I. Enter By The Narrow Gates
"All Hope Abandon Ye Who Enter Here."
-Dante, The Inferno
Bring forth the Light
To raze colonies
In a single cleansing breath
Don't sleep, my queen;
The sun rises one less time
Than it will set
Now overhead, the stars
That guided our forebears
Have turned to dust
And underfoot, the churning
Framework of this earth
Succumbs to rust
Bring forth the Light
These dreams of Thunder displace
Dismantled spirit's burnt bare-
Sylphs in the shards resounding
"Open to the Field!"
Depatterned, floating in Grace
Mapping the fragments...
"For to awaken and rea**emble
Enter by the narrow gates."
All has been inscribed
In the footnotes of time
From the rising dead
To the falling rains;
From these proving grounds
To the burial mounds
Of fallen satellites'
Skeletal remains
From a timeworn note's
Subtle feeling-tone
To the coiled scales
In this mistaken mode
Felt the birch bark walls
Of the temple shake
When those who from heaven
To this earth came
From Eleusia
To the k**ing Fields;
From the Promised Land
To the coming plague;
From the trenches of
Every whispered war
To the future wreckage
Of the Large Array
For the gate is wide
And the way is broad
That delivered me
(Insufferable in-between)
From the fleeting dawn
To this endless night
In the labyrinth
Of the Iron Kings
Now my footsteps take precedence as the traffic sounds fade
And this city's lungs have purged their last breath
I'm held captive at the curb before the World's End Lane
Where I pledge my self to uncertainty
From this shattered breaking point each new step must be
Nothing short of the saddest act of sorcery
In search of that fleeting adversity
O, merciless emptiness, that used to possess me...
So farewell Persephone, at rest on the altar
Who dared to merge stone with the skies
What curses of men guard the bridges you built, dear?
What doorways, what star-gates have you left behind?
So I'm following stardust, what's left of the twilight
To get to that last jagged line
To the edge of the earth by the age of rebirth
I'll dissolve, end this realm, and reclaim what is mine
Take in the knitting air
Part with the cleansing breath
Destiny turns the soils in which we manifest
Suffer the burning coals
Yield to the spiral tides
Peer into the darkness, that all may be defined
(swing wide the narrow gates)