Heart in hand passed to the clasp of pain   In a dark lowland that set bad blood in veins   Burning, like penal fires roused stain   The jagged-toothed skyline braced with crosses      The golden dawn   Lay lost to mist where   Emboldened thorns   Made their bed with toppled stones      He closed His eyes   Sunken to dream there   OF crow-black skies   And a great white empty throne   Horror stalked the bilious fogs   That balked His vision      He licked the spittle from the cheeks of the wry   And drifted back to when His stung it's target   The sneer of Michael on a glorious high   Of angel dust and Virtue by His side      Drowning in the past   That downfall seemed like yesterday   Though blurred moons passed   As enemies in high places laughed      Moved to mirrors cracked with heavy lines   He rose snowblind, though shifting sands of time   Erased the trace and taste of bitter wines   The grapes of wrath grew fat on the vine      She came to him   A little whip of tantrums   Thrashed on velvet skins   That lined Her wishbone Henge      Her name as Sin   A warming spurt of mantras   Splashed on occult tongues   That whispered sweet revenge      For the shame of their crawl from grace   Cold and hollow as the grave      And for the rape and a ruinous scourge   Spared for souls that had shared God's worship   For now their throats coated notes with dirge   That poured from parapets to the pits below      Drowning in the past   A wretched scream like yesterday   Died at last   With the rising of the revenant dark      All sharpened claws and blunt discharge      "I shall bow no more to the dogs of the Lord   Tearing at my carcass heart   I shall fall to my knees only at the keyholes   Of Virtue slipping into bondage masks...      Freewill made me better to reign in Hell"      And with new wings   Unfurled and spoken   He took the things   That would desecrate the world      The seduction of both woman and man   For a bastard masterplan      Drowning out the past   Fool Fates unwound cruel yesterdays   Beneath the stars   That staggered from the blast