You’re nailed to the cross
Your prophets now their loss
Your sign is the truth
Your liars sold it, too

Your weapons are sublime
In firelight they shine
Your season comes ahead
The season of the dead

And you stole us in our youth
You hung them from the yews
You sacrificed the world
And bowed all that was true

You’re nailed to the cross
Their losses now your cause
My thumbs turn the screws
Your liars own this, too
It’s mass produced

The fire in the stars
Yet shines upon our shores
They watch us from the dark
They show not praise nor scorn

As they watch the show unfold
The future and the past
They speak not from the cold
‘Til the world dies at last

Threads of three, your certainty,
A sound of falling skies
Cross and key, the holy sea
Whose waves are crashing lies

Threadbare cloth
Mice and moths
Threadbare thought
Sold and bought

End of days, the fires blaze
The earth is opened wide
Sing my praise to Satan’s ways
Forever down I slide

Souls depart, their blackened hearts
Are taken up above
Torn apart, I played my part
Convicted for my love

Thread Congregation

The oath, the eye of the covenant
Broke upon the stones
But you let it go
You wouldn’t want the ghosts to roam
They’re the sorrows of the world we fled
The open wounds from which we bled
And as we watched them bleed
We filled our sorrows with our greed

A chasm, chains in the depths take hold
Feel the deadly cold
The dead are coming back again
As the seven trumpets ring
The congregation starts to sing
And the waters rise
No time left to stop the tide

We thought it was a paradise
We see it now with open eyes
You never told your lies so well
And now it’s seems you’ve sent us all to

Tell me, will you look me in the eye
When you sell me the cost of my life
When you offer up a morsel from the cross
Will you look me in the eye
When you tell me I’ll rise from the dead
When you tell me that my soul’s worth money

Tell me, will you look me in the eye
When you sell me the cost of my life
When you offer up your thoughtful prayers to God
Will you look me in the eye
When you tell me I’ll rise from the dead
When you tell me that my soul’s worth burning

The fire is the limit
The spire’s meant to lift it
The truth costs money
You offer it on your knees
Like the servant of the cross you are
You’re the paradigm hope of the pale god’s pleas
A rapture and a need

The fire was built for me
It burns up the air and trees
I’d hoped that I would not see
I’d hoped that I would not be

You offered me a paradise
I see it now with open eyes
It only was an empty shell
And now it seems I’m better off in

Tell me, will you look me in the eye
When the air is the ashes and smoke
Of a world that you offered up to God

I made the fire a paradise
I see it now with open eyes
I never knew the skies so well
But now it seems I’ve found myself in

Seven Trumpets

In the night I saw you sitting on the stair
By the door
I called your name
And the silence was frozen
I knew I was sleeping and yet

And then you stood 
And you pointed to the window
You spoke my name
And my skin was like ice
In the blue of the moonlight

In the cold, in the dark
I was dead in your arms again
In the night, in my mind
I was dead in your arms again
I was lost in the night
I was lost in the night again
I was dead in your arms
I was dead in your arms again

I wanted to speak
From the other side of the glass
But I couldn’t say
I couldn’t say that I couldn’t take your pain away

In the night I saw you sitting alone
I called your name
And the whisper of daybreak
A song in my ear like a bell

The window cracked
The visage broke
And the shards on the floor
Were like knives in my heart
I’m sorry that I couldn’t take your pain away

Dead in Your Arms

Old harrow
Old scythe
Old comfort
Old knife

Old threads
Old works
Old fingers
Old worth

Scarred searching
Scarred hope
Scarred leaving
Scarred throat

Dark hunger
Dark thirst
Dark water
Dark church

Your wounds are bleeding
Let me see to them
Your heart is aching
But I understand

New sorrow
Fallen trees
Ten thousand
On their knees

Old sickness
Sets in
Old reaping
Begins

A herald in the ashen sky
A nightmare season held aloft
A vision of the final fire
A lightning strike, a child, a want

Our savior
Our ghost
Our chosen
Our smoke

Herald

You didn’t hear the thunder
You didn’t hear the cries
You didn’t see the lightning
That flashed inside your eyes
You didn’t hear the words
They spoke outside the bar
You didn’t have an answer
You couldn’t know the stars

I wanted to remember
The fire of the sun
I wished to sleep and dream again
I wished to stand in front
I called the names of gods
And daughters of the earth
I dug my hands in swollen ground
And tried to bring them forth

And I was calling you
I was calling you

We knew the names of nightingales
We spoke them to the wind
At twilight feasts we broke our bread
We gave up all our sorrows to our songs
And I could not recall
A moment like this one
Lost within myself
I could not recall
A single moment broken from myself

You’ll never hear the thunder
You’ll never hear the cries
You’ll never see the lightning
That flashes in the night
You’ll never hear the words
I whispered to your ear
You’ll never have an answer
You’ll only have my tears

Requiem memoriae

A field of stars in the void of the night
A wounded moon over shadowed blight
You weren’t the one whose voice I heard
In the halls of balance

The swallows sing as the skies come down
My withered hands lift the sun’s crown
You weren’t the one whose face I saw
In the halls of balance

The hands of God let the damp seep in
The cracks and holes let the waters in
You weren’t the one whose hands I held
In the halls of balance

From the woods
The serpent calls again
From the tree
The apple falls again

The ancient bells ring the yuletide in
The songs we sing to the howling din
You weren’t the one whose words I wrote
In the halls of balance

From the world
The ashes fly again
From the ash
The serpent rises again

The Halls Of Balance

A field of ice
I feel the light 
I hold three coins in my hand
Another moment and they’re gone
The falling snow
A bare reminder of the cold
Here at the center of the world
A tapesty unfurled

Falling stones from the sky
Broken holes in the ice
I lit the branches, made a fire
I let its distant warmth inside
Like a raven on the wing
Like another nameless sin
I wrote the holy names inside my skin
And opened up my heart

I hung the necklaces of June
From the sparest tree tops
They rattle in the wind at noon
And quiet when the sun drops
I waited for the birds to sing at dawn
I waited for each night to fall
And the morning star to rise
Shining light with the moon behind

The mantra of a poem you wrote
The color of your hair
The sunlight on your shoulder at the dawn
A shadow and a glare
For every moment stolen from the clock
Another coin is paid
For every moment, lines of chalk
For every grave, a spade

Tapestry

There was a time
The silence spent its last at midnight
Forced to crime
The lightning flashed the final warning

You spoke the truth
You opened up your heart and bled it out
I never doubted you
The trumpets sound, the curtain’s called
And all the stars are falling
Like the only snowfall this year yet to come

Dancing in the light
Dancing in the light, we were
(Shadows on the tombstones)
(Drumming with the earth’s bones)
(Ghosts that haunt the gloaming)
(Solemn songs intoning)
(Whisps of smoke at daybreak)
(Children of a heartache)

There was a sky
An open vista, blue and blameless, there the shining sun
That golden orb that shone upon my brow
And in the winter orbited around the distant mountains like a God

The rising clouds
The sunlight burning up the atmosphere
We’re swallowed up by fear
Huddled in the ruins with our hands upon our ears
And nought to drink but our tears

I found the words within myself
To speak the world’s ending
I watch the squander of our wealth
And so my will unbending
I sing a requiem for crows
All creatures innocent of human wrongs
The turning of the planet slows
Dancing to my final song

Cyrus Dark