1. CONDEMNED

Born into dream, where wonder resides,
Where men may be swayed by angels at their sides...

"Haze!
Where have I flown?
What luster pours from off this throne!"

"Stand now!"

"A shattering voice from the light I hear!
There lies no right for my presence here!
The darkened of heart are who you seek,
The vile, the pitiful and the weak!"

The light, it filtered past the pallid pillars,
In an odd and argent mist,
Veiling the throne from the chamber below,
And the man standing in its midst.
How arrogantly that figure did stand,
Yet knees rattled as he did so.
In his heart he knew who beckoned him such,
But did he know where the obstinate go?

Then rumbled the brilliant celestial grace,
And silver-tipped wings hid seraphic face;
The holy right for which the angels brace,
Was near dread crescendo...

"I gave shape to the yawning void.
The stars I numbered as they were deployed.
I exhaled the mortal tide,
For which my only Son died.
I am He,
Who shall judge thee!

And with me thou cannot be...
Go now!"


2. FROM SILVER SPIRES TO UNQUENCHED FIRES

"And they shall go forth
And look upon the
Corpses of the men
Who have transgressed against Me
For their worm does not die
And their fire is not quenched
They shall be an abhorrence
To all flesh"

Embers whirl in torrential swaths
Into the dark, on sulfurous wings
Along with the tortured chorus
Of infernal whipcord and the gnashing of teeth
Putrid fumes and a volcanic glow
Alert the senses of the banished man
Aghast at the suddenly scorched scape
That before him endlessly ran

"I was just blinded by light
But now in the darkness I'm crushed
And such horrible sounds in this place abound"
For like blood from rent veins they gushed
"What sins remain smeared on my soul?
What goodness did my life not acquire
That when last breaths had past, I was cruelly cast
From silver spires to unquenched fires!"

As he mused over his punishment
The reeking shadows unfurled
Through widespread blazes, the lurid faces
Slavering in pernicious desire...

"My child, how I mourn for you...
Oh, in awful Sheol
I showed you the Way
But you chose to stray
The candles of My guiding light
You shunned, making darkness your ally
I made you and I love you
But you chose Death!"

And thus the Heavens panged with woe and mourning
While upon the exiled, feverish gales exhaled
Arrested into the ashen grasps of the Deep
Where the nightmares and fallen ones wailed


3. WHERE THE WORM NEVER DIES

The maelstrom maw of vulgar abominations
A pit of unequaled, gore-gullet lamentations
Fodder for fire and crafters of serpentine speech
In communion like host and bedeviling leech

Such spirits as chased allusive Liberty
And, in life, placed Her on a throne
Now spiral and feast on the fruit of deceit
The anguish of shattered bone
And that man joined the carnival of carrion souls
Swept to dismal dwellings below...
And the malice-wont tongues that licked his temples
With despair and damnation in tow...

"No hope nor love remains for you!"

"Hold thee no hope for salvation...
...No tear shalt thou hold 'hind thy eyes...
...The scourge and the pit shalt thou feed
In sorrow unrelenting and hunger vast..."

"A ministry of midnight and bloodshed supreme
Of terror and tumultuous death
Where flesh meets crude fangs clotted and coated
Yet starved amidst gluttonous ravages!
The gall and the bile, a vinegar wine
Sinews devoured and rent from each limb
All shall thee encounter and moreso endure
If it meets my infernal whim!"