2. AWAY BY DAWN

Shapeshifting pictures like water on glass
Pool in slow circles rousing thunders in my chest
From this I had learned to welcome their claws
Barmecidal serenity skims the taut strings of unrest

Words plummet languid like blood beads on grass
Hands numb from clenching wear the stab of baleful days
By this you will know how real it all was
Dripping with darkness, the clout of fate your stare bewrays

The silky shadow was waning to the west
The anil glow poured across the astral tides
We wept our anguish on the night’s starry breast
And lingered in the warmth of wounds long decried

In the last hour before dawn
No gust did spur the still
In the last hour before dawn
The dark sky breathed chill
In the last hour before dawn
Thin vapours gleamed above
In the last hour before dawn
Blank eyes burned red as blood

Like water weds ether and ground
Our call joined the corners of the dark
With the choirs of the winds to resound
Beneath the stare of astral sparks

For once in time
Let this ode be heard
Let the bronze bells chime
For what within had stirred

So wistfully we trod on gilt tapestries
The nightscented caress that weaved crystalline veils
The burning eye twired through thickets and glades
Solemnly climbing towards forbidden heights

Morningside haze undraped dew-laced fells
A lunar glimpse paled through opalescent veils
And our song would ignite the trembling hush
But the sharp light charred the tones in our throats


3. ECHOES OF SILENCE

Thoughts and sighs keep floating on by
Like leaves on waters deep
The vivid touch of clearness
Leaks through the shroud of troubled sleep

And I thought I heard you calling
Through the haze of anguished dreams
Felt the darkness chill my vision
As your silence swamped my mind with screams

And still I walk
With the wheyfaced ghosts of yesteryears
And every word unspoken
Is a chance to reconcile that disappears

Cascading waves of light
Swelled soft between the trees
The warmth that felt so distant
Through despair that wrapped my soul with ease

And the breath of Summer mornings
Smells like calm I used to feel
As pictures fade and scars grow white
The memories seem just more and more unreal

I fear the guilt
Will stain me even when I’m gone
Let silence be the witness
Of these words poured on the svelte caress of dawn