1. NO STARS OVER BETHLEHEM

This should never be!

I'll burn all the lives of this angel illuminati
When St. Michael sized means find an end to justify
A belief to fortify this stained glass disgrace
Too beautiful to change or perhaps too scared
The truth behind our lives will be erased (will be erased)

A crusader (in which to die) begging for a crusade in which to die
Where lead locusts pierce the heart of men
And tie the tongues of those who lie (those who lie)
Cut the sinner, bleed redemption through the city streets
That resonate the prayers of this should never be

This should never be!

Someone plunged a dagger deep into God's chest
And when he groaned it laid our entire civilization to rest
When he pulled out the dagger and marveled in the pain he could create
We stuck another in his back to seal creation's fate

So now we turn from wealth in the height of all our poverty
A call that renders me ageless turning the pages of a belief that's
Greater than us all, great than us all

Amen to the fools and the Cossacks and the pulpits (Amen!)
Amen to the people who think there's still a way to help us
Amen to the people
Amen to the people
Amen to the people
Amen to the people

Amen to the people!
Amen to the people who!
Think there's still a way to help us


2. HERETICS & KILLERS

They called me the man with the blood of Christ honesty
But tonight (Tonight we'll sleep as killers)
I drink with heathens and our, our finest blasphemies
(As we break the cryptic, as we break the cryptic)

In wine there's truth but in silence there's surrender
A screaming for the silence in stunned suspicious terror
Built a temple in my life and used God to seal the pillars
After twenty years of fighting young heretics and killers

I watch my temple fall to pieces
at the first signs of oncoming weather
Fell to my knees like
Jesus in the cave,
Jesus in the cave,
Jesus in the cave,
I knew I would die but my lips could only say;
I'm not your son, so why have you forsaken me?

There's a hole in my heart but it just makes me unholy
Crucified that night and I walked away with alter-egos
Like the prison priest who preaches his dead and buried gospel

With my faith in ruins my duty still breathes strong
I'm a parrot in a cage just singing prayers to belong
to a textbook of my crying, lying, dying history;
a textbook of my crying, lying, dying history
a textbook of my crying
a textbook of my lying
a textbook of my dying
a textbook of my history


3. DIVINITY WITHIN

This morning there are no rods or staffs
To comfort you dressed as a target
As you amble in your chains and stumble through
The corridors that lead to our makeshift valley of death

In the prison's backyard
where you'll give us your final breath
Last night I saw you dine with lovers and human tears
But glanced at me in ways
that brought to life my sleeping fears

That today you'll bite my neck
Today you'll bite my neck
That today you'll bite my neck
Today you'll bite my neck

Today you'll bite my neck
Today you'll bite my neck
That today you'll bite my neck
Today you'll bite my neck... [continues in the background]

and peel away the aging skin
Expose this lifeless body and the void
Divinity within (I watch my temple fall to pieces)
Divinity within (I watch my temple fall to pieces)

So tell me when I've read you your rights
When the guns are in their place
When your crime no longer seems absurd

When your crime's no longer absurd
What will you say
when we ask you what are your final words?

When your crime's no longer absurd
What will you, what will you say, Kezia,
when we ask what are your final words?
what are your final words?


4. BURY THE HATCHET

Well place your justice in my palm
and then I'll make a fist
And punch your grimaced face
until every knuckle breaks
And bleeds in resistance to my sidewalk painting

A mangled body twitching and regaining consciousness and closure
Attempting composure before a bullet
in the mouth answers the questions of exposure
And God of Sunday School façades
and paycheques to validate the time I served abroad
(We will say it all means nothing) if I forget why I'm here
To serve and protect my fist over fist
mind under matter career

That's why this sounds kind of funny
when he falls to his knees
With his hand on his throat while he begs you to please (spare his life)
Falls to his knees (when he falls to his knees)
Falls to his knees (With his hand on his throat while he begs you to please)

Oh all of this ask for change (change)
While I explain the hardest of bodies dulls the softest of knives

When I hold up his head and carve X's in his eyes
When I hold up his head and carve X's in his eyes
and carve X's in his eyes

I swear I have compassion
I've just been trained to disregard the prisoner's life
Because I am the prison guard

I swear I have compassion
I've just been trained to disregard the prisoner's life
Because I am the prison guard


5. NAUTICAL

The day that civil glory dismembered my civility
I could have parted ribs and flesh like a different kind of Red Sea
Drowned the ancient east in western progress
Custom and the least of all our pride and sentiments
Which turned out to be the closest thing to a fashion trend
That's ever been put on trial
Which turned out to be the closest thing to a fashion trend
That's ever been put on trial
The rest was cast off as denial of statehood and mastery;
The ultimate form of treason is the treacherous use of reason
Employed by the bastard sons of American fore-fathers who keep this fire burning
With the flesh of their would-be American daughters, daughters, daughters, daughters!!

What will happen to our children when the least of us pass on?
Us who fought the monsters of our country's crowded closet
Us who dropped the bombs on goodness when we saw it wasn't flawless
Us whose youthful life was hostage to what harm did
Us who fought the hardest to be swept under the carpet

And I'm still a cigarette softly smoking on the edge of a metal ashtray
I begged this place to let me burn, and it whispered, "burn away"


6. BLINFOLDS ASIDE

We woke up as men but tonight we'll sleep as killers
As we break the cryptic morning with a bullet and a prayer
The steel never seemed more cold and agile than now
And life never seems less vital and fragile
With a heart that's beating louder than my own
I watch a girl they call Kezia
I watch a woman that I know
My hopes and my own future blindfolded
To atone for a sin I didn't care for, but a sin that paid my debts
A sin that fed my children and burned my smiles and cigarettes
And no one ever said that hope would be so beautiful
And no one ever said I'd have to pull the trigger on her
I can't even still her trembling hands
that were locked up by the dutiful and the obligated;
Five soldiers forever sedated with the, "No one's responsible"
psychological drama of our social justice dribble, dribble, dribble
Her tiny steps tell lies about the choice I have to make;
(Resurrect a static lifetime starve to death my own mistakes)
Pull the screaming trigger and watch your carcass bleed me dry
Or drop the gun and try to shake away the blindfold from your eyes?
Drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun, drop the gun.
Sin I didn't care for, but a sin that paid my debts
A sin that fed my children and burned my smiles and cigarettes
Sin I didn't care for, but a sin that paid my debts
A sin that fed my children and burned my smiles and cigarettes


7. SHE WHO MARS THE SKIN OF GODS

"Kezia, my darling, please never forget
this world's got the substance of a frozen summer silhouette,"
Said my mother through lips that were cracked with love and toil
before she added, "the warmest of blankets is six feet of soil."

She wore a perfume called "Pride" that smells a lot more like "Shame."
So when she walked into the room I was sleeping, I heard her curse my father's name;
It was our situation, our position, our gender to blame

It was the lonely grey of my father's eyes staring back in the mirror's frame
It was the lonely grey of my father's eyes staring back in the mirror's frame

"Mother Oh Mother, I'm shaking while I write,
tonight I'll stay awake and try to breathe away my fright"
"Mother Oh Mother, I'm shaking while I write,
tonight I'll stay awake and try to breathe away my fright"

There's a letter waiting for me, that I have yet to read,
There's a letter waiting for me, that I have yet to read,
'Cause I know it's not from you,
And you're the only one I need,
You're the only one I need,
I'm tired and I'm cold and I want to go to bed,
But there's no one here to tuck me in, so the shotgun will instead...
(I'm tired... I'm cold)
This shotgun will instead..
(I want to go to bed, I want to go to bed)
I want to...
(No one here to tuck me in)
So this shotgun will.


8. TURN SOONEST TO THE SEA

Do you remember how it was when you bled?
When you loved and burned in those flames that you've kept
Because Vesta's long been sleeping
Now you've come to accept
that anatomy defines more than a few,

Of the gaping holes in our social fabric
And it defines more than a few one night stands,
And I mention more than a few prison bars melted into (melted into)
Melted in, melted in, melted into wedding bands

We've made you all the peasants and we've made ourselves the kings
Our queens are still subordinate as an angel {without wings}
But we make it easy to belong which means it's easy to be wrong
"Put some plastic in your tits, you'd look better as a blonde"

I remember when you were hopeful
never thought your life would be lived inside a coffin
With a moral sacrifice and a million social obligations,
labels and expectations
When you were young and a modern seventeen
in vogue (and vague) pursuit (of a) cosmopolitan dream

So when you bled on the bed as you fed those expectations
as a whore and not a human
You embraced with hesitation the very parameters of all you can be
Not a mother, not an aunt, not a sister that's not subdued
Because dignity is not physical and your flesh means more than you

Your flesh means more than you
Your flesh means more than you
Your flesh means more than...

and I know....

Know we'll all wake up one day with a gun to the back of our brains
You'll be asking for your rib, and I'll smile and I'll call you brave
Maybe someday when, when this bloody skull has dried
{I'll} know our city is in ruins when our greatest source of pride
{is} a monument of dicks and ribs and the gender crown we wore
Where underneath, a plaque will read, a plaque will read,
"No woman. No woman. No woman. No woman. (is a whore!)"

Maybe someday when, when this bloody skull has dried
{I'll} know our city is in ruins when our greatest source of pride
{is} a monument of dicks and ribs and the gender crown we wore
Where underneath, a plaque will read, a plaque will read
[x4]

"Ready, Aim"


9. THE DIVINE SUICIDE OF K.

I better think of my answers now
because I know the questions will be asked
Like if I brought the joy I found
in the confessions of a mask
The tip of my tongue's already
touching the top of my mouth
It's meaning manifest in mercy
burning down, burning down,
burning down, burning down,
burning down, burning down,
burning down the house

It's true that tactless teem totem-poles
turn tolerance to tired taboos
It's true that a bullet never knocks on the door,
it's about to come crashing through

I walking one last mile in big steps as your alter-wine
I'm doing it in tattered shoes that aren't even mine
Because my own are in a box locked up with possessions I can't have
Like the gunman with his future and the prison priest's golden calf

Walking one last mile
Walking one last mile...

Blindfolds aside I'd probably still close my eyes
And try to feel a trembling fetal life inside
that shotgun barrel that's about to make me bleed
Like an ulcer in the stomach of the beast

Like a little girl on a bed that was years ago deceased
Resurrected last night with a letter she can't trace

Resurrected to be killed then maybe born again
I'll always be Kezia as long as any hope remains

Resurrected to be killed then maybe born again
I'll always be Kezia as long as any hope remains

Resurrected to be killed and then maybe born again
I'll always be Kezia so long as any hope remains


10. A PLATEFUL OF OUR DEAD

Don't ever ask us to define our morals
Sometimes when fundamentals meet teenage heartbreak
Some of us are all of us; half-selves that love whole hopes
And hara-kiri heartbreak

There's almost nothing worse than never being real
Strained voices crying wolf when nobody can hear
If I had a gun I'd pump your ethics full of lead
If I believed in meat I'd eat a plateful of our dead

There's merit in construction when it's done with your own hands
There's beauty in destruction, resurrection, another chance
There's a you and I in union but just an I in my beliefs
There's a crashing plane with a banner that reads everyone's naïve

The only proof that I have that we shot and killed this horse
Is the sounds of whips on flesh and a bleeding heart remorse
When I'm In this state of reflection and you hand me whips
And two by fours I could never bring them down and beat the same horse as before

I'd rather kill a stupid flower and spread its seeds around
Until a garden with our bullet-laden morals will be found