1. THE SOUNDLESS MUSIC OF THE LAKE

I came to rest beside a placid lake
I'd run all night, and then I had to stop
At daybreak, when my strength had given out,
Awearily down to my knees I sank

Fear crippled me and darkness I foresaw,
Yet faint I was, too powerless to rise
Alas, sick fascination forced my eyes
To look into the dark, enthralling deeps

There did I see a thing, a pallid face
That stared at me with horrid, rictus grin
Cold eyes and sneering maw, it ghastly lurked
I felt it was inhuman, felt its wrath

Of course I knew this beast, I knew it well
– it was the very one that I had fled
It beckoned me and I held out my hand
Lake's surface rippled once and then stood still


2. A FUNERAL PROCESSION ON THE MILKY WAY

Death sailed these waters black,
Ahead the sombre troops of creeping doom,
With plagues poised to attack
And trailing fetid, morbid stench of tombs

Dark omens in the fog
– a cuckoo's voice cut violently short
The scythe of vengeance struck;
Deep sleep engulfed the land forevermore

A lonesome bird remained,
Its wings all worn and cruelly broken bones,
Afloat, with silenced heart
And songs unsung – eternally unknown

Tomorrow's snow will hide
And endless night embed your brief remains
One day new light may well
Ignite the night with mysteries arcane


3. THE MAN FROM THE PAST

The venom of thought is sharper than swords,
One word may well destinies mould
One glance or a purposeful frown may suffice
For the terminal act to unfold

The vile ones consider you overly vile,
The worthless have doubt in your worth
The people entrapped in the furnace of hell
Curse you deeper yet into the earth

Your birth is your fault, your loyalty – sin
No place in this world is your home
A wanderer, thirsty, forsaken and lost
This desert you're destined to roam

As an anchor you fall and are left thus to hang
– left to hang, void of warmth and of life
Like a sun upon vacuum you'll finally set,
To the bosom of slow-thawing ice

You are followed by clouds that blacken the sky,
And, before they begin to ascend,
Will pour down all their earnest and venomous tears,
As if mourning the death of a friend


4. MOORSONG

Entrapped, in freezing mire here i've stood,
Surrounded by dwarf birches, hoary reeds
Now, facing down the pale and gibbous Moon
I'm sinking, stiff with cold and in too deep

Cruel frost splits tree-trunks
Wolven howls are carried by cold air from far away
The wind – it softly whispers while it prowls
The gurgling mire swallows me this day

Ice lays a cover onto my damp grave,
The snow will form a proper burial mound
I only leave behind this sombre lay
That moorlands sing from deep beneath the ground


5. THOUGHTS MOST NOCTURNAL

Soundless, all quiet they came,
faster than lightning strikes,
racing northwards like a plague,
straight from the deeps to the skies,
straight through the rock and the dirt,
through the forces of life and of death,
straight through the first cries of newborns
and the terminal patient's last breath

This is how they have remade me
This is how they made me see
This is how I came to see what is there
– within all of them as in me


6. THE THREE BROTHERS

One took an axe and headed into the woods
His hand it slipped, the blade his leg did strike
The backbone snapped beneath a falling tree
It was but moss that heard his final sigh

The other took a boat and went to fish,
But, tangled in the net, fell overboard
His cries for help were lost in morning mists
Alone he drowned and to the bottom sank

The third one very rarely ventured out
It was his task to write obituaries
Tonight he broke and wrote one to himself
His belt became his final festive tie