The Last Emperor.

The Last Emperor
The very last one of all
Regal, acquitted
Dutyless
Now, fall!
Falls into his throne
Sits in his own home
And contemplates the ways
And the days
And the soldiers all slaughtered
And their sons and daughters
A heavy crown
Great red and gold crown
The Last Emperor sits
Prepares to fall down
A thousand knives
A thousand candles
A thousand golden tapestries
A million people
A million hearts
Millions on millions in great cities
Dragons sleep
The Emperor weeps
And little's left for him to keep
Fathers before
(Mothers cast aside, I might add)
The Last Emperor sits
And weeps

Without Me.

When I said
"Go ahead
Without me"
That was not
A proposal
I'm not offering ideas to the group
For you to chew
For you to scoop up
And think about
It was rather a request
Now, do I have to shout?

You value loud times
I see that
I'll grudge you nothing
Now see that
I, in truth, value solitude
And before you presume
A teenage, sullen attitude
I'll just let you think about
How ridiculous that would be
Now see
And go ahead
Without me
Please

The Same Place.

The train takes you away
To places the same as ever before
A change of scenery is something
You really have to work for
But scenery comes and goes
Despite you feeling morose

Wheels trundle about and hiss
And you can't help but notice all
The fields and forests racing past
This train is smashing through brick walls
The train smashes walls, and see
The journey, for change, is what is key

You may come to the same old place
Despite the journey undertaken
And feel yourself worse of for it
Not changed, no different, unshaken
But the train has left you strange
And this same place seems strange

This same place is what you make of it
And I am aware that no cliché
Will sway you in the end
Step off the train and see the day
You perceive what you truly wish to
And in this same place, you may still start anew

Crimson Clouds.

Yes, in my wintriest moods, I hold
Absolute power
To boycott any colour and to forbid any flower
To be.
- Soliloquy of the Solipsist, Sylvia Plath

We?
Paint the sky in reds
And give life to clouds
As they thunder down like antelope against
A bloody backdrop
No steam or vapour suffers itself
To grant the crimson
Any audience while we remain in power:
A parliament of solipsists

They!
Turn from us, backs
Thorned and prickled
Displacing our conscious authority
Turning out to sea
Look, the clouds care not for food and drink
And you should think
For that would wrench them back under our spell
Our mindful incantation

You,
Were on board in full
I remember your feet
On the deck of the ship we took
To a longer day
We made ourselves Elysium up among
The clouds that run
Chasing crimson wings you left
In my head
And then you left

In Time.

At times he ran
For days on end
From or to what?
The two knew not
And all about
The place he went
With little care
For him back there
For him back there
Cared not either
And little passed
Until the last

About the world he comes and goes
Feeling all the little joys and woes

From time to time
He went back there
And it was fun
Beneath the sun
Settled down
With no more fun?
Not true at all
He'll leave this Fall
And every year
He'll run away
Thus, runes were cast
Until the last

Around the world he comes and goes
Feeling all the little joys and woes

In time he came
To not return
And it was fine
Most of the time
The funny thing
Is that he was
Inclined to run
But he was done
For without home
There's nowhere left
To run right past
Until the last

Around the world he came and went
Until he was completely spent

Nothing Came.

I just seem to keep churning them out and I have no idea of their objective quality as songs but I don't care.

Capo1
4/4

Fig1. Am | Em | C | C

We waited on the docks
You and me
We waited for what seemed eternity
For what, oh I don't know
While we were waiting
The tide crept up and turned to snow

We waited for a holy sign
But nothing came upon us
Nothing came upon us
We sat and waited for the heavens to open up
But nothing came

We turned our eyes downwards after that
To the throne made of fire and bones
To Hell our hope turned, we waited again
And we slowly turned to stone

We waited for a fiery sign
But nothing came upon us
Nothing came upon us
We sat and we waited for a call from hell
But nothing came

Fig2. Dm | E | Am | Am x2
Dm | E | G | Am
Dm | E

I guess there's only so much waiting
A man can do
It doesn't even ease my soul to know
I'm waiting with you
But where oh where
Is the place where my soul fell
If not in Heaven
If not in Hell?

Fig1. (on 'Hell')

Trudging in the dirt we set out again
To a place too dark for the hearts of men
To find what we were waiting for
We looked and we looked, we looked and then

We looked for a thousand years
But nothing came upon us
Nothing came upon us
Under rock and root and mountain we looked for something there
But nothing came

Fig2.

I guess there's only so much waiting
A man can do
It doesn't even ease my soul to know
I'm waiting with you
But where oh where
Is the place where my soul fell
If not in Heaven
If not in Hell?

Fig1.

To the ocean we finally took
You and me
We set our longing sights far across the sea
In the deep we searched in vain for our prize
Instead staring back at us a pair of eyes
A pair of eyes so cold and mean
The eyes of a God it seemed
This is not quite what I'd hoped for
Not quite what we were searching for
So we left the sea

Fig2.

I guess there's only so much waiting
A man can do
It doesn't even ease my soul to know
I'm waiting with you
But where oh where
Is the place where my soul fell
If not in Heaven
If not in Hell?

Fig1.
Nothing came.
Nothing came.
Nothing came for us.

Under Snow.

The tide comes in and turns to snow
And the land retreats another mile
Snowbound, you trudge while the dirt falls low
White powder burying you, all the while you go
White powder burying you, down under the snow

The mountain shifts and leaves a hole in the ground
Advancing, the snow comes to fill in the hole
Head down, we march, not making a sound
Fast flurries against us, this blizzard confounds
Fast flurries against us, hammering the ground

The fire on the coast makes a move for the sheets
Fighting back the snow's march where the land cannot
Fight on, clear the passage, so the land can retreat
Great ice walls before us, a hard stinging sleet
Great ice walls before us, come down on us in sheets

The Heat On Her Skin.

This has been spinning around my head for quite some time. Only just now bothered to make something of it.

Capo4
6/8

Em
I got a woman
Who dances like fire
I got a woman who dances like fire
A9
If you say you'd seen better
Well you'd be a liar

Em
And her skin moves like a torch
In the dark
And her hair's black like the ash
Which her fire creates

A9
And the heat on her skin
It drives me to sin
Against the fire in her eyes
I buckle to my knees and
Em
Cry

She whispers from the door
She beckons "Come see!"
A devil in a red dress
She beckons to me

A9
We coil into a dance
That's sharper than knives
It's a fine romance
But it's eating me alive
Em
The heat on her skin is eating me alive

Invaders come.

Load the bullets
Silver, iron
Copper, load the bullets

Pagan scum
Feather, bone
Nature, pagan scum

Knock an arrow
Timber, stone
Feather, knock an arrow

Invaders come
Rifle, promises
Boats, invaders come

Affect.

Emerging from out of
The spiritous haze
Dismantling your opinion
With a nicely-placed phrase

Opinions! Bah! 'Tis nought but affect!
An affect's all too easy for me to dissect

From afar he approaches
And the plebeians know
He is here to destroy
With his well-mannered prose

Reply hazy, try again later.

This is my life
At this point in time
And can we really call it wrong?
I sit at home
In my underwear
And butcher perfectly good songs

Knock Knock.

Song time. The chords were too difficult to write in shorthand.

Welcome to my home
Don't leave the door open, please
I'm not really in the habit
Of putting guests at ease
But I'll do the best that I can do
So that your stay is pleasant
At least for you

I'm not really in the habit
Of letting people in at all
It'll makes things a lot easier
When I inevitably fall
But I guess I'll show you around my place
Please reserve your judgments
This is a special case

This is my room
It's where I sit while I'm pretending
I know exactly what I'm doing
When really I have got no clue at all
This is my room
Now you've seen I guess you'll know
How things exactly were meant to go
When I inevitably fall

Welcome to my home
You all come more often now
I've gotten a little better
At talking to you aloud
But I'm still me fundamentally
It just doesn't look it anymore
For all to see

I've gotten a little better
At letting people through
I tend to talk a lot more now
Than what I used to do
But you can't see really I'm still the same
A lioness veneer above
But secretly I'm tame

This is my room
It's where I sit while I'm pretending
I know exactly what I'm doing
When really I have got no clue at all
This is my room
Now you've seen I guess you'll know
How things exactly were meant to go
When I inevitably fall

When the sea and sky meet.

On the day that the sea and the sky would meet
We packed up our things
Keeping light on our feet
On the day that the sea would meet with the sky
We watched the clouds battle
And the waning moon died
On the day that the sky came to meet with the sea
All the kings and their slaves
They all had to flee
Kings thrown up and off
Their great jeweled seats
On the day that the sea and the sky would meet

At the place where the sky and the sea would meet
All the dead men rose up
Forming into great fleets
At the place where the sea would meet with the sky
To do battle beneath
The great watchful eye
At the place where the sky came to meet with the sea
All brothers stopped working
Harmoniously
Filled with hatred and shame
Devoid of all heat
O, this place where the sky and the sea would meet

We watched it all happen
When the sea and the sky
Rose up to each other
And everything died
We ran to the shore
Of the sky and the sea
But the dust never settled
No, not completely

Coup de Grâce

This would be longer if I wasn't lazy.

-

Hello, who are you?
I'm quite a few people
I suppose
Well I'm just one
And that person knows
You can't be too many
People at once
I can try
But fine, I'll play the dunce
Enlighten me
And we shall see
I'l compose an idea for you
Here we go, listen well
All these people
Within, without
And what have you
Without a doubt
You know them, yes?
You know them well?
I would say so
That does makes sense
Oh, not like that
Uncertainly bodes
Quite ill for this
Well then I'm sure
I know them well
I know them, yes
I know them well
All of them equally?
In equal right?
I'm not sure where
This thread will lead
Okay, I'll bite
I know them well
In equal right
Good, good
Patience, please
We'll get to the end
And you'll be appeased
I'm sure
If all is one
And one can be all
(All parts being
Of equal measure
To pluck and use
At your own leisure)
Then how can you be sure?
How can you know?
That the mind you take
The mind you're in
The particular skin
And the particular sin
Was better than the rest?
Came before the rest?
What was first?
"Who are you?"
Takes an interesting turn
If you can't even know
The root of your ramblings
The cause of this cacophonous
Chain of thoughts
That's enough!
I see your point
I don't concede
You disappoint
I'll paint for you a counter
To your deduction, as it mounted
I descried a certain crack
In your renunciation of my parts
Working together for the good of one
Let's hear it then
And then be done
Agreed, my good man
My single, lone man
Let's begin, now, first of all
Your reasoning's based
On the rather blank-faced
Premise that
The disparate parts remain
As such, they refrain
From having coalesced
They are nothing but a coral reef
They are separate on the single root
Floating up and about
As necessary for the root to spout
His theories, and so forth
But what if not?
What if they are one, despite
Your premise of a disparate mind?
They are the same
They're additive
Each part is not apart
But each part gives
A nice new thought from which to start
All the same, assimilate
The different forms of thinking here
And better my odds in this old game
Assuming this, what is your point?
Patience, please
I beg of you
You'll see my way
When this is through
Let's take my premise
As it stands, for brevity's sake
(And I really can
Be brief, if need be)
If you are but one
If the one head's house
In the single skull
In the single brain
Just let me mull
This over
You are but one, you refuse
To let others through
And influence you
And would you agree that
A richer array
Of experience
Of things you've seen
Give more excellence
To your state of thought
Your memories richer
Your knowledge vast
And so your mind is richer for it
You can wax in more poetic ways
You are richer then, for all your days
This is certain
I agree
Then let's continue
We will soon see
If your life is richer
Of experience
And you refuse others to
Enter your dense
Minding shield
You remain yourself
You'll never yield
How can you say that you have lived
The richest life there is to be lived?
Surely the thoughts of others might add
Further to your own head
It suits the mind to be dyad
Or triad even, or further then
You take others in to supplement
Your own existing ken
And with this, good man
You poor, lone man
I justify my argument
And thus my life
So end your strife
My many minds greatly exceed
The little available thought of one
Stop! I beg!
Let us be done!

Aftermath.

Friends!
Romans!
Countrymen!
Lend me your spears
And kill a Christian
For change
Is to be feared

Countrymen!
Friends!
Romans!
Lend me your name
Mine's too important
To be tainted
By the vein

Romans!
Countrymen!
Friends!
Raise a glass to Mars
Laughing so manically
Out among
The stars

Oh my god what.

Am I on drugs?

Boadicea
And her electric eels
Her electric eyes
And her electric feel
Boadicea
And her electric meals
Just happen to be
The electric eels
Boadicea
Needs power, and steals
Batteries from
The electric seals
Boadicea
And the electric seals
Have a battle of kings
Over battery meals
Boadicea
And her electric eels
Her electric eyes
And her electric feel

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