With Faunus whipping us into a frenzy,
we danced in the streets of a city,
with walls circled by the wolves
and populated by lurid priests.
I was destined for war.
You were destined for more.
In Palatine groves, we conjoined,
whipped with thongs and singing songs -
No wonder the emperor tried to put a stop to this.
 
Against his imprimatur,
I forsook my legion
and became a martyr among the saints,
who’s secret ceremonies
allowed us soldiers a moment’s peace.
Swords to plow shears among forlorn homes,
with bower birds singing our song,
as the wolves circled round,
our voices conjoined in chorused howl -
No wonder the emperor tried to put a stop to this.
 
With the executioner’s sword,
They tried to separate us.
They turned our trophies into trinkets
and burned our oaths exchanged on vellum.
With lace bedecking our pietas,
they inhumed us outside the walls
Still, the wolves gather round.
They still sing our song, my love.
For this one is for the ages -
No wonder the emperor tried to put a stop to this.

The time has come to become disgusted.
The kitchen is dirty and the sink is rusted.
Blood in the bowl and the brush is missing.
The pressure is building and the pipes are hissing.
Our mirror is broken and our reflections are busted.
We are all the culprit and no one is trusted.

The landlord is absent and raising the rent.
The booze, drugs and money have all been spent.
The maid got deported and her children encamped.
The fences are broken and the yard’s getting cramped.
The paint isn’t appealing and the doors got a dent.
From the officer’s boot who came, killed and went.

Time to get the bucket and wring out the mop.
And raise our pigged heads out of the slop.
We need to clean house and start making things right.
Burn out the mold and turn on the light.
We’ll all get dirty before we can stop.
For a clean conscience, revolution’s the route.

We cracked mountains, you and I,
drove fissures into the stones of home,
so we could prime the bombs
needed to break ourselves free.

The heights we climbed, to be eye to eye,
to meet our creators on our own terms
and assault Olympus as
Promethians unbound.

We forked our lightings, decry and reply,
and threw our fathers off their sad heights,
rose above their rounded foothills
and clapped that Shantih sound.

We both lost equally, torn ear and blinded eye,
Fell into moraines we and parted ways
but our futile truce could not stay balanced long
As you stumbled up your equal peak
And I limped up mine.

After a long rest, your eye catches mine.
Round two ensues with unhealed bruises,
and this time we crack the sky.

Into the mountains of madness go I
With a fixed and determined eye
Climbing forebears down the sky
With every intention of going awry

“Lose oneself to find oneself,”
was told to me by Oblivion’s eye.
“Go south past the walls were no one dwells.
Past the breaks and the Phrygian swells
Where the pole rises to meet the sky.”

“And look that poor woman in her eye
Where her tears’ flows follow the horizon’s line
and the seasonal sun never leaves the sky
Go have a date with mother to watch the ice die.

With trembling hands I break myself
To pluck the mote from her goddess’ eye
What words can forgive this hoisted thief
When I helped drown her out past the reef.
I should go mad from the height of my crimes.

Because I can.
Because you couldn’t.
Because they said we shouldn’t.
We popped off.

We are the signal flares.
I’m the reagent.
You’re the oxidant.
Our engines take a universally compatible fuel source
Of everyone else’s shit.
All our welcome in our warm embrace.

We burn with the phosphoresce of final moments.
We arc in the sky in portentous tangents.
No explosions or grand finales here.
We burn.
The oceans may try to squelch our blaze.
But we burn
Hotter than Grecian fire.
We are the alkalais in water.
We are the hydrocarbon film.

Because you can.
Because I couldn’t.
Because they said we wouldn’t