I spent my days in search of former times I looked in front of me only when I had to The walls came up to meet my blinded eyes But the halls we walked ten years ago Are the same today and so You, disc that burns up in the sky gaze down at us as we lie it’s the same old dirt and still the same old sun as yesterday Is the steel our soldiers taste at all Different from the swords that we claim were better? Is the longer life we seem to prize Worth more than the full short lives of ages past? The faith of hundred years ago Is just as flawed today, and so The disc that burns up in the sky gazes down at us as we lie it’s just the same old dirt and still the same old sun as yesterday the sky is still as blue as it once was I cant say it will be that way forever But why insist on dwelling in the past When all the futures seem the same to me There’s nowhere that we haven’t roamed We’ll always take the same road home

Silence, never sing again! I know your voice will resound cacophonous against this beauty even the dovesong falters as ravens croaking laughter my song is rootless for her Powerless and vain There are no words There is no sound I lie awake Sleep, my dear, forget I said this If I gazed to heaven If my words formed gems The brightest star would fade The clearest gem would break And if I told you this Would you believe me? My faults are havenless near her Mirrored in her eyes * ** Lay you down Just so I know you can rest I brushed aside her tears Sapphire stories I’ve rewritten There are no words There is no sound I lie awake and stare into the dark Sleep, my dear, forget I said this

Crows calling Circling above Wind blowing through the fallow field. Still standing Man of straw Beaks tearing Sackcloth skin Ravaged by the elements, A silent sentinel, thankless one I stand here in an empty field The stones of broken walls around me Rooted to the spot, but rootless Eyes drawn shut, hands aloft Stitched lips scream silently Towards the gray and deathless sky the days and the nights a blur, for someone like me keep staring the skies are open threads fraying limbs decay upon the pole the cobbled idol stares prey for black wings in a field where no one’s there devil take the soil, rain take my legs, scarecrow . . . use my bones to build your nest take my skin to clothe your young leave the lifeless icon here but keep me from the fire

This day is not what it was promised to be I cradled your broken body and washed thee And still I question how could man be this cruel? Yet he who thinks war comes bloodless is a fool The battle flags are tattered, on windless fields We begged and pleaded but they would never yield The wine we taste at feast will no more be sweet. When I remember your dead eyes, Love, I weep Your hands that took mine and vowed with me to stay Now waxen pale, and bound for naught but decay. Your broken armor mirrors my broken heart That bleeds, as did yours, when we were torn apart I cannot forget the blood and battlefield After I have seen you lain on broken shield. And soon, my love, if hope does not dare to steer me false We will be together in the shadowed halls. This field has not been the same since the war began Its flowers drink your blood where we laughed and ran Now as they lower you to your boundless tomb I can almost taste the permanence of gloom The death of you will soon cause the death of me And I will follow, to where we both can be.

Do the people know Where all their prayers go In their being satisfied Bodies blackened shrunken dry The trees are heavy with fruit that was born to rot Hands that reach to grasp the boughs find themselves starved of souls They are the water Feeding the roots of the parasites To bow before the masters All the idols grown from wood We drink from the water Bled from evil’s root Will we learn to cry for the fools sake They come to cleanse their woes like silhouettes in the fog To grasp the diseased fruit ripe in famine’s orchard They crawl from the mire Shades within the haze Carry the weight of sin Marked for retribution The wood of the walls cries out stained with the souls of yore Bleeding with smoky sap manifest apparition!

Old blood old woods So often they are bound together Cold stone cold bones Under one is buried the other Oaths made shapes fade These lives will not go unremembered Thick mist, roads twist Into halls that hide our memories silhouette rising in the distance enshrined upon the pallid hill Terror urged the intruder to turn And still he moves to greet our gates Then, the mansion came to life And though the night was still and silent The graves and gardens sighed And the voices sounded for the first time. The windows began to glow As if expecting his arrival And the doors, locked for years Yawned wide at his coming There is no turning back now Within the candle-lights flicker And the air seems dead As the doors creak shut behind. "Something tells me the haunting’s just begun . . ." New silence in the halls More shadows in the corridors The candles flicker on the walls And the wind wails through dead gardens And as I watch her from the window She seems to somehow come alive A recurring dream or nightmare Conceived by the house itself Beauty both horrific and forlorn Trapped behind the gates of stone And the sight turned us both weak When her glance met mine One perfect hand plucked one perfect rose crying harshly through her song beautiful and devastated as porcelain cracked upon a tombstone. Cold blood in mortal veins Seen through tattered drapery Yet because of him I realize None of us never truly left.

Forgotten gaze of life From the fountain's pool It was I, peering from The water, still and cool, Fueling life anew In cold October air Reflections in the mist I see you still wandering there When we used to walk through the orchards hand in hand I'd swear I'd return to you in the Autumn garden where we stand I am here now Bound to you in death The roses on the vine Weep to black I know you're here I walk the garden path Amid the fading green I have returned. When I used to wait, gazing at the starlit sky I swear I'd see you here on paths we tread before you died When I looked at you and whispered "here I am" I cried and bowed my head, for I know you did not hear me

From the bones of my abode I watched you fade like mist A trace of eerie ribboned light I wonder if the same happens to me? I am captive in autumnal chains Til the haunting starts again Knowing not what would become of you Obscured but never absent. Every day you linger Transparence intensifies Even memories Die one day

I see a light through the grey when you speak to me though to others you appear the fool singing to an empty room. I try in vain to comfort you A wind through the curtains from the other side. And though I was never truly there You see me for who I am. Would that I could fill the empty silent halls Show others that you do not love in vain. Yet here, in your world, I am thin air A flickering image only you see meaning in. Trust me when I say, it is you who keeps me here It is you who makes me real. I would release you if it was right to I would tear this curse down brick by brick. All I can offer is a hand you cannot grasp I wouldn't blame you for moving on. Know that even when you can't see me I am there, and my thoughts are of you. Words of farewell were spoken long ago And you left me soundlessly And I, unable to leave this ruinous place Collapse atop my bleak inheritance.