[when fire reigns down]

Scorching the shoulders of the white ox chosen to open up communication and satiate the heavens
Bone cracking, splitting
Answer-inscripted messaging
Comb through the mutilation for favor-stated directives
Pray for rainfall to collect and feed the harvest
Extend the seeded gardens so extensively cathartic
Disease and hardship, accessories to darkness, spark the energy regarded as necessity for progress
Flesh eventually discarded with memories and breath, just the destiny imparted
Undress to seek a pardoning, some harmony
Leveraging an arm twist
Armor-plate a heart that’s just essentially a target
Preventively incarcerate and measure the love
Weigh it out against the settling dust or feathers of doves
Under pressings of the emperor’s glove
It’s like we’re all just always waiting for a death from above
We build these temples to shelter us from the wrath of the gods
Sending a rain of flames and ash before they ask for applause
Another day, another cattle to prod, slaughter and offer up
Off the cuff with conquer
Lost in battles abroad
Staff and a rod against a firestorm
The type of war tyrants aspire for
Ripe to find a course to acquire more
In spite of morals, fight the warnings of former kings
Torturing
Poisoning
Courting all these morbid things
And scorn will sing across the strings of dissenting throats
Tempting the ghosts ascending and still swinging from every note
Silk spun to a heavy cloak for the vision
Inventing hope amidst the broken
Symbols of empty growth
Jaded gemstones
Ceremonial shrouding only allowing sight to the godly kin of the sword
Pain echoes in barren, holy surroundings
Closely following light to the origin of the form

Those skies just keep on smiling down so we keep our spirits up
Fall to our knees
Bow heads
Give thanks

Fire to cleanse the altar as the storm returns
Reminders of the end
All of us are born to burn
The torture turns to tears that irrigate fear and hate
A mirrored fate adjacent to a near-escape gated
Delirious durations painted in sacred blends
Hopping from blade to blade along a serrated edge
Now make amends
Pray to the dead for direction
Beg for protection as the flames send redemption

[voices rise from ruins]

{young boy}
"I’m just a child
I don’t really do much but smile and watch my family fall one by one once in a while
I hear the bang and first wonder what is to celebrate?
I can’t tell what’s fake from the brightest flash that could quell my faith
Heard of western ways taught to me at lesson A
But when it escalates why is it with our breath we pay?
Swept away in the river right past the silk worms
Built for the conflict
After impact our stance is still firm
Burn with strength from a distant time
Staring at the stars like our ancestors but somehow they’ve all been misaligned
Poisoned and modified
The cloth is tied on all our eyes
The hand that once provided now a mouth to ostracize
They burnt the flesh off my family’s bones and laughed
In a sovereign tone they spoke in a breath all our homes were ash
We cry to the point of exhaustion and hold our losses in
The toxic mix emitted now controls our oxygen”

{young man}
"Can we coax the gods to give a flowing wash of winds before we slowly fall within the open jaws that gnaw and scar and rip apart with sharpened saws for grins, so stark and grim?"

{old man}
"Offer up the alter for the power that our fathers give!"

{young girl}
"Hang reliance from the highest cherry blossom limb
Paint a silent place to hide behind a docile grin”

{young woman}
"It’s fairly obvious we’ve positively got to dig down to where the fossils sleep, take all the grief and drop it in"

{old woman}
"But the colossal grip clenches to the monuments
Making product of sorrow
Audible fraudulence”

Prompt the audience to lynch up their disbelief

{sage}
"History repeats within the cause and the consequence"

An awful stench creeps from the caverns
Chaperoning shadows
Got to keep lit the lantern
Sequenced patterns of frequent disaster
Seasoned malfeasance
Allegiance to grandeur

Heavy hand on powder-keg
Tell me how you move without your legs
Residing in the dark
Life is lost
The tyrant talks
The eyes all drop

[distant auburn oversight]

Watching the trees drip amber in remembrance
Scavenging ruins for a scattering of semblance

Fall on the blade
Attempt redress of disrepair

If you don’t like it, burn it down
If you despise it, burn it down
If it upsets you, burn it down
If it objects to you, burn it to the ground

Removing and consuming the wings of butterflies; and throwing the rest high into the open sky

Let it reign
Prey for weather change