What have you left to gratify

What have you left to want

When passion subsumes annihilation

All that will be left is someplace to haunt

The scientist suffers alone in the lab

Having become the thing they hate

Yet coming to terms with it

They are

They are coming to terms with it

All I ever wanted was to find my place in the world

Now the world finds a place for me

I see you struggling to go on

I wish I could tell you all the ways you are wrong

Things are hard enough without you increasing your pain

So don’t pretend that life takes so long

The ghosts suffer alone in the half-light

Having become the thing they hate

Yet coming to terms with it

They are

Coming to terms with it

There is nothing any more that I need

There is nothing any more that I want

All I was is now a memory of what might have been

All that’s left of me needs someplace to haunt

The prison is real

Because you are real

And you are the warden

Of yourself

The warden is you

Because long ago

You made a deal

You did not even realize was a deal

You are the jailer of your heart

You are a prisoner of your mind

The bargain is real

And you are the sacrifice

To yourself

The walls are real

Because you build the walls in your sleep

You have walled yourself in

You are the jailer of your heart

You are a prisoner of your mind

You are the jailer of your heart

You are a prisoner of your mind

You are the jailer of your heart

You are a prisoner of your mind

You are the jailer of your heart

You are a prisoner of your mind

There is no human nature

Only wanting for an essence

Only having yourself to blame

For an existence of misgivings

You are the jailer of your heart

Flee

Leave your cell

And flee

It is so easy to be nihilistic

It is so hard to be kind everyday

It is so hard to see the truth before the fog

As though the truth were there all along anyway

Come with me and run headlong into the fog

Come with me and dizzy yourself in the dark

It is so easy to be nihilistic

It is so hard to be kind everyday

It is so hard to hear the music over the din of the future

When all we want is fifteen minutes of peace

No heros

No idols

No oracle, priest, or shaman

We are truly alone

Yet we will survive

It is so easy to be nihilistic

It is so hard to be kind everyday

It is so hard to feel like a human these days

As we tear through the space-time in solitude together

The present king of France is bald

The poet’s become reflective

Philosophers dancing in the yard

But they have no objective

They have no objective

When I died they cleaned me out

Of my hole with a garden trowel

And as I’d known that this would be my fate

I never thought it foul

Whispering disarmament of the heart

It makes one introspective

Playing both sides while claiming them apart

Philosophers dancing in the yard

And I have no recollection

I have nothing to prove at all

Philosophers dancing in the yard

The present king of France is bald

The poet’s become reflective

Mad scientists toiling their days away

While at night examining another perspective

Devils fret over contract clauses

While demons are given carte blanche

And though we have been subjected

We never complain as we play the part

Shared with us

To our disillusion

This world is more than hurt but not much more

And this ration meted out is our rich dessert

So when we are corpses biting our shroud of dust

Eating our own limbs in the dark loneliness

Will we remember the choices we made

The consumption that we swore was effusion

And the faux concern designed to assuage

Our own fear of suffering in seclusion

Now evil is illuminant

Shrewd judgement is retributive

You are your disillusionment

Both invention and derivative

Though our selfishness is not opposed to love

Still all that we are worth

Does not entitle us to an afterlife

Right here on Earth no matter your oaths

Furthermore the sacred one they promised us

Is full of a riot of ghosts

Our desire is not the opposite of pain

Our pain is not for lack of vision

Rather it ensures that we can have our own little bit of hell

Right here on Earth no matter your oaths

Because the fiery one they promised us

Is full of a riot of ghosts

Our purgatory is not aligned with loss

What we’ve lost has always been missing

But we can have our own bit of death

Right here on Earth no matter your oaths

Because the final one they promised us

Is full of a riot of ghosts

Amoralism

Among the ghosts

Who would have predicted

A desire to be free

Anarchy

Among the ghosts

Who would have predicted

A desire to love and to trust

Self-immolation

Among the ghosts

Who would have predicted

A desire to burn so bright

Our loneliness is not opposed to isolation

Our isolation is a type of hospitality

An invitation to have our own little afterlife

Right here on Earth no matter your oaths

Because the sacred one they promised us

Is full of a riot of ghosts

They are ascendant ghosts

Killers on the loose

This is not a prelude

This is discipline

The only thing worth seeking to know

Is the place from whence the sorrow flows

They are avenging ghosts

Redressing their offspring

This is not a prelude

This is annihilation

The debt has come due

They are butchering ghosts

Drunk on the aperitif

The sweet smell of a prelude

An appetite for revenge

The spirit intoxicates

They are methodical ghosts

Nothing you can do

This is not a prelude

This is the end of time

And we’ve been burnished

They are chronicling ghosts

Theorizing ground

This is not a prelude

This is not a sentence

That does not know the word

Who's there?

Maybe I’ve just lost touch

With all the devils I used to know

But maybe I just lost touch

With so many versions of myself

All who wander lost in a history book

That no one ever reads

No matter there will be new days

For us to reinvent our old ways

Philosophers dancing in the yard

Philosophers dancing in the yard

Whispering disarmament

Of the heart

Philosophers dancing in the yard

Philosophers dancing in the yard

Philosophers dancing in the yard

Whispering disarmament

Of the heart

Stand

Stand with us

Under the clouds

Of the storm king

Breathe

Breathe as though

it were your last chance

To see the sky

When

When all of this

All of this passes

And nothing is left but abstract metal

The clouds will unfold like truth

They

Then they will unleash

And fill our throats with rain

Raise your voice

Release your soul

Because when you were a child

You never feared the heat

You would run all summer long

And come home smelling like the street

It’s time to run again

And so your mind becomes a mountain trail

You’d been working all night to forget who you are

Voiding nostalgia and running like a dog with its heart in its mouth

Raise your voice

Release your soul

Disarm your heart

Empath your insurrection

Today is the day

For us to fight

Tomorrow is the day

For truth

Today is the day

For death to bleed

For fires to relish

The flesh

Today is the day

For the endgame

Victorious

We are the privileged

Victorious

We are the witnesses

Vainglorious

They will perish in the streets

Ignominious

They will die by our own hands

Kept me in port as the lightning flashed

Victorious

We are the privileged

Victorious

Today is the day

For us to fight

Tomorrow is the day

For truth

Today is the day

For us to fight

Tomorrow is the day

For truth

In life

In life, he was my anchor

I am awake in university

I am lying on my bed staring at the wall

The sun casts shadows through the window

I am alone, drawing an anchor in a storm

And in the dream I am on my own

Where the struggle is only in my head

And all the ideas remain ideas

And I can be who I was before this began

Victorious

Victorious

Victorious

We are the witnesses

Vainglorious

They will perish in the streets

Victorious

We are the privileged

Victorious

We are the witnesses

Victorious

We are the privileged

Ignominious

They will die by our hands

They will die by our hands

Today is the day

For us to fight

Tomorrow is the day

For truth

Today is the day

For us to fight

Tomorrow is the day

For truth

Our education

It brought us together

Sown under Occupation

We were one fecundation

Under fertile cover of school

We learned to build hand grenades

Learned violence and sabotage

Learned to use intelligence

Learned that the free mind sings

Gaining power from the truth

And how to kill a Nazi spy

This was our education

We learned to hone the art of death

Learned violence and sabotage

And how to kill a Nazi spy

This was our education

We learned to hone the art of death

Learned to use intelligence

Learned that the free mind sings

Gaining power from the truth

In knowledge of one's own fears

And the solidarity

We gathered between us

Gaining power from the truth

I. House of the Professors

The whole of it

I never really knew

Though there was some chemistry

Even in my family

When it came to artistry

Organically I plied my fingers

And I etched with chalk in grease

Drawing a universe of mermaids

This is the only history left

This is the tale of a white stork

In days past we went sailing

In sync off the amber coast

He was father

And I was his daughter

He – the respected chemist

I – his mermaid with smeared hands

Trapped underneath the lightning

Professorship

A ship that has no port

Professing all my yearning

To a ghost who blithely haunts

The bleak house on Dzielna Street

Where they took him from the prison cell

And they shot him through to death

Trapped together, a nightmare

Capsized in the freezing blue

Here the dead live

So do watch their ashes closely

Ashes scattered by the enemy

Forgotten

Here the dead live

Forgotten by the glorified

And sanctified – But we will avenge

This is the only history left

My hands are clean

You can hear me breathing

Behold the Mermaid of Warsaw

All I touch is sabotaged

You can hear me breathing

I draw the winds closer now

I squall across the balance of death

II. Józef the Cop

Józef, did you know your neighbors?

Yes, I knew what they were hiding

But, Józef, they had children in there

Yes, but they had changed their names

Józef, did you work the Ghetto?

Only when I needed money

Józef, did you help the Germans?

I helped no one but myself

You were busy there in school

For me, no such luxury

So when they offered money

I sacrificed my conscience

The Jews would not have lasted

We all knew this was the case

And if it had not been me

Then it would have been someone else

Józef, you are breaking my heart

Then you never should have loved me

Józef, you have blood on your hands

We all have blood on our hands

Józef, you are the enemy

So you know the enemy’s heart

Józef, join us and be redeemed

Too late, I am broke apart

Sing with me tonight for Elżbieta who was shot

And let’s raise a glass to her memory

With warmth in our hearts

Let’s take to the streets

And tear down every Nazi poster

From the Ghetto to the Old Town

We’ll paint turtles all the way down

And leave invites to hell for the Nazis

Meet me by the factory wall

After you’ve wasted the day away

After you’ve wasted the day away

After you’ve wasted the day away

Meet me by the factory wall

After school, we sent letters to the security forces

Claiming to have seen some Germans collaborating

With Poles whose names we made up

Tonight, I’m visiting with Andrzej’s mother

I’ve a note that he wrote her from prison

He says men were taken to the edge of the forest

And never returned

And never returned

Tomorrow we’ll tear down their flags

For what they did to Poniatowski

After we’ve wasted the day away

After we’ve wasted the day away

And we’ll play Tango Milonga

On commandeered German megaphones

They tried to steal Copernicus

Claim him by decree as one of their own

But Dawidowski and his gang

Gifted laughs to the Varsovians

After school, let’s take rifles to the underground armory

Whisper the new password and scan the busy sidewalk

For SS dressed like all death

Tonight, I’m visiting with Cibor’s brother

I’ve a note for them to read in their cell

It says men were taken to the edge of the forest

And never returned

And never returned

And never returned

And never returned

And never returned

And never returned

You can battle fear with humor

And you can seal then a grave with a kiss

And then even on nights like this

You’ll have a joke and a good reason

To no longer waste your day away

To no longer waste your day away

And so, sing with me tonight for Andrzej who was shot

And let’s raise a glass to his memory

With warmth in our hearts

Let’s take to the streets

And tear down every Nazi poster

From the Ghetto to the Old Town

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And never returned

And never returned

And never returned

And never returned

And never returned

And never returned

And never returned

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And so, sing with me tonight for Andrzej who was shot

And let’s raise a glass to his memory

With warmth in our hearts

Let’s take to the streets

And tear down every Nazi poster

From the Ghetto to the Old Town

And for Cibor who was shot

Let’s raise a glass

And let’s take to the streets

And tear down every Nazi poster

From the Ghetto to the Old Town

We’ll paint turtles all the way down

Designate lamp posts for the Nazi necks

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

And we will not waste our day away

I. Arresting Propaganda

If it were not for this gag

My voice would bellow

Through the halls of Hell

Through shattered Heaven

Through the bowels of Death

If it were not for this gun

Did we have neighbors who gave up their neighbors?

We did not collaborate, but did some of them collaborate?

Did we have neighbors who gave up their neighbors?

We did not collaborate, but did some of them collaborate?

Who among us are collaborators?

Who among us are gory sycophants?

Who among us are unworthy bigots?

Who among us are the opportunists?

If it weren’t for this flogging

My body would rise

To the mountaintop

To the highest cloud

To the source of light

If it weren’t for the torture

I would eat dinner

But I’ve been a saboteur, I’m a scout

I’ve been arrested, I will surely die

But I will not let myself lose my hope

Who all among us are losing their hope?

I won’t lose hope

Will I lose hope?

II. Cruel Fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

Cruel, cruel fate

I know, I don’t know

Anymore

I know, I don’t know

But I

I did not give anyone up

I held my own

I held my own

They did, they did not

Let up at all

But I, I did not

Give anyone up

In Pawiak

I held my own

I held my own

I don’t know

Anyone

Taking a train

To terminus

Straining my eyes

I saw the smoke

I did not show any fear

And then I saw nothing

You can rip my arms

From their sockets

You can bash my eyes

And take my shoes

So, bloody my nose

And shave my hair

Give me a number

And kill my god

We suffer as one

I know, now I know

Everything

We die together

I know, now I know

Number our lives

They did, they did not

Know this at all

But I, I will not

In death forget

I know, now I know

Murderers

I know, now I know

Genocide

They did, they did not

Ever think twice

But I, I will not

Ever forget

Number my life

Number my name

Number my grave

We are numbers

We suffer as one

We die together

Number our lives

Number our names

Number our graves

I know, now I know

All you’ve done

But I, I will not

In death forget

I know, now I know

Genocide

Genocide

Genocide

Number my life

Number my name

Number my grave

We are numbers

We suffer as one

We die together

Number our lives

Number our names

Number our graves

I know, now I know

Everything

I know

I know

I know

Within our hearts, we learned that…

This was our education

We learned to…

Warsaw in occupation

We were to focus on our breath

Beyond these walls lie enemies

Beyond these walls, our own dead

This was our education

We learned to hone the art of death

This was our education

We learned to reap the source of breath

This was our education

This was our education

We learned to honor sacred oaths

This was our education

We learned we were the source of faith

This was our education

I. Death War

In the dream, there was a warehouse

Within which we found a store of Nazi uniforms

We covered our flesh in their own

And returned to the street to kill

Throw pianos on the barricades!

They met their deaths blinded by the muzzle blast

And bewildered by the dazzle of their own shiny buttons

Anything to keep on fighting

Anything to keep on fighting

Keep fighting and do not give ground

Anything to keep on fighting

Keep fighting and do not give ground

In the dream, I’m there in Old Town

Watching as the buildings turn to rubble in the street

I may die before we reach the sewer’s end

We may all die in the annihilation of our city

There is a boy dressed in his scout’s uniform

He rushes out of a building holding a bag

The artillery gunner never seems him

As he hurls himself over the barricade and explodes

Rubble covered in skin and blood and baby teeth

Go away from here

This is pointless

This is the Death War

The war to end all life

Go away from here

This is the Death War

The war to end all life

Go away from here

This is pointless

This is the Death War

The war to end all life

Go away from here

Die

Suffer

Run

Suffer

Hide

Suffer

Die

In the dream, there was a squadron

In the dream, there was a squadron

Barreling over the bridge and led by their steel tanks

We waved to the heroes of the Red Army

And the heroes of the Red Army left us for dead

Left us to die under German bullets

Waiting to take the city of corpses

Throw pianos

Throw pianos on the barricades!

The ones who will survive the German bullets

Will suffer the cold and the oppression of the Russian camps

Go away from here

This is pointless

This is the Death War

The war to end all life

Could we have done more?

Did we move too fast?

Did we move too slow?

Could we have helped the Jews?

Did we put our neighbors in danger?

Did we do the right thing?

We wanted to do the right thing

Did we want to do the right thing?

Did we do the right thing?

Could we have done more?

Should we have done less?

In death, will we find peace?

II. I Imagined a Future

I imagined a future

Where you can not imagine the future

I imagined a place

Where you could neither live nor die

That place is here

That place is here

I imagined myself

In a place where I could not imagine myself

That place is here

That place is here

That place is here

That place is here

That place is here

That place is here

That place is here

That place is here

That place is here

That place is here

From a prison cell on Peacock Street

We rise to greet the death blocks

Teeth as idle as piano keys

Chattering in the cold

I heard them talking in Department Four

I heard about the edge of the forest

I knew was there blood on Dzielna Street

I heard the names of the dead through the megaphone

I was here in 1835 and the czar did try to give his worst

I was here in 1863 and saw many Poles

I saw young men carrying rifles

Volunteering to hunt the Jews

I saw a guard knife a cell mate

I bled on the floor in the potato room

I was here in 1835 and the czar did try to give his worst

I was here in 1863 and saw many Poles sent to their deaths

I was here in 1918 and every man in the cell block knew my name

I was here in 1939, I was here

From a prison cell on Peacock Street

We watched as words appeared

On walls and notice boards, anchored home

We will avenge the prisoners

I will avenge the prison atrocities

And I will avenge the murders

I will avenge the massacres

And I will support the struggle

From a prison cell on Peacock Street

We established an internal network

We supported the Home Army

Providing intelligence for the saboteurs

From a prison cell on Peacock Street

We watched the Gray Ranks kill the Nazis

Gestapo died and the SS suffered

We killed the chief of the Warsaw District

From a prison cell on Peacock Street

I watched the Nazis execute the Resistance

They offered to send me to Ravensbrück

But I chose to be shot here in my cell

I was there in 1944, the Gestapo felt my bullets rain

I was there in 1944, I was there for the jailbreak

I was there in 1944, I was there when the Ghetto rose up

I was there in 1944, I was there til the end

Rocket research condoned but not funded

Suicide Squad meeting in the dry desert

Designing castable composite propellant

A bevy of misfits, from the horn of the Beast

To the son of heaven and all in between

Making fast the fiery speed at war’s pace

They rose to build hell in the desert

And Jack himself made the Star Ruby

And banished with fire and predicated scarlet

The success of GALCIT 53 on film

The experiment true science led by intuition

But an industry to be born beyond the myth

But Thelemic sorcery and fulminate of mercury

Unimaginable paroxysm of death rips Parsons apart

A mistake, a killing, or a curse

Rocket research continues after the war

But communist sympathies lead to un-American

Accusations against survivors of the Suicide Squad

McCarthy and the Witch Hunt hunters hunting

“Let the scientists know they can leave America

Explore space for all we care, as we port in the V2 crew...”

Frank Malina deports and paints outer space from France

A fortune teller draws a map for Martin Summerfield

Beyond orbit, beyond even Princeton, New Jersey

The son of heaven himself exiled

Returns home after intellectual banishment

Qian Xuesen fathers the Chinese missile

Master mind Von Kármán original visionary

Does not escape the wrath of ignorance

But perseveres to advocate, nonetheless

And Edward Forman walking the shadow

Of his 60th year is, just as promised,

Haunted by the fire of a handsome ghost

Like our forebear holy elder coven

Did defending all the isle

From Bony twelve pound cannonball

Artillery and the volley

We gathered in New Forest proper

To begin the call command

And in our fire forged the weapon

To fright the mind of Hitler

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot glide

You will not come, you won’t prevail

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot glide

You will not come, you won’t prevail

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot glide

You will not come, you won’t prevail

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot glide

You will not come, you won’t prevail

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot glide

You will not come, you won’t prevail

You cannot come, over water come

And we afire with right of wisdom

Do deploy the cone of power

Like our forebear holy elder coven

Did defending all the isle

Of the whole of the Armada

Objuration of witches’ lips

We converge the cone of power

Towering high into the night

Powered by our antique rhythm

And yearning for the moon

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot glide

You will not come, you won’t prevail

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot glide

You will not come, you won’t prevail

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot glide

You will not come, you won’t prevail

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot glide

You will not come, you won’t prevail

You cannot come, over water come

You cannot float, you cannot

We writhe around the fire naked

And target the putrid Nazi core

Our cone of power, we let it free

To rend the fascist sunder

Like our forebear holy elder coven

Did defending all the isle

We expel you and do defend

Our home and turf upon this Earth

Whether sea, or sand, or forest snow

You may not cross the boundary

Between your hate and the world

Cursing you to live within your skull

Live within that coffin

And hear no more the wind

Passing without the box

Bearing the whisper of our hex

Curses unto you

May your death not die

May you writhe in pain

Cursed and hexed

An enemy of this world

Every hungry worm is alive with anticipation

Ready to eat your brain

For the meat it is

We will kill you dead

We will kill you dead

Istan, drive the nails

Into their heads

We will kill you dead

We will kill you dead

Istan, drive the nails

Into their heads

Mangle the feet of the ones

Mangle the feet of the ones

Who would walk on your grave

Slit their throats

Expose their nerves

Hack their heads off

Like cloves of garlic

Tossed into a stew

Rend the Nazi body useless

Hex the fascist scum

Rend the Nazi corpses useless

Hex the fascist scum

The scum

The scum

The scum

The scum

The scum

Let’s destroy!

Let’s all destroy the propaganda

Wrangle the truth from the tripe

Wrangle the truth from the tripe

And slay the fascist host

Slit their throats

Expose their nerves

Hack their heads off

Like cloves of garlic

Tossed into a stew

Rend the Nazi body useless

Hex the fascist scum

Rend the Nazi corpses useless

Hex the fascist scum

The scum

The scum

The scum

The scum

The scum

Let’s all destroy the deceivers

Tangle without any fear

Tangle without any fear

Carve their guts with sharpened knives

Slit their throats

Expose their nerves

Hack their heads off

Like cloves of garlic

Tossed into a stew

I open my spell book

Select a passage

I cast the circle with my wand

It is my intention

And it be my will

To know exactly which side that you are on

I hear a new black metal track

By some newish one man band

The artwork darkened like the night

It is my intention

And it be my will

To know exactly on whose side you fight

I speak to demons

And I speak to angels

And they both tell me the same thing

The world isn’t black and white

But somethings

Just aren’t right

This grimoire holds secrets

Occult esoterics

Sigils of the demons of the void

But one thing isn’t secret

And that’s the sad conclusion

That being vigilant doesn’t mean you’re paranoid

They attack based on race

Attack based on gender and sexuality

And tell us it is their right to be proud

They despise all diversity

They say: "Extreme metal must be dangerous"

But what they fear most is extreme inclusivity getting loud

This grimoire kills fascists

Just like our grandparents did

This song ain’t a warning shot

It’s a bomb

Just let us know exactly

Which side you are on

The flare of a hundred chiliad

Sidereal blazes rising in ember

Up and upon our empyrean tableau

Nodding

Following well behind the penumbra

Of a radical moon

The coordination of rapid rupture

The intellect of the luminary gang

The call to create the becoming of death

The implications of science and politics

No regret, we pay the debt of the dead

I am Nonemaker

No regret, we pay the debt of the dead

No regret, we build effigies to the slain

When you speak, say not many words

But cast illuminations so that your sentence

Is like matchlight briefly flared

Not to light the way, but to light the fuse

To fuze the enlightened paths of dissolution

Otherwise desolate and desultory

Do not patronize me, I remember death

Falling on the cities like rain on muddy tracks

I need physics

I need gods and I need gods to end

This the only way

That it can end

No regret, we pay the debt of the dead

No regret, we build effigies to the slain

No regret

Bombing deserts, explosion lenses

Primed to test the killing capacity

Of a hundred billion stars

Colliding in the night

The throat of an albino snake

Locked in heat on a gypsum dune

I lay waste these lands

Only on account of my desire to end it all

But I am disimpassioned by the likelihood

That my killing hands will kill us all

And these affairs are hard on the heart

The heart of the Nonemaker

And these affairs are hard on the heart

I lay to waste these lands

And recreate the universe

As a field of fire whence all is purified

And evil sown rises to engulf the hatred

And these affairs of the heart

Mean nothing to the Nonemaker

Nonemaker

Nothing to the Nonemaker

The glare of a hundred billion

Sparkling bodies floating beyond

The event horizon

Nodding like fellow travelers

Winking like lovers in a darkened crowd

Ready to die in the wake of...

The Nonemaker

And it is nothing to the Nonemaker

O, blessed is the one who well possessed

And knowing the rites of the gods

Lives piously, soul initiated

Into the Bacchic dance

Dancing over the mountains

In hallowed passion

Cathartic

Following the law of the great mother Kybele

Wielding the cone-tipped wand

Wreathed in ivy

Worshipping

Dionysos

Cursed is the one who climbs the tree

To police the revel

And being ignorant of the ways

Of the revelers sees hatred in joy

It is the head of the cursed

That will be held aloft

Before the patriarchy

On the end of a spear

And even horror and exile

Can not pale our blood

Once under the moon

We have danced

From manipulating cards and rope

To manipulating army brigades

Cities disappearing on my watch

Deception command on my word

Armies disappearing at my command

Camouflage the death machine

In nocturnal rapport

With the genie of illusion

I command the sight before you

As a mirror directs reflection

Mission redirected

Camouflage your history

Patent leather hair

Patter born of stagecraft

Most of my experience

Came eating razor blades on film

Magic and vanity

It ran in the family

Born to serve illusions

Born to wave a hand

As misdirection

Electrical storming

Chemical guile gullibility

Theatrical architecture prodigious

Building the pyre of strategy

Framing the scene and restoring

The vision of a well-built illusion

Go to hell

Only a figure of speech

Though never spoken enough

The desert is true in mirages

My world to define and describe

This gig a conman’s pitch

I am the genius

That claims to be your own

Your higher self and I am a liar

Concealment

And experiments in the desert

Hiding in plain view

From the death raiders above

Over African skies

The canal and our quarter

Nothing is noble

Except everything noble

In the deceit of the strobe

Embellishment

And ghostwriting cunning

A command of historical reflection

As an author, I am a pale saint

Reasonable in my affliction

Present in this presence of mind

Misdirection

As my father and grandfather taught

Is the only technique

That makes them want the lie

Whether on stage or in theatre

The deed is done within the mind

The art world

The misfits and all of the spirits

That otherwise the alpha

Deflects as unwanted detritus

Hereby the art of the mind

Wins battles, colors history

And though nothing is new

But my drink and despondence

You’ll remember how I won the war

In the sands of El Alamein

I was a bait-switching sorcerer

My grand scheme toppled nature itself

And sold hell to the enemy

I am the retribution of the misfit

I am the wizard of wily victory

My own glorious genius

Is the genius of my illusion

Pan as you will my valediction

My guile was enough to baffle

Rommel in the sand

Or enough to loosely support the theory

Death in a myth

A chimera

Of vanity