effluvia 5. theories

Arrows bend, rays break

Digits stop unfolding

Something does not click

It's slowly sinking deeper

When a golden sky hangs

Languid over burning fields

And bodies hung on pikes

You'll find me dreaming

And the theories don't always

Match the way they ought

And the reasons aren't as clear

As everybody always thought

And ravens don't descend

Their bodies fall like hailstones

And all the sobbing ghosts

They fade away like fog

The ocean is always near me

And it's too damned far at sea

And someone else is here with me

Somewhere we can't see

So tell me what you think the point is

Tell me what you think my name is

Tell me what you think this life is

Tell where you see the point

Where this heart is, where the light is

Where this right is, where the soul is

Where these roads lead

How to find the river's flow

So tell me where the truth is

Tell me where I have to go.

effluvia 4. enflame (zephyrus)

This place is ablaze with furious towers

Of spiraling smoke and ashes and bits

Of journals and novels and magazines

(I packed up my things

Faced the sunset after all

I should have known better

‘Cause I knew it all along)

You blew out the sun in a meteor shower

Like hailstones, like chemicals

Like messages in gestures

(I loaded my trunk with all the faces I'd worn

And the seed in my chest at a miniscule height

The light stomped dead on a cloudless night)

Streams of amber light

Falling from your eyes

They enflame and devastate

The cities in my mind

(I wanted to say there was someone to blame

But I was the one who built that cathedral

To a god who was playing a whole different game.)

effluvia 3. esper

What did you feel in the pouring rain?

What do you see between flashes of pain?

What did you hear when they stopped calling your name?

What did you think when everyone bled the same?

What are you now but a hurt, lonesome girl?

What did you do when light tore through your world?

Hoofbeats breaking silence

Thunder across the miles

So bring the storm, bring the storm down

From the weeping smoky skies

So bring the storm, bring the storm down

From the shadows in the corners of your eyes

There's a hollowness in me

And I know you feel it too

There's a screaming ringing out your steel

We speak without words for this world's all too real

Esper, I need you now

You're the only piece of me

That's more than a phantom limb

The man in blue, he came for you

To break you and remake you in his image

Child, born of ash, born from the blaze

So the sun's slipping down

And away from the face

Of the world we ride today

And the stars are above

Shedding their light

Every which way, but not here.

effluvia 2. is this still love

What would you give to drown this city in fire?

Would you give up your life to string the world up with wire?

The oceans are drying, the ice caps have gone

The forests are ashes, there's blood on the lawn

What soul can you have in a world with a god?

What meaning is there for your people to spawn?

The sky has gone murky, the sun's just a star

The deserts are glass now, the wastelands all tar

What would you give to drown this city in fire?

Would you give up your life to string the world up with wire?

Who gives you your rights? Who whites out the stars?

Is this still a cage when you can't see the bars?

Is it still rage if I don't want to fight?

And is this still love if I don't want to lie?

effluvia 1. devil's business

God has built a world of strife

Our children have to lie

Mankind's way is of the knife

But the devil's business is only life

I've never kicked a friendly dog

I've never harmed a child

I've not yet tasted alcohol

I've never been on trial

But the devil's business, it's just life

And all I've done is live

The devil's business, well, that's life

And life is all I want to live

I've never meant to hurt a friend

I've never liked to tell a lie

I've never wished for someone's death

I've never started a serious fire

All I have is love to give

And the devil's life is what I live

Jesus died for no one's sin

My own mind is all I have

And I have got no truth to give

'Cause the devil's life is what I live.

transcent 10. wild eyes

It was not right

And your wild eyes

And the knife

And the night sky

And your dark eyes

And my strange mind

By the elephant plant

And the green grass

And the rocks it could not pass

It was not sight

And your red eyes

And the knife

And the lights in the sky

And the pitch black glass

Where I skinned my hands

And the scars on the land

All the things you never had

There was no right

And your black eyes

And the knife

And the infinite sky

And it was night

As you spoke right

I thought I would never

Want to love a girl

I was not right

It was morning

There was no warning

And it is morning now.

transcent 9. starburst (aural fane)

I see through your divinity

Starbursts in your eyes

Burn at the disguise

I am in habitually

I see through the mirror veil

To a truth I will not fail

Reality walks a downhill trail

Toward my fortress with walls of shale

You are elemental

A force of nature loosed

And barreling toward me

I could never run away

This thing is real and powerful

And I long for vibrations

To penetrate me

And I long for vibrations

Fallen from thee

As tanned hides drawn taut over hollow enclosures

Cry out their baritones in earthquakes through my brain

 Earthquakes to shatter this aural fane.