1. THE CROWN AND THE EMPTY HALL

All alone you rule, crown yourself a fool
Sever yourself from harm and confrontation
In God you trust, in nothing but yourself
Another lord arrives
The king of an empty hall

Six billion souls adrift barricade themselves
Congregate, separate
Alone in hollowness, they walk to different tunes
Isolate, segregate

All alone you rule, crown yourself a fool
Sever yourself from harm and confrontation
In God you trust, in nothing but yourself
Another lord ascends
The king of an empty hall

Deaf, they tell naught but their own empty story
Restlessness, shallowness
Write it on every wall, for others to ignore
Existence, arrogance

Evolve and prosper, you grow apart
Sever all bounds and crush your way into the crowd
Destroy everything that makes you human
Dead figures, dead vessels

All alone you rule, crown yourself a fool
Sever yourself from harm and confrontation
In God you trust, in nothing but yourself
Another lord will come
The king with a broken crown


2. THE UNINVITED

Come, come let me in, invite me in, shelter this tired and weary ghost
I’ll ease your fears, I’ll be your mate when all have turned their back on you
Trust, I am your chance, I am your change, I am your choice
I bring relief

I crawl, I stain the night, paint it a dull shade of white
I creep, run through your blood until your last tears run dry

Invite the guest, he slips in the waking mind
Welcome the ghost, he’ll bless you with another sleepless night

Come, come let me play, I’ll make my home
I’ll weave my web inside your veins, inside your brain
Until your heart is just a den of dead faces, of dead failures

I crawl, I stain the night, paint it a dull shade of white
I creep, run through your blood until your last tears run dry

Invite the guest, he slips in the waking mind
Welcome the ghost, he’ll bless you with another sleepless night

I nest in you, the distance grows, I’ll cradle you, will make you safe
The worm uncoils, it gnaws and grows, the words infecting every thought
You’re breathing now, I’ll help you rise, we’ll walk away
My breathing fails, I spiral down, I’ll fade away

Invite the guest, he slips in the waking mind
Welcome the ghost, he’ll bless you with another sleepless night


3. ISENAU

Where rocks are words of wisdom
Ground to sentences, patiently hewn
And roots draw a map in the dirt
Widely it spreads, wisely it leads
When winds speak of poison
Will you find a cure, heed their words

Mute, with stories untold
Days forgotten, ways of old
Rocks and roots, my home of stone
Witness of old, secrets shown

I fail, so frail, a crippled child in a world of giants
Cold, cynical, old as the world, wise and sad

Snow will melt, the glacier and its demons will leave
Yet these rocks stand still
Guarding my home, remembering all
When all is withered, when all bones are ground
When all is said and done
I’ll find my peace in their shadows tall

Mute, with stories untold
Days forgotten, ways of old
Rock and root, my home of stone
Witness of old, secrets shown

I walk and walk, try to reach what’s hidden above
Deaf and blind, I stumble on the rocks of their voice
I fail, so frail, a crippled child in a world of giants
Cold, cynical, old as the world, wise and sad

Where rocks are words of wisdom…

Stone upon stone, with words spoken with no one to listen
Older and older I grow, older and older and deaf
Trees will wither, ages will come and go, streams will spend their drops
Paint the moment, give me time to contemplate


4. TO PASTURES GREY

Once was a clear path
Now a tangle of doubts and needs
A road to nowhere
A way to bittersweet lies
Forging with conviction
Into blunt disillusion
Astray, lost, bound for desolation

All life is ending now
I am drawn into the light
Let’s leave - let’s dream until the end of time

Lead me to pastures grey
Where the grass withers
Let me rest for a while
Take me to pastures grey
I’ll sleep, I’ll dream I’m in a better place

Will I ever sleep again?

With black as my light
I wind down the wordless pat
Once again, the cross I bear
Is made of guilt and contrition
Ghosts of the past will try to bring me back
Try to hold onto my pride
My lies I now deny

All life is ending now
I am drawn into the light
Let’s leave - let’s dream until the end of time

Lead me to pastures grey
Where the grass withers
Let me rest for a while
Take me to pastures grey
I’ll sleep, I’ll dream I’m in a better place

Will I find peace when my breath fails?
Will I find shelter when all is turned to ash?
What’s left for me in the last hours of night
But a thirst for guilt when dawn comes at last?

Lead me to pastures grey
Where the grass withers
Let me rest for a while
Take me to pastures grey
I’ll sleep, I’ll dream I’m in a better place


5. RITES OF RUMINATION

Rites of rumination, echoes of prayers spoken in feverish contrition
Means of self-destruction, poison and filth will be the Word, scratching the scabs of adoration
What difference does it make if the bullet is the guide?
Let the shepherd slaughter our ways
What difference will it make if all reason fails our time, as long as faith and truth prevails?
Let them wear their pride as a crown

Rock to clay, the titan fails, the giant falls
Asleep, ashamed, blind to all but to his past

Build your halls, impress your enemies, repress the meek
Raise a monument of shame, raise a monument of grandeur
Build another wall, make it high, lock yourselves out
Our time is passed, yours will be too

Rock to clay, the jotun dies, the golem stumbles
Afraid, numb, deaf to all but to his sins

Acts of condemnation, a thousand years’ worth of lies
Erase, replace for another thousand years
Deeds of desperation, when history repeats itself
All our books reduced to one word

Pray, another dawn is coming, invite another god to rule in the temple
Prey, another dusk nears, another pointless victory, until time makes it even

What difference does it make if the weapon is the lie?
If your blades speak a truth of their own?
What difference does it make if humanity is a vision of the past?
What difference does it make?

Rock to clay, the titan fails, the giant falls
Asleep, ashamed, blind to all but to his past
Ash to flames, the phoenix rises
Turn of the tide, again, again


6. THE HUNTING PREY

Can you see them dash your way?
They hunt in pack, they're on their way
They track you down, bleed you, skin you
Invite you to their feast
They chew you up and spit you out in their own image
Driven by greed, sensing your need

Slowly you turn into what you were not
Predators sick, corrupt and broken
Forced to endure, forced to adapt
Darwinism into reverse gear
Slowly but steadily you die

Do I see you turn this way?
Shedding your prey’s skin
The hunter cloak is on
Smell the blood, stalk the weaklings
The taste of iron in your watering mouth
The look of deceit in your greedy eyes
And the claws to haul me from my lair

Slowly you turn into what you were not
Predators sick, corrupt and broken
Forced to endure, forced to adapt
Darwinism into reverse gear
Slowly but steadily you die

Logic in reverse gear. Regress!

Lamarck, Darwin, Watson, Creek
Your helix defines my personality
Your helix defies my paranoia


7. 85 MILES

85 miles, a thousand years I walked
Seven days without a cross, hours in exile
Alone – the thoughts of a million souls
The wall that barred their way has led me to soothing lands

From shore to shore, years or more, seasons in the cold
From birth to death, looking for you

Where their past meets my peace
Where the sounds of waves silence years of chaos
Voices of the past
Shore to shore, further from home, further from harm
Shore to shore, severed no more

85 miles and a hundred tribes and legions
Witness this might ruined yet alive again
With so many hills and fields ahead
Eastbound, the wind carries my hope
To see you one last time

From shore to shore, years or more, seasons in the cold
World after world, brick by brick, a long way home, pacing the void
From roots to leaf, finding you

From shore to shore, years or more, seasons in the cold
World after world, brick by brick, step by step, pacing the void
From birth to death, losing you


8. DECIPHER

If you had a gun would you shoot me in the face?
If you had my life would you trade it for free?
If you had the choice, would you blow away my past
Burn the bridges, make it right again?

With solid blocks I assemble a monument of smoke
Born to try, doomed to fail
With burning sands I shape my dreams away
Born to try, dying to see you fail

With every choice, a new dead-end
Can you decipher this map better than I did?
Can you find the exit when all the doors were locked for me?

If you had the fuel, would you try to burn your wings?
Escape a path drawn with a rusty blade?
If you had my scars, would you help them heal?
Or let the days gush like rivers red?
If you could see right through me, damn sure you get blind
If you had my strength
Do you really think you could hold on to what’s already gone?

With every choice, a new dead-end
Can you decipher this map better than I did?
Can you find the exit when all the doors were locked for me?

With solid blocks I assemble a monument of smoke
Born to try, doomed to fail and start it all again
With burning sands I shape my dreams away
Born to try and fail, dying to see you try again

With every choice, a new dead-end
Can you decipher this map better than I did?
Can you find the exit when all the doors were locked for me?
With every path, a million doubts
Will you walk the maze longer than I have?
Will you find the exit?
Will you help me through?


9. SAECLUM IN FAVILLA

Outside my haven, the land is dead
My light waned ere half my days are spent
The wall’s breached, my last refuge crushed to dust, my hope to cinder and rock

Dies irae - A day of wrath, this day, will turn the world to ash
Terror crawls, my judge appears
Will I be safe inside my hell, will I be left to crawl my head
Saeclum in favilla

Let the horns ring, tear down the walls
This inner sanctum soiled so many nights ago
Weary, I lay myself to rest on broken tombstones
Prophet to my own end

Infinite emptiness is all around me now
All the resurrected dead will not fill it
Sitting here, blind, a speck in the void
The case, I hear, is not unusual

Dies irae - A day of wrath, this day, will turn the world to ash
Terror crawls, my judge appears
Will I be safe inside my hell, will I be left to crawl my head
Razors red, red with guilt
Will all my lies be revealed, will all my sins be undone
Burden’s gone, the day has come
My judge appears, all sins to dust
Saeclum in favilla

Moments for nothing
Time was never, my time is never
Reckoning closed, story ended
The end’s in the beginning

Dies irae - A day of wrath, this day, will turn the world to ash
Terror crawls, my judge appears
Will I be safe inside my hell, will I be left to crawl my head
Dies irae solvet saeclum in favilla


10. COLOURBLIND

The picture fades, everything looks the same
It tastes like ash, the smell of death, and the curtain falls
I count the hours, where have they gone?
The passion's done, only left this useless flesh
The days are dull and colourless

The frame distorts and night crawls in
In shades of red, in blinding whites
I build a temple you tear it down
A still-life born inside the womb

This life you paint, where does it lead ?
Why do the lines keep blurring on the way
Abstract impression so void of sense
Demented perspective

Night crawls in - The tones melt into one

Why can't I see anymore the colours of life ?
Why can't I feel the need for pain?
Grey's the hour, grey's the prospect, grey the picture
The future looked rosy until I went colourblind

Paint it now, give me life, deal your death
Pour your colours, assemble stories, make them whole
Burn the frame!

Why can't I see anymore the colours of life ?
Why can't I feel the need for pain?
Grey's the hour, grey's the prospect, grey the picture
The future looked rosy until I went colourblind

The picture fades, everything looks the same
It tastes like ash, the smell of death, and the curtain falls
I count the hours, where have they gone?
The passion's done, only left this useless flesh
The days are dull and colourless


11. EXIT NIGHTMARES

Sweet as these waters are cold
Unto islands of untold hopes I sail
In icy waters I look for an answer

Coast and dear costs I depart
A sea of salty dreams I swim
Drown in forgetfulness – drown in rivers, drown in peace
Exeunt dramatis personae
Recede the doubts, recoil the fears
Enter demons in my head

On and on I wade, I stumble, I swim
Boats mere wrecks on desert sands may rest
Lethean lakes and seas and oceans
I swallow, taste and spit
Tears and years, sneers and jeers
Accept demons in my heart
Repress the will to float
Enter waters in my lungs

Enter demons in my veins
Sweet as the poison is spent
To live is to remember