1. A STORY UNFOLDS

(Instrumental)


2. ETERNITY OF TODAY

Although a world seems empty
No beginnings, never ends
It may not be so easy
To feed it to the flames

When your world turns again
And there is nothing to stir
When death is salvation denied
As past and futures concur

What is tomorrow to the feeble
When existence vanquishes life?

Our eyes are open windows
With hell on either side
Words and signs grow so hollow
As meaning turns foolish pride

What is forever to the hopeless
When the world ends every day

To dream and destroy
To fall and enjoy
To hope and just live
In a vast and endless today

When the wheels have stopped to grind
And fantasy's light has ceased to shine
What is tomorrow or forever
Without joy and today?
Against a horrible, perfect moment
The river struggles in vain

We fight and we cry
We love and we lie
To live and to die
Every limitless, endless today


3. VIOLET'S COMPASS

Whether it's going to die
The eye of the violet unfolds
Caressed and treasured in my heart
And given all the time to wither

The needle guides me
To a tiny spot of calmness
Amongst flower-swarms tender and sweet
Earnest and pure
At my feet clamour of blue
Craving for more and less

Whether it's going to die
The eye of the violet unfolds
Caressed and treasured in my heart
And given all the time to wither

Earth weeps just a tiny core of stillness
The sundown in your eyes a fragile light
At the entrance to your soul
At my feet clamour of blue
A single colour among all the greys

Whether it's going to die
The eye of the violet unfolds
Caressed and treasured in my heart
And given all the time to wither
Away again

The needle rested
Just for a while
We sang and danced and laughed
The music was the message

Whether it's going to die
The eye of the violet unfolds
Caressed and treasured in my heart
And given all the time to wither
Away again


4. ARBITRARY ASYLUM

Inmate
----------
Entombed in every broken soul
looms a light-forsaken place
contorting, breaking, taking toll
leaving scars without a trace

Twinkle, twinkle little light
where are you heading to tonight?

Mirrors mirror lock and key
when the warden sets the pace
and everybody not on edge
is taking too much space

Twinkle, twinkle light of morn
my edges frayed my fabric torn

Warden
------------
Your mind implies selective order
Stop struggling let new worlds emerge
unpleasant, unproductive dreams
obstruct your duty to cohere
Wake at the sound

Inmate
----------
The padding looks peculiar here
Prowling patterns haunting hues
While from a different realm it turns
Its dull yet lurid screws

Beyond the creeping shadows roam
Our torments intertwine
I rave I crave to tear it down
Be their friend and dance

Warden
------------
Each inmate died within these walls
and trails the padding all alone
A maze of pain if wandered once
Releases nevermore
Step away now

And still you resist the cold voice of reason
In God's name I will slaughter the savage in your soul
You are the last
You are my masterpiece

Inmate
----------
Count the animal's legs and prepare to suffer its claws

The Last
-------------
Cascading darkness beckoned
A serpentine line joined the lost
As one leaves another may arrive
In this world at last
Truly the last

The Fallen
----------------
As bones return to dust
and skin crumbles to ash
From sanguine soil
only insanity will bloom

When you have neither won nor lost
And you are not alive or dead
the only wish worth waiting for
is for the clock to reach its end


5. WHITE HEART

Thy grave upon this lovely cliff
With flowers all around
Oh how in life our anguish to
the beautiful is ever bound

From the day you left my side
I swore to laden skies
I shall find you again
and never left go

I walked to you so many night
as tears defeated sleep
your flickering flames within my heart
the only gifts I dare to keep

From the day you left my side
I swore to laden skies
I shall find you again
and never left go

As I travel into the dawn
and the sun sets on life
I shall only find peace
in the light of your eyes

At your eternal home
in evening's golden glow
I see and hear and breathe your soul
in everything I know
As the rolling waves return
and carry me to sea
I know we were blessed
and always will be


6. PHOENIX

Forever I've been one with the skies
Now dressed all in black and greys
All you can find in unseeing eyes
Are feeble tears of a dying blaze

Wings broke and hearts followed suit
As fire never dies alone

Hand in hand on embers we dance
Step by step through fire and flames
Shedding tears of cure and demise
Again and again from ashes we rise

I soared above the clouds with effortless grace
Carried by ambition and driven by desire
I fell dissolved in smoke and haze
A storm arose turn sparkles into fire

Wings broke and hearts followed suit
As fire never dies alone

Hand in hand on embers we dance
Step by step through fire and flames
Shedding tears of cure and demise
Again and again from ashes we rise

In embrace of nothingness and energy I opened my eyes
My skin sealed with the ash of time and memory
Bearing the mark of forever endeavour
As blood pump pale to colour the echoes of fading requiems urge
For the highest and lowest once more

Hand in hand on embers we dance
Step by step through fire and flames
Shedding tears of cure and demise
Again and again from ashes we rise

Hand in hand we walk through the flames
Again and again and perhaps to no end
With passion so real it is hard to control
Not better nor worse
Just different


7. THE BRASS RING

ENTRANCE

Again cracks open the colourful gaze
the box hums to a cheerful prance
while all around the dark joins fate
on arid vast in fatal dance

MENAGERIE

with the wild chase cross deserts and woods
under the sea and cut through the clouds
tossing and turning and laughter and burning
in a time of beautiful new and boring know

all darting senses in vivid, strange dreams
till eyes fall on the land and they fall on the lion
void of everything out wonder
a young soul opens and offers pure passion to all

BRASS RING

Our candles flickering seized by the spin
childish dreams torn over thrones within
from peaceful love lasting longer than we
springs ever a sparkle of hope for me

KING-HORSE

Then one day all the wonders would cease
in displays and levels behind glasses to please
the conscious masters are destined for keys
to a world unfolding piece after piece

So gallop along in holy crusades
act in your favour with flowers or blades
steer clear of sentimental charades
know right and know wrong and no other shades

BRASS RING

Our candles flickering seized by the spin
childish dreams torn over thrones within
from peaceful love lasting longer than we
springs ever a sparkle of hope for me

CHARIOT

Up atop the coach and two
racing over charred earth
surveying all things bound in rule
the earth and people as his tool

And nothing but an aged fool
yet still perhaps someday a man who'll
see the world for what it's worth
embracing nature life and you

BRASS RING

Our candles flickering seized by the spin
childish dreams torn over thrones within
from peaceful love lasting longer than we
springs ever a sparkle of hope for me

JUMPER

Wise heart which now the willow brushed
by love and reason sometimes hushed
It lived and grew in entropy
defying deformed symmetry

Where soul and body break their join
and no ones longing breaks the tide
on eyes once restless rests a coin
for the next elating ride

BRASS RING

Our candles flickering seized by the spin
childish dreams torn over thrones within
from peaceful love lasting longer than we
springs ever a sparkle of hope for me

EXIT

Thus is the way we all come and go
many in strive of gain and success
yet crown they will only remorses and woe
with a wish to have treasured more and less


8. ENTWINED

Veiled among the mighty trees
Where hearts and blossoms
Two loving souls are cradled
By hands of moss and leaves

They fill the sparkling forest
With music as the pass
The sky bleeds blue and red and dark
Lying back and counting stars

With only one life
Even the highest tree
With someday just be
A branch on a stream
Searching for the sea

On a rainy, dreary day
Names are carved in stone
And while they've never met
Two won't get washed away

I hear the treetops whisper
Awakening autumn from its doze
Each fluttering leaf means bliss to me
In fragile dance it waves and flows

With only one life
Even the highest tree
Will someday just be
A branch on a stream
Searching for the sea

If this world was made forever
And it was charmed by hope and truth
Then one day I could pass away
In the warmth of an embrace

With only one life
Even the highest tree
Will someday just be
A branch on a stream
Searching for the sea


9. DANSE MACABRE

Welcome, welcome to wonderland
Have seen a rabbit here?
Clinging to your back as golden hands turn
A hypnotic stream of sand
Melting down to dunes of fear
Moving in a desert to cross you are afraid
And you just cannot help yearning

It's a funny, funny world why don't you just laugh?
I am drowning you why don't you laugh?

Blind and numb you'll never see
That I jerk your strings
And I pull you leg
That you masquerade
And you swirl and you sway
Through my pitch-black and deadly cabaret
Until the music stops

Hush, hush keep acting comedy
With laughter from Pandora's box
Where love is like fool's gold and tears like bloody diamonds
You cannot choose a middle way
Trembling from reviving shocks
Lie and grin on through your teeth
I forge them round my neck one day

It's a funny, funny world why don't you just laugh?
I am drowning you why don't you laugh?

Blind and numb you'll never see
That I jerk your strings
And I pull you leg
That you masquerade
And you swirl and you sway
Through my pitch-black and deadly cabaret
Until the music stops

All my existence was wrapped around
A warmth and acceptance I've never found
I have become the monster they could not escape
So they made me the ultimate joke
Thus need not think 'til I rattle the drape
And since that one day I've arranged it with glee
Your pathetic, old dance for eternity

Blind and numb you'll always be
While I jerk your strings
And I pull your leg
I let grace far behind
Since the day on which all you'd accept
Was but pain and misery
I never wanted fear from you
This gentle reaper will remind
That once he had dreams too


10. THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW

Ink may ease a feverish chill
Rip shadows from reality
while pines sing overhead
"All a hideous mistake"

Caravans of faceless phantoms drift across the world
Words of wonders seized and sold without a flag unfurled

The stories, the rickshaw and I
Dream away to horizon's end
Kaleidoscopes wedged in the sand
As one realm, one people, one lie

Through the leaks with my head
The darkness sips the horror flows
While the rain-fed torrents whisper
"All a hideous mistake"

Caravans lie bare and plundered as the vultures fly
Where and empty heart lies buried all will fall and die

The stories, the rickshaw and I
Dream away to horizon's end
Kaleidoscopes wedged in the sand
As one realm, one people, one lie

All these twisted vines shall drown
In tears flown from the cheek of time

The stories, the rickshaw and I
Dream away to horizon's end
Kaleidoscopes wedged in the sand
As one realm, one people, one lie
Yet is the worth of a tale
Always hidden
Beyond the lines?


11. THE WORLD CONSTRUCTOR

BLUE SKIES
Once I knew a poet
We met between the lines
beneath domes of verse
so vast and sublime

walked me past gardens
adorned by flowers of youth
cast a trusting curtain
on future's stain on truth

From the rusting page
resounded songs of love
in a flutter the words
rose all around
and have fueled the embers since

It was the day I learned to live

Every piece a gift to life
unchain again the endless skies
We live the dearest hope
To leave but beauty in our fall

Once I met a painter
between the green and blue
A face lined like canvas
carved with joy and woe

As the colours trailed
Off into the dark
in gentle strokes
and the smiling eyes closed
for a world they had caressed so long

It was the day I learned to die

Every piece a gift to life
unchain again the endless skies
We live the dearest hope
To leave but beauty in our fall

SCORCHED EARTH
how profound are lines of idle dreams
What is the vain fool to the world
A child afraid of growing up
as wells of olden days run dry
all dreams will unpavel at dawn

THE INNER CIRCLE
I may have nothing else to show
than revelling in the flows of all
although too soon my time is high
I'll be beyond the curtain call
A dew-boin soul who learned to fly
and that is all I need to know
Flying upon a frozen sea
of souls cold and full of atrocity
hope to wake up afraid what will be
But is it a dream or reality?

Two fragile silhouettes closely embraced
their world hidden in a floating crystal ball
fulfilled with the greatest and purest gift of all
each crack mended by love

THE CORE
Every piece a gift to life
unchain again the endless skies
Though the world has showing us cold
in all our hearts the stories unfold

Blessed by weeping eyes we'll never see
a blessing dormant in you