DISC 1 - ...ON THE SUBJECT OF MORTALITY

1. LIVING IN THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH

Grasping in the dark cold hands
The voiceless phantom mythed in torn pages of a decomposing tome
The pages wither like burned flowers in a summer drought
They fall into dust

While questions arise in perpetual wanderlust...
Of unanswered questions and empty gestures
Mandrake saviors and eyes sewn shut
This living in fear

Fear of freedom
Fear of letting go... of things
The novice angel's somber strings...
Golden gates and choirs of angels sing praises to a heavenly host who's overlooked in arrogance the true majesty of the world

There is no God in buildings
This divisive, cunning method of control
Ignorance. Oblivion. Ungratefulness and greed
Forever wanting more when the table buckles from building plates so over filled with the beauty of this world

Death is my final gift
The leaves that fall nourish the soil with their decomposition and the oak will feed from itself again...
And the world thrives
Relish the wilderness

There are no forests in your Heaven
There are no forests in your Heaven
There are no forests in your Heaven
There are no forests in your Heaven

Because Heaven is within


2. LIVING EULOGY

There's so much pressure to just keep breathing
I'm not sure my heart will keep beating
All the things I have labored for they may fall into nothing if I'm not here to see the end
What will become of me when I become the Autumn leaves?

When all that's left of me is a shell?
And the world moves on without me?
Will I die tonight?
Will I die tonight?

Will I forever sleep?
Will my mother weep?
Will you remember me?
Will you remember me?

I exist in fear
So in a way, I am not alive
This foe I cannot conquer: It is my own demise
I am terrified and I don't want to die

This world is so beautiful
I want to be alive...


3. TO MAKE AN IDOL OF OUR FEAR AND CALL IT GOD

(No lyrics available)


4. A MESSAGE TO THE MISSIONARY

The institution of your faith is not worth dying for, not worth living for, worth crying for. You want us on our knees not only to pray, but to be enslaved. We cannot fight when we can't stand.

You've locked us in a cage, taught us to be afraid to be free.

We are told of visions by those who cannot see. We are told to listen by those who cannot hear. We are given salvation based on terror and fear, denied this life for a day dream in red letters and gold trimmed pages.

One nations ethnocentric perception of god cannot be the only end. Your internecine is supported by scripture, it's the only credibility your willing to lend:

Lies to support lies.


5. ...SEEING...

We search so hard in vain
When the answers hold our hands.
They fill our bellies.
They drench the sand.
They pour from the sky.
Their thunders roar.
We still search for answers.
We must search no more!

Disregard dogma.
We've no need to kneel again
unless to feel the earh,
to drink from the streams again.

Divinity in the forest.
Drenching the night sky.
Present in all things that grow.
The gods as an archetype.

I saw the gods in the eyes of my father on the last day he waved good-bye.
I saw the gods starring at the night sky with a friend standing on lake ice.
I saw god in the eyes of my nephew just minutes after his birth.
I saw the gods at the end of sumbel when an emptied horn made flames burst!
I see the gods!
I see god.


6. WATCHING YOU

(co written with Jack Hannert)

This loss of all innocence.
The hands that guard us often wither.
Leaving us so exposed.
Naked to the wolves.
Away from our fathers and mothers,
who once sheltered us from the terror of the wolrd.
Who will hold us now that they have gone?
Left to be embraced by fear and loss,
whose gentle hands rock us to sleep,
singing vicious lullabies to us...

The grim reminder of all we have lost.
..of our fallen kin.
The innocence lost
so we turn within.

Grown into adults
Longing to be children again
Just to hear your voice once more...
(AL)

We saw the hands of the gods that day.
In quick wings held steady.
A gaze across time,
a last goodbye and hope took flight.

We may never see your face again
but I know you haven't left us.
Your work livecs on in me.
Your heart live on in me.
(JH)

The current ran against our feet.
Another loss to nourish.
The river you became.
Rich earth contains memories of past days.
The soil who embraced you
and seeds for future hopes.
The air I breath again.
The cycle spins on.
Neither lost nor forgotten
with sun shining down.
We walk within you in the day.
We sleep beneath you in the night
and remember you all of our lives.
(AL/JH)

(..For Holly and Ed.
We Love and miss you so much.
-Jack and Austin.)


DISC 2 - SOCIAL DISSERVICES

1. RESIDENT

Predator and prey.
The wolf grinds its steel teeth.
In a false twilight, the night came so long ago: When children where domesticated and caged in white rooms.
A helpless herd to wringing hands.

His back dented with high-heels, cleaved into the meat of his shoulders.
Breast-fed toxic waste, the umbilical noose.
Born into death, neglected battered and wasting away.

Fight or flight is only in open air.
Fright and flight on the inside.

So many hands eager to hold you down, often until your breathing will cease.
Your cries heard by deaf ears - just as the walls of concrete.
Profit maker. Human livestock. Misery harvest.
Bow to our monetary god, Child servant.

Broken beaten and scarred.
You sleep under the watchful eye of strangers.
Profit off of your tiny back. Paying the bills of philanthropists.
Your wretched reality.
There is no one in whom you believe.
Your god is your own.
Now I will tuck you into sleep.


2. CLIENT

Sobbingly confess of a dark figure in the doorway.
A voice she had known for so long across from her at the dinner table.
Not only would she share this trauma with him, she also shared a birthright and a namesake.
Loss of innocence and dignity. Tell no one.

The tears you cry won't empty the seed from your womb.
The tears you cry won't make your menstrual blood flow.
Sob for your loss: The wolves will drink your tears.
Your misfortune will become their fortune.

Welcome to a home you aren't allowed to leave.
Herded like cattle into walls of concrete.
Sterile like your raped womb.
Therapists wait to pour salt on your wounds, Your insurance pays for it all.
A ghost of a world you could have known.
Surrounded by drugged rage, you will face this horror alone.


3. SUBJECT

I own you: Trapped in a corner, fear in your eyes.
I own you: Alone and terrified, crying in the dark.
I own you: Slave to disorder, forever ensnared.
I own you and no one will ever care.

Listen. Listen. Focus on me. Listen.
Your life means nothing. Listen.
Listen. You'll never be redeemed.

Hear me.

Pray to some distant and silent god that this will all go away.
This is who you are.
You were born to this fate.
You are crowded in an empty room.
A prisoner in your mind.
Your voice remains silent: They're screaming all the time.

How long will this endure?
Is this all of your life?
Is this all of your world?
Or a nightmare to leave behind?

Never give in, never give up.


4. PATIENT

Alone.
Yet so many voices unceasingly chatter.
I awake behind window bars in a room so white.
Cold like melting frost in this summers night.

There is nothing that can hold my weight.
Nothing to slip around my neck to end this misery.
Not even the dignity of suicide is given to me.

Why can't you all be fucking silent?

So I can think... the blinding light and the sterile smell comes over me.
Take this pill. Worship this god. Wear a smile. Lie to the world.
Everything is alright.
No, you can't leave (Not until our pockets are full).

Scars run so deep.
A ghost of me is all you will see.
The burns from a rope I never tied.
The scars on wrists I never cut: Made by the life I didn't want.

Healed by the life I would one day lead.
There is hope somewhere beneath all this death.
The final exhalation could be a newborn's first breath.
Somewhere in the final resting place of a rotten old tree: Amanitas are growing.

This is where I will be.
A place where scars are beautiful.
Where sanity and insanity meet.
That is where I will be.