There's a golden sunset in my head.
I go there when the music swells,
I go there when the nights are dead,
I go there when I think of Hell.
I smile at what is evil,
And spew laughter at the hearse.
The sunset skews my vision,
And I had thought that it made me worse.

I try to draw the golden water,
So that maybe you could drink it to.
I try to describe its every contour,
To try and give the sun to you.
For the sunset's in the car chase,
The sunset's in the bar,
The sunset's for the horsemen,
And all the stories that went too far.

I paint these savage pictures,
That never seem to catch the light.
And I marvel at my failure,
With bitter re-reads in the night.
But the sun is still there setting,
And there's time to catch it yet.
Even these words have escaped me,
But I can always try again I guess.

The sun splitting stones, he'd never been this cold
A traipse in a daze, he was what he was, and he was what he owned
All angles perfect, signal all systems go
A rushed scrawl of penance, you'll understand, don't we all in the end?
Knows the drawer, but draws them all
Watches, letters and diaries fall and scatter, his charge in amongst it all
Little thought then did he give to what they'd find
As he inclined the .45 to blow his mind

We'd been walking for an age,
Stone by passing stone
We passed ever onward,
Towards our end
Here will do, came the call,
It brimmed with confidence
But it came from, God knows who.
The shadows shift to greet the day,
The shovels drift through seas of waste.
We've struggled here, me and you.
Now fight the earth, and raise this tomb.
But who is speaking?
Where from do they call?
Why was I beckoned here?
Am I really here at all?
Its all so facile!
A predictable jaunt!
It was all called from day one,
Now there's just the motions to evoke.

The dirt brushed steel finds the reaches of the deep
You'd seek to sleep, had you earned your rest
Yet among cartoon images and plastic sets
I think you'll find, you were at your best
To the dark, to the dark,
You stride with beaming smile into the reach
As if to deprive, yet no one would ever seek
Why scrawl in a corner, what do you hope to yield?
Listen now boy, the dirt is all there is
Bow your head and conceal your task
We'll hit rock bottom and you'll sleep at last.

He was climbing a mountain.
There was, but a moment ago, the soft sound of summer thunder,
And the tender drift of curling winds.
A voice, that knew no constraint of time or place.
It spoke as if it had always done so, as if it were all at once memory and potential.
Its sentence had no end, its syllables outlasting empires.
It made him pang for the world he once new.
But it was far away, for now,
He was climbing a mountain.

Upon the way,  one traveler found another
One took refuge from the climb, his hands bloodied, his will broken
The other sat perched on a cliff edge, never facing his cohort, never truly meeting
The climb is far from easy, called the ****** man.
Come, let us eat together and tend our wounds.
The man of the cliff did not answer, not immediately.
His gaze was fixed upon the implacable horizon,
Its forms were grains of reality, blowing across the plains of perception
To look at one was to see no other, for this is how it is.
"We do not wound," he answered at the last.

Will you not face me, called the man with bandaged hands
That shifting sky is nothing but the wastes of life
The knowledge it holds is not for us to know
For we are the ones who climb.
The cliff's man remained silent, for he grew weary of climbers
You are not the first he thought, and you surely will not be the last
For the climbers had minds for not but the mountain
They are born to seek its peak.
Before him were the storms of life
Where beings of light roared across the world
Their lives ended within a blink
Each one, shimmering like unclouded stars against the silky black of night
Each a triumph of failure, for even in death no fall awaited them
They knew only ascent
Perhaps that was what the climbers sought?
Perhaps they wished to be as they?
But the cliff, he knew, was the end of all things
Its precipice, the boundary of the divine
It was the only true ascent, it was all that he could crave.
The climber had lingered here long enough
And it was time to send him on his way
"We do not hear the Nightingale."

The man with the mended will had no time for puzzles
To the sands with you, may the winds take you to your beloved rifts of chance
There's a mountain that needs climbing, for why else is it here?
Whilst you are betroth to destiny's stir, to the sky's delight,
I have known the beauty of her touch, the loving warmth of her breath
She is not to be watched, she is to be held, to be kissed, to be yours.
He turned his back to the cliff and its watchman
He had been sated by his stay, but it would be folly to remain
He was climbing a mountain

A Hero standing tall on a backstreet, wondering,
Wondering what it takes to make the kingdom come
Hammered on his fists beneath the sign of his Devil
How'd it come to be that all the wise ones fall?
They had to reach out for peace before the madman
Come to think, what if all his words is how the truth comes home

A hero's falling down, but a stumble, just a shake
Blame is all that ever seems to find his door
Casting out his hand for the weary, has to ask
Why did you ever think that she had lived at all?
Marching up the trail to the enemy's sanctum
Grace and glory cease beneath redemption's call

Stung by the sea in a search for flaming wings
An island awake and so far from alone
Set out for three upon a violent churning sea
How'd it come to be that he could find but one?
Escaping from the mist in a shadow, moving cliffs
Baring south, where oh where have the shining Jewels gone?

Rhythmic pumping
Concealed in a dream
A riff of rifts
Ascend to the heavens
The solo shatters the sky
The angels cease to sing
A surge of sudden grace
A dancing maelstrom of melody
A wicked, hellish pace
I'm lost
So joyously lost
The solo bites with beauty
Treble rules all
Treble tones in treble time
Though they'll say its all based in bass
Majesty spews forth when six little strings
Oscillate

You've got no earthly talents
No hint of substance here
Alone is your method
You've got so much to fear.
Beneath shuffling footsteps
Worlds contort and shear
The cracks appear to show you
Recede and die right there.

Blurry sight, the danger heightens
Tears you apart to see
Just what laughs as you stumble?
These veins of destiny.
The night stalks, and it will find you
Paint a smile for the enemy
Washed clean as you're drowning
There's nothing left to see

Wake up! The cycle's turning
Attracted by sweet sin
All of this, it's all but fleeting
Forever trapped, you'll never win
A weighted hand holds your comfort
This time you'll see within
Who'd have guessed the hate that's in you?
Held just beneath the skin.