A Forest Of Stars Grave Mounds and Grave Mistakes 1. Persistence Is All 2. Precipice Pirouette It's death worship, all of it. Your gods wheeling above; spiralling down into the pit of pathetic carrion you call life. Admonishing the vultures to tear away your fears with the promise of a better death. You are already rotting. Every one of you. Nothing but slurry clogging the gutters of decent folk who can't be reassured by empty platitudes of a clean sky. This is all rot. And oh, how we dance and pirouette amongst it all. Wouldn't dream of feigning smiles whilst carrying your dead weight through life's circus. A fête worse than death. So the carrion birds will feign whispers in raucous, howling tones as they build worthless futures amongst these bones... If this is human nature, concrete it over. And have done. Just have done. I like to play in open graves. The crawling things raise their fists and howl. I find that the soil clogs my throat in just such a way / as to drag the vowels through a twist of ruptured bowel; to rise, then decay, then away. Consonant cosmonauts choking on delay. The vultures have it right, sailing in under cover of night. Or staring you straight out in glare of day. They'll have your eyes away so as you don't need to blink the tears past. One foot wrong versus this precipice - you're at least six feet down. Can you wiggle your toes? Let's fucking go. The all-consuming boogie of nucleus versus the rest of it. If the weather balloons we're all fucked. Never was much one for recall. Cells is cells is cells is cells. We could idle here whilst I rhyme that with Hel, but I'm sure we've all got shapes to throw. Let us stumble through the opening lines. Let us dance for the sake of the fact that once we can't we'll all be damned well wish we had. I'm still toying with all the gods of men. I don't let them push me around. We've been around and around and around. Awaiting our chance to populate holes in the ground. 3. Tombward Bound Losing night in a race to hate morning when a lonely child loses it to the moon now we're all carrion, rotting here at the gates to another empty paradise I have been forever building pyres in my mind. Gathering fallen limbs of masters past 'til mind's eye finally fades out; blinded by final death of the Root. I shall gather my strength amongst the remnants of my kin and build a bonfire against the eternal, twisting night. The never ending frost plumed night. I shall raise nought but sparks against the coal shrine pitch, but as we gather here against the end, those sparks will grid our honour. Sparks to kindling to roaring flame, pyres of the mind starting up again. Death may be inevitable, but we can at least ride his trail, grim determination as fortification - dancing through the mires, raising surprised rainbows against the night. All coiled as serpents gathering to strike at the light. One last dance amongst the embers. To lay down with the others before the dawn should chance to come. For this blood, the end of the line. Would you hear me? Carrion, wanderer. Echoing chamber of void. So it's an endless funeral, or so it would seem. It's all furnace flames and clods of earth and endless weeping. Oh the fucking weeping. I could almost cry. All the mourners and their mournings; all black veils and emotion unveiled. Shut up and get in the ground. The worms aren't complaining - they'll make a hearty meal of yours. ...and the rest of you, I'm sure. Get in the fucking ground. I'll take up a shovel and hazard a grin. If you don't yet know the drill, well i'll fill you in. It's a dark old life on the whole, so step right up and down you go. Misplaced apology nailed to contradiction - I'm not worshiping that! A life spent seeking balance; perhaps my spirit's just not level. Always angling towards Hell. Catch of the day not worth a glance past nightfall. Dancing with the Devil whilst throwing money to the spirit lenders. Sale or return you can keep it. This is not a percentage decrease in decomposition. You can dance around my tombstone all you like but I'll be grabbing your fucking ankle as and when I please. I may not be the lord of the dance you ridiculous cunts, but I'll have my tuppence worth, don't you worry. One for each eye if you please. 4. Premature Invocation Cleaved of hoof and shorn of mane You can keep your shrines, no matter shape or size There's nothing here for me I'll happily quaff all your spirits Bleed your coffins dry Used my nine lives across nine days / nine nights Now I just wait for the fires Reduce me back to ashes Our magic circles don't align Too much static in our tragedy Too much standing still Put out to dry, fell off heaven's window sill Broke every bone as I tripped through hell Silent fractures in reality I'll be laughing while you cry, nostrils crystalline at the end of the line Game over for all time Show me your compassion I'll give you contempt Open those hearts to me I piss on them I've had all the gods on my waiting list All too human They can't see me, I'm never here I'll nail any apologist to any passing tree No joy here Just this hammer This hammer This ashtray earth the fully realised product of so-called human evolution Vultures voicing complaint at the state of the carrion Sunlight filtered through a mire of thought grime A peek into the void to remind all is nothing All is nothing Nothing is all Same old clichés; same pitiful joke You want a punchline? If the sky should crash upon us in a shower of sparks, our shadows shall be thrown everywhere Up the walls, across the concrete Bathing tortured glass ceilings in spastic ichor Throwing shapes we never dreamt of, cramped up in the drains; sense of purpose lost in the run-offs Mingled with just so much effluent in the language of the sewers Bone and synapse just so much slush Sluiced by the eternal juicer Armageddon dancing on top of it all Azrael creaming off shots of just so much human slurry Bloody Mary, bloody father, bloody son With just a hint of bone for crunch Sitting amongst the coroners in a round tomb is not so possible when everything is flat The earth is flat But growing slightly fat on the cooling coagula of mankind's last fart 5. Children of the Night Soil They're crawling all over my mind Sunrise They're crawling all out of my mind Sunrise There's only so much advantage for the taking I've been buried here for years For I am dripping with stars Once golden shower of sparks pouring in and out; Shattering every dancing synapse Infiltrating the bored holes in my skull I just need a little nail to alleviate the pressure If only they'd oblige me Sunrise? Not-so-super-nova Do let me know when it's all over I just can't take the joke It went over my head It went through my head Once, twice, thrice, sunrise! But it would not take my thoughts away They couldn't wash my brain; it crackled, yeah, with all that static Syrup of thoughts of malaise Had to settle for being picked clean by vaudeville vultures in the final laundrette of the soul Didn't want the ticket out of here Couldn't see the fucking point in running Gunning for the six foot hole Forever chasing tales only to bury a hammer in the shattered beauty of their lies It's all untruth dancing behind the eyes I could feel them all jostling against my retina I tried to blink them all away They are going nowhere They form a thick string of drool consuming my everything They hermetically seal my tomb My eyes my tomb My skull my tomb Roll this curse away Only way out is putrefaction Then I can run away with myself Gelatinously As my old friend gravity dictates I can go any way I please... To run through the runnels... Just as long as it's down Coagulating, south bound Far from the sun 6. Taken by the Sea I remember when my seas turned grey and you floated away I remember when my seas turned grey and I can't change that day I remember when my seas turned grey and you floated away I remember when my seas turned grey and I couldn’t make you wake And I couldn't make you wake I remember when I could call your name Now things can never be the same I remember when I could call your name Now you're not on this earthly plane I remember when I could call your name Now things can never be the same I remember when I could call your name But now that would be in vain All that you thought you could be... I let you fall... away 7. Scripturally Transmitted Disease I've never been a pillar of society; Quiet the opposite in fact A plyer of insults; A place marker on the path of least resistance; Nothing more A face in a crowd, but a crowd behind Bedlam's bars Providing a barbed laugh for the wealthy; A grinning, dry target for their rigidity Happily stuck in the throats of an angry mob stretched beyond repair by production line proclivity I am as steadfast refusal I've shown no interest and I've reaped little that I've sewn A world of cloned mechanists has left me unwaveringly organic; Perhaps food for thought or just food for the worms I stand as a final insult to the easily offended; All words out of turn to kindle their burning world If for one moment I thought I felt a twinge of guilt I would put it down to angry muscles shifting their weight against all the irrelevance I will stand as grave marker in resolute denial of the state of your two thousand years of treading water; So dig a good deep hole for Abraham and all his insipid godlets Whatever name it goes by, it's all the same crumpled at the grave-side Abrahamic iterations all divide by zero Cartoon Lucifer presiding I lost my shadow amongst the marionettes; Soul chord measured found wanting Probably too long, frayed and / or split to dance with the more standard corpses in this world of shit I sold my spirit; Might even have quaffed it blind without realising Any port in a storm, they say Oh, so they say Heart removed as part of some half-arsed morning ritual, piss-begotten solitude sold out at the drop of a gaping fish-mouthed hat Filed away amongst the other stolen myths; The lore of these folks is nought but a long string of syphilitic spit Scripturally transmitted disease, if you will In fact, no - I insist So make a monolith of me, but plant me facing sunset; Back turned to the broken day Leave me here watching the darkness I have no time of day I have no time for day Don't come looking for me I'm long lost, seeking out Odin Odin under ice I've danced away, died away; Don't come looking for me Long lost, seeking out Odin Odin under ice 8. Decomposing Deity Dance Hall I find my mind wandering aimless Weighted heavy by a mushroom cloud miasma of stolen micturations and rotting leaves A mouth like a storm drain; Teeth caked with the soils and cast-offs of autumn; Gargling through a slough of interrupted dreams The colour here is nondescript; Leached of sense and purpose Heart riding shotgun in a hijacked hearse at the head of the serpent The body's in the back A lifetime on your back Piss and vinegar as spirit dressing More than happy to embrace the grave We took all your used up gods out the back of Eden and did the decent thing They're all gathered, shattered craniums draining; Lolling tongues intoning the grave mass Amongst the filth and roots and sashaying worms; Befouling the feral carpet of this decomposing deity dance hall It's a stateless carrion nosedive All just a race to nature's basement I really dig graves