1. AMPHISBAENA

A great silence has fallen, the sibilant tongues are quiet
Viper’s venom and a woman’s blood blend on the haunted sands
Out of one severed head grows a manifold consciousness

Yet, in the monster’s last breath a human’s dying wish
That from this trail of death, life and death will be reared

In the dust, scaly coils formed and a glittering eye spawned
Out of one severed head grows a manifold consciousness

Coiled around your heart
Sings a serpent within, pulling your strings
“His mind wav’ring and inconstant as the wind”

Heads or tails?
Life’s a pattern with a myriad turns
Infected with a poison of indecision
Heads or tails?
Raging temptations, we’re panic-stricken
Amphisbaena, the many-sided one

“I am the other one inside
I am the paradox in your mind
I feed on doubt and double-bind
Lurking and whispering that soon your time will be out”

Soul unchained
Heart in pain

Heads or tails?
Life’s a pattern with a myriad turns
Infected with the poison of indecision
Heads or tails?
Raging temptations, we’re panic-stricken
Amphisbaena, the many-sided one

Soul unchained
Heart in pain
Mental bane
The human strain


2. WHEN GIANTS WAKE

Imagine the earth as it once was
When life was young and finding ways to colonize
From the dark abyss to the green of lands
Before conquering the skies

And science says dragons were real
(The titans exhumed and revealed)
The lost world can be found again
And science says dragons were real
(The Lost World is ours to rebuild)
If we just take it in our hands

Stand on the shoulders of giants
But careful when the giant wakes

Higher!
On the lane of progress we’ll go
Faster!
We are no longer creatures
But creators!
In nature’s hidden garden we’ll crown ourselves as rulers of
Errors
The garden’s a jungle of
Tyrants
Truth is there’s no controlling
The wrath of the earth
Everything’s always moving and changing
On the edge of no return

It’s child’s play, it’s such a simple idea!
Our brains put us at the top of the chain
Just aim and soon we’ll own the sun and stars
Tell me, have we gone too far?

For science says dragons were real
(The titans exhumed and revealed)
The lost world can be found again
And science says dragons were real
(The Lost World is ours to rebuild)
If we just take it in our hands

Higher!
On the lane of progress we’ll go
Faster!
We’re no longer creatures
But creators!
In nature’s hidden gardens we’ll crown ourselves as rulers of
Errors
The garden’s a jungle of
Tyrants
Truth is there’s no controlling
The wrath of the earth
Everything’s always moving and changing
On the edge of no return

“No cage is strong enough
And in the end we are entertained
Yet so fragile
Another treat for forces unleashed to devour”

Stand on the shoulders of giants
But careful when the giant shakes


3. THE WHALE

Let’s leave the much-travelled coasts
Whose wearisome landmarks hold
No interest
Who knows what’s in the great below
Down under the forever-changing waves
Of a liquid waste?

Yes, off the map we shall sail
Keeping our will on iron rails
Though our ship’s but a speck, a feeble shell
Charging a steep mountain

Here be famished fiends
Here lurks the giant squid
Hateful things that swarm and swim
I shall kill or be killed…

Face winds and waves
Chase the white whale
Demons never beg, (and) won’t be chained
Our course may lead our souls into
Ruin and perdition, (the) price for obsession
I’d defy you all, ocean spawns!
Bring it on!

Now, the water’s boiling all around
Stirred as in a witch’s cauldron
Now, the reflecting surface churns and burns
Leviathan, emerge!

Here be famished fiends
Here lurks the giant squid
Hateful things that swarm and swim
I will kill or be killed…

[Chorus]
I know your name, I know your game,
We’ll carry on against the odds
Till the last encounter, then I’ll
Strike through the mask, thrust through the wall
Pierce right through the monster’s heart
Risk it all!

No mercy, no doubt, no regret
Defying voracious Charybdis
No pity, no half-measures, no fret
Laughing at sunken Atlantis
No reluctance against evil
In the end it all comes to this
Come at us, damned devil!
Dance over the abyss

No pole’s too far, no chasm too deep
Reaching for the stars we’re stronger than demons and beasts

Face winds and waves
Chase the white whale
Demons never beg, (and) won’t be chained
Our course may lead our souls into
Ruin and perdition, (the) price for obsession
I’d defy you all, ocean spawn!
Bring it on!
I know your name, I know your game
We’ll carry on against the odds
Till the last encounter, then I’ll
Strike through the mask, thrust through the wall
Pierce right through the monster’s heart
Risk it all!

I’m the white whale!


4. THE LORD OF CITIES

As time’s rushing onward and we’re watching from above
Building machinery, we are miniaturized
A crowd of engineering bugs, in coarse and noisy towers
Where’s the queen of the hive?

Forces, inertia, gravitation,
Logical laws, flawless equations
Relentless in communication
Mindless voices will chant:

This is the making of the world
Man building roads and walls
Breathing life in new layers of existence
Digital kingdoms
This is the making of the world
Black mirrors, delicate tapestry
(The) weaving spider is the lord of cities

“The noise fades out, the swarm grows still
Just a few more hundred years
It mellows down, ready for my work
To and fro, I draw”

As time’s rushing onward, rumour travels faster than light
Until the source is dry, until the signal dies

Forces, inertia, gravitation,
Logical laws, flawless equations
Relentless in communication
Mindless voices still chant:

This is the making of the world
Man building roads and walls
Breathing life in new layers of existence
Digital kingdoms
This is the making of the world
Black mirrors, delicate tapestry
(The) weaving spider is the lord of cities

“For me Babylon was built,
And still men build cities for me to usher in posterity”


5. MONSTERS BY GASLIGHT

The city gates are closed, safe walls and buildings of smoke
As the bell’s doom tolls, day dies, shadows grow
You feeling safe now? Whilst under, fires bellow
The river glistens. What shady secrets lie below?
Eye for eye, don’t you know you reap what you sow?
Scratch the surface of this ideal community
Men wearing masks of respectability
Away from mad crowds, the doctor ceases to hide
A razor glares bright, a demon in disguise
Life for life, it takes but one to unravel all our laws

Bloodstains in the night
Black by gaslight

White pavement screeching, each night a deadly countdown
As vice has leaked in, hear the music of the night
Beasts with no names, faces drowned in ruby red
Exhale whispers of fear, and awe, and hate
Grime and crime, perpetual dark beneath the fog-clogged sky

Fancy machine, a righteous dream
In an ocean of chaos we aim for islands of order

Fortune in our future,
Glorious peak of progress
Rise and fall, new Babylon
Pride crumbling down till even ruins turn to sand

Stony-hearted mother, fiends round every corner
Decadence plagues the air
Street after street, drinking tears
And vaporous sighs of despair

Fancy machine, a fallacious dream
We barred windows, locked every door
Building a sanctuary that turned out to be fertile grounds for hidden sins

Scratch the surface of this ideal community
Men wearing masks of respectability
Beasts with no name, faces drowned in ruby red
Exhale whispers of fear, and awe, and hate
Eye for eye, don’t you know you reap what you sow?

Desperate preys in the night
Reason’s gone wild
Predators in the night
So close behind
Broken men in the night
Die by gaslight

Roam the pits, flee the streets
Where the beasts, men or freaks
Are killing by gaslight / Are dying by gaslight


6. SANG NOIR

I fear the past that’s never dead
I fear an ageless legacy sleeps in my veins

I hear things scratching in the wall
Behind the family frames
(A great tree that sprouted from hoary roots)
It’s here, hideous, can’t you hear them?
The moans of silent chains

The skinwalker
Yee-Naaldooshi
Is watching me

Inhuman thing,
To me you should be inconceivably other
Not so familiar
And yet, you’re what my kind once was
You’re what I might become

Oh, the past is never dead
It is not even past
In sleep, I hear and do strange things
It’s getting real / Dreams aren’t that mad
Traces are waiting to be found
Read my face like a book
I wouldn’t believe but now it seems
The mirror tells the truth

Underwave, the lore of eons gone
Resurface in my head
(What’s repressed
Will return)
I sinkNepenthe from the deep
Has calmed me
Let me sink

The skinwalker
Yee-Naaldooshi
Is watching me

Sang Noir
J’ai hérité des ombres et des merveilles
Sang Noir
A flots versé, à cœur ouvert, sacrificiel
Sang Noir
Qui m’as vue naître et me verras m’éteindre
Sang Noir
Viens te repaître, viens m’étreindre

Atavistic revelation
Black ichor within
I’m forever an outsider
Among those who are still men

Black Ichor within!

Ruptured from my own nature
I almost thought I’d end it all
Rapture now eclipses terror
Embrace my personal disaster

Inhuman thing
To me you should be inconceivably other
Not so familiar
And yet, you’re what my kind once was
You’re what I might become

Oh, the past is never dead
It is not even past
In sleep, I hear and do strange things
It’s getting real / Dreams aren’t that mad
Traces are waiting to be found
Read my face like a book
I wouldn’t believe but now it seems
The mirror tells the truth


7. SO THE SONG WENT (SILENT O'MOYLE)

I heard a song,
Sad listless notes on the docks
Spoke to my heart
Like when Mother sang her song of gold
In our exile
So we’d remember green fields of old
Remember we used to live
In golden mist beyond the edge of the world

And the song went…

“Silent, oh Moyle, be the roar of thy water
Break not, ye breezes, your chain of repose
While, murmuring mournfully, Lir's lonely daughter
Tells to the night-star her tale of woes
When shall the swan, her death-note singing,
Sleep, with wings in darkness furl'd?
When will heav'n, its sweet bell ringing
Call my spirit from this stormy world?”

There was a swan of white
Gliding by the docks
A lonely heart
Betrayed and cursed to wander at sea
Oceans apart from home
Estranged and melancholy
I heard the song, saw the swan
Thinking back on a land of myth and charms

And the song went…

“Sadly, oh Moyle, to thy winter-wave weeping
Fate bids me languish long ages away;
Yet still in her darkness doth Erin lie sleeping,
Still doth the pure light its dawning delay
When will that day-star, mildly springing
Warm our isle with peace and love?
When will heav'n, its sweet bell ringing
Call my spirit to the fields above?”


8. IDLE RIDDLES AND RHYMES

Tick tock, tick tock, Time’s right on the clock
The skull now speaks, wine drinks itself
Each shade’s the same, a mechanical frame
I’m a painted puppet in a dull masquerade

Painted puppets, on parade, faint and quaint

Frenetic and frantic,
Words like pearls on a string
Mesmerizing music
Near eerie ears
We’re gasping for logic
Yet the more we repeat
The less it all makes sense

Come, come, stay calm, stay calm
No need for alarm
It only hums, it doesn’t harm
I wish to wish, dream to dream
Live to live, die to die
Cry to cry, I don’t know why

Breathe idle riddles and rhymes
Ideal idols are made to prophesize
In the house of the Sphinx, language comes alive
Twisted round

Babel’s fall broke and confused but
New rhythms thrive and profuse

Come, come, stay calm, stay calm
No need for alarm
It only hums, it doesn’t harm
I wish to wish, dream to dream
Live to live, die to die
Cry to cry, but I don’t know why

Come, calm, hum, harm, dream, die, why


9. FRACTALIZED

How can I be whole
Always keeping life under control?
Can I ever be true to myself
If I’m free to feel but not to fall?

There’s another me
As I stand between parallel facing mirrors
Refracted till I reach a blank infinity
There’s a thousand me, can’t you see?

With every beat you’ll hear
My inner pattern’s on repeat
Meet the little girl inside the head
Of the little girl inside my head

“I come in waves
Like snowflakes in your head…
Realize, I’m fractalized
Like white light through the rain”

Let the moment sink in
Strike a chord and hear it vibrating
I want to know what each new story brings
Where the rainbow’s born and time begins

“On all scales
Same details
Zoom in, nothing new appears
So radiant
So vibrant
My many colours drawing you near”

I lie there in my lair
As I wander they’d judge and glare
Why should I care?
Wildest dreams, made of wind
Have split away all grief and guilt, and gave me wings
Keep secrets, no regrets
Hide in plain sight while each and every night,the fever spreads
Be fractal, heart and soul
Be my silver lining through clouds of coal

Strange attractor
Strange magnetic collision
Let’s fly away through the spirals of time
Change, forever
Change, my revolution
Hold your breath and glide with the tide
Strange attractor
Strange magnetic collision
Let’s fly away through the spirals of time

I lie there in my lair
As I wander they’d judge and glare
Why should I care?
Wildest dreams, made of wind
Have split away all grief and guilt,and gave me wings
Keep secrets, no regrets
Hide in plain sight while each and every night, the fever spreads
Be fractal, heart and soul
Be my silver lining through clouds of coal