BLACK TONGUE LYRICS

1. The Eternal Return to Ruin

Eternity hangs heavy
A pendulum swings
The deep bell rings low
Through the void's mournful throat
The deep bell rings low
Head hung heavier still

Though, the inner scale, it denies a full tilt
My body screams through the static
The mind buckles, frantic
And the burning tears cascade, thunder below

Forged in the blackest reaches of irony
In front of me dangles the key
My body screams through the static
In front of me dangles the key

But through the dust a blossom breeze caresses my cheek
A hand of winter dream and purest ivory
Tears and dust run as the Styx beneath my feet
And I feel the crystal ice voice whisper and repeat
"The Gate has opened
A passage for the weary
And a bed for the weak"
And I weep

It hangs so heavy, eternity
I lack the strength to rise from my knees

An echo rings in the silence
A narrow of the eye

Eternity hangs heavy
And so do I

I weep
With the Styx beneath my feet
The cold breeze
It whispers and repeats
"The Gate is open
Rest your weary feet"
I weep
While the Styx, it runs beneath

2. The Cathedral

There is only death

This is the beginning and the end of all things
The gate and the key
All are judged in the shade of the Cathedral

Their names written in flames on that terrible, endless list
True pain engraved on their face
The wailing spilling through the rifts agape

Whisper "be still" to the violent heart and its thundering beat
The earth yawns deep and the cloak sweeps silent
Casting the shadow of unceasing sleep

The ground untended
Relinquishing spaces, an ocean of faces
Smothered by the black of a burial gown

Follow me down

Your call so fervent
Hot thorns through the neck pierce the servant
Of the night unending
The light here is bending
The gnarled spires bare
And from its towers a mockery of black trumpets blare
Lamentations fill the air
With the braying of dogs, oil slick through their fur

Follow me down

Hush now, no tears please
The horn sounds for me
Hush, writhe, cry
Hush, writhe, cry

It will never stop
Until every soul is charred beyond burned
Fling wide the gates of Hell

Your prodigal son has returned

Twixt jagged teeth of petitioners led by bound wrists
Past men gasping for air in lakes of boiling piss

Unable to drown
Follow me down

Your call so fervent
Hot thorns through the neck pierce the servant
Of the night unending
The light here is bending

Follow me down

3. Second Death

When I stand upon my altar
Resplendent in profane glory
I shall care not for the maggots squirming beneath me
Now squirm, you will squirm maggot, you will squirm

Your pathetic shells will crack
Under the weight of agony
In the shadow of the blackest spire
In the deepest circle, the bend

A knee, a back, desperate supplication
They could never imagine such pain as this
Squirm beneath me, I care not
Your pathetic shells will crack

Their screams echo in the void
And they echo with mine
The false ring of sacrament
They howl and I howl with them

"My lord, hear us
Free us from this scalding cell
My lord, hear us
Save us from this unending hell"

Oh lord, hear me
I suffer in this pit as well
My lord, hear me
I ring truer than deaths keen kneel

Your pathetic shells will crack
Under the weight of agony
In the shadow of the blackest spire
In the deepest circle, they bend
They bend
They bend
Squirm beneath me, I care not

Beckoning a darkness you all have ushered
The only reality is pain
I want you all to suffer as I have suffered

I want you all to suffer

Suffer
Suffer
Suffer
Suffer

4. Black Fawn Temple

It is a strange thing, timelessness
The nothing stretching away forever
Meets the nothing within and collapses

The endless without
The was
The is not

An everlasting echo repeats
"The tunnel has existed always"
Infinite

And the echo
Always

But I hear a voice
It is a strange thing, timelessness
Because I have existed in the corridor always

I- I- I-

There is a light

5. Ultima Necat

Watching
Always watching
The snare
Our curse

Remember the cold
Remember that it follows forever

Remember the cold
Remember that it follows forever
The cold that came before
And the cold that comes after

Chill wind howls
All hearts dread

I see you watching
Your eyes sear craters in my flesh
I feel you always
I am writhing

I can see you watching
The hollow eyes sear craters in my flesh
I can feel you always
I am writhing

Watching
Always watching
The snare
Our curse

Flee with the sun

Your hand rests over mine
You're in every word that I've written
In every single line
You are in the wind when I listen

I feel your presence behind
In every step that I've taken
On every single path
I am writhing

Your hand rests over mine
You're in every word that I've written
In every single line
You are in the wind when I listen

I feel your presence behind
In every step that I've taken
On every single path
And I'm writhing

And I writhe
And I writhe

6. Contrapasso

The star's luminosity failing
All grey ash and ruin
Bathed in the light of their guttering waning
As if a world spilled from his heart's painting

No, please no
What have I wrought upon me?

Overflowing, I wander here still
Blackened feet drag through dust
Bound by shackles hung
With a stone of Sisyphean weight

No, I beg
This cannot be
Darkness claims me

A burden of proportions Biblical
In these dizzying plains of desolation
So in death, as you were in life
May the punishment fit the crime

The soundless scream still echoes with acrid winds
This tomb is of my own making
Their faces hang above me, a warning
They were dragged here, mourning
Toward my horizon, cold

No, please no
What have I wrought upon me?

No, I beg
This cannot be
Darkness claims me

They were dragged here, helpless
Toward my horizon, cold

I was never a person
I am a black hole

7. Abuse Ritual

They hang in their thousands
Suspended in paroxysm
In grotesque shapes and unnatural angles
Crying and laughing and they thrash as if drowning
Until agony rears through their bones and they crack
Strung out across this canopy
Ecstasy rolls eyes back
This black sanguine puppetry
Do my eyes deceive?

Mouths held wide by the chains
Drawn orgiastic and aghast
Become windows to self annihilation
The infinite veins of this howling tapestry
Its terrible shrieking choir

Rattles and coughs
Rasps and shakes
A thousand husks keening
Behold our congregation

Pray before the Altar of Needles
Worship in the Temple of Smoke

You will choke

All paths lead to the Garden
It is mapped in the fractures in the mirror

Pray before the Altar of Needles
Worship in the Temple of Smoke
Whine at the feet of Surrender
Smile all the while as you choke
Because we are in love with the pain
That we keep coming back to
Again and again and again

8. Parting Soliloquy

I watch you from across the lake
Where the waters remain forever still
I watch you from across the lake
Where the waters remain forever still

And I collapse to the bank still green
And scream hoarse with the whisper of the leaves
And you were bountiful then and I asked you why
Small, frail, dependent, I

Should have to watch you walk from the shoreline, grey
You smiled something about life and something about time
Something about the winding length of mine
How I'd be ready when it came to that day

But I am not
And every nerve recoils at the thought
That the vessels still remain but are filled with naught

A light switched off
A stopped clock
A loss
A light switched off
A stopped clock and a loss

Death, take me home
Death, take me home

The cloak flaps blackly
My fingers map the lines
Across the writing on your monuments
Of life and death and time
The cloak flaps blackly
My fingers map the lines
Across the writing on your monuments
I ponder the winding
Of life and death and time

And I hope to God the next passage on the waiting raft is mine
Please don't leave me here between life and death and time

Please don't leave me here
Please don't leave me here
Please don't leave me here
Please don't leave me here

Death, take me home
Death, take me home
Death, take me to the lake where the waters remain forever still

9. A Dying God Coming into Human Flesh

All is cold and frozen
Frozen the sea
Frozen the sky
Frozen is death
But I cannot die
Cannot die

As the snow falls
To cover this all
And all is cold
And cold, cold is all
All is cold, cold is all

Cold
Frozen
Frozen is Heaven and frozen is Hell
And I am dying in this living human shell

I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god

Frozen my heart
Frozen my soul
Frozen my love

I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god, coming into human flesh
I am a dying god, coming into human flesh

10. Crippled Before the Dwelling Place of God

I lay, torn and aghast, at the gates of the dwelling place of God

My body is broken
Every bone shattered against its rails
Every vein spilled across its towers
My blood flows in rivers with the grain

If I could cry still, I would
But all tears are spent
My mouth shudders the words I screamed
As I pounded on those unmoving doors
My silent lament

There is no greater Hell than isolation

And so as you were in life
You shall be in death
Alone within, alone without

In the eons, that echo twists and throbs
And coalesces beside the palest form of quivering
Outside the dwelling place of God
A crystal hand caresses his face
Closing the eyes of his unseeing frown

I felt that final kiss with lightning's crack
The echo reaches through time and space in the black
From that old room with the rope
As my vertebrae snaps







BLACK TONGUE LYRICS