Atop the savage mountain Aerie Zeus of the seared heart Bleeds golden drops of time On those running wild with the world Atop the savage mountain Sleep duplicitous demagogues Oblivious to the enkindled bolts Piercing vessels of the sky Atop the savage mountain The citadel awakens To the gaze of an incensed God Heaven's vault flooded with gilded mist Treading citrine grapes of wrath Crack the fucking sky! On rolling thunder A gleaming sceptre Empyrean crown The proclamation to lay their world to waste A surging tide of blackest terror Permeates every impious bone Foul reign expires, their time is spent Cultist reprobates hasten to their ploys Their deceit, their subversion, their fortune All for naught With dread hysteria Utter madness takes hold Head consumes the tail Lifeblood flows and stains the salted ground Spears of creation, alabaster lightning Impaling throats agape in horror As the hoarded riches of the miscreants Are turned to dust A thousand tongues, a thousand mouths A thousand voices pleading in despair Serpents of the proverbial garden Eyes rapt on the shards That scythe their bowels undone Strike! Temple of collusion, reduced to shattered ruin House of godless prayer, cleaved and torn asunder Draconian decrees, cast into the ravenous pyre Noxious rhetoric, tomes of disease Turned to windstrewn ash As embers fall to earth So does the amber rain Relentless Khronos Counts their doggone minutes Stumbling blind like maddened fools They set the world on fire Only now may Gaia convalesce... ~ ~ ~ Atop the savage mountain Beside the tranquil waters Sweet tears of Mnemosyne flow down To stir mankind awake Enshrine how the limb was severed How the monolith came to fall We razed the fucking earth To the augured edict of the king of kings Wingbeats of wordless judgement echo forever Through the immutable marbled atriums of time In these amaranthine halls of elation We shall sleep With adamantine chains of knowledge We shall persevere And be reborn in the pools of truth once more As water carries gold from the welkin to the sea Atop the savage mountain lies the key To the halcyon days of yore We must never let this fade Lest we drink from the river Lethe... In ceremonial proclivity the morrow lies in wait Crystalline visions of a certainty Long since spun by the stars Feed the earth with the blood of cloven tongue Feed the sky with the pyres of ignominy And Hades, O sweet Hades We shall feed you with the spineless The two-faced, and the damned And blackest Tartaros Awaits... for... you...

Doomed by fate to destruction in war Bound to fall by the fires of hate Neither prayer nor seed of the blood divine Will save your wretched dynasty from my spite Stood above the mutilated corpse she spoke From the flooded deserts of her sanguine mind And the blackest depths of her poisoned heart Of the spells and tinctures of her bitter, foaming Vehement vengeance Blossom and woodsmoke Spark of dog's blood Wasps drowned in wine Incarnadine whorls of Dionysos set me free The cruel malady grows sharper with the cure Convulsive paroxysm of pernicious misery Fastens wicked bones and quickens the blood like fire Lascivious sorceress of sinister creed Affliction of ancient breed Lost in laudanum dreams Overcome with rapacious desire she writhes In disheveled regalia, the threadbare cloak of passion Unfurled, defiled, ripped and torn to shreds In the light of a huntress moon Highborne sorceress ensnared in languid lust Submerged in incantations of a bittersweet decay Trapped in a vessel of valerian honey On the vesper of a jaundiced youth A zealous tryst warped into malice Awakened to the fragrance of deceit Her sibylline sight perceives the stronghold's secret Descending unseen into the deepest crypt of all To unearth the awful formulas Of everlasting somatic transubstantiation Firestone phoenix The fruit of dead trees Grand vizier's eye Unfading elixir, grant me everlasting life With nectar and idol in stride She reclaims the dawn Traversing the crimson sea Befouled with the blood of kings With each new rootless tree The progeny sleep in fear The realm is hers to plunder The scions are fair game Endless reign of strife At the hands of Scheherazade For lunacy knows no bounds When death is but a distant dream How fast the sobering aeons pass Now in grief she weeps For the burning absent essence of life To yearn from tarnished immortality For death's sweet certain embrace Hecate, queen of magick Of the moon, of the dusk, and of my plight Unburden me of my loathsome scarlet spells So that I may live to die Through velvet veils of violet dusk The queen of magick lends her trust To the wailing winds of solitude That the whimpering hellion radiates This petulant bitch has had her way With a thousand lives, a million days Discarded death in a fit of rage And only now repents Sodden in tears awaiting at the crossroads Two torches emerge and illuminate the night Attend to my words and fix them in your thoughts Acrimonious fiend I am not the Goddess of licentious intemperant whores Hemlock's shadow, amber-trapped myrrh Hadean broth, tears of Charybdis The finespun light of a dying star To unchain me from dervish lunacy One final anodyne hex To withstand life's trial unreproaching Dark cloak of Nyx, clairvoyance Coils of ancient manafire rain, immortal flesh She gave it all up to roam as mortal once more Obeisance to her queen, the God of magick She rides, with revitalized lust for life Cavorting in the second dawn Daydreaming the second dusk Whenever it may come to be As written in the waters of time And spun by the Moirai of fate... and death Scheherazade, you conquered your ghost In the flooded desert of your mind You drowned the cries of your own tainted soul In poignant severance And to the uttermost ends of the earth You will still be haunted by... me In the mirrors, in the fountains, in the meadows I shall be there In the boudoir, in your dreams Turned into nightmares Pulling you astray like a flood Rotting your resolve like a blight Sapping your spirit like a famine I shall be there, because revenge Is the Gods' most favoured game of all

"Rain, rain, dear Zeus On the ploughlands And on the fields of Attica."

Whitened by the bones of myriad men Crenellated ramparts all but laid to waste The city left ablaze vomits blackest smoke Weapons of the brave lie scattered in confusion Demeter's acres reddened with exuberant blood Babylon has fallen, Leptis Magna followed suit Under the ever-watchful emerald stars The harvest of Antioch has yet to be reaped And robbed... Indignation blazes forth In one black flash of venomous rage Gored by the horns of Fate To the north encloses the betrayer To the south the serpent writhes and constricts To the east the interloper With our backs against the western sea Ares riots unchecked in the sky Hark War God! Grant me your fire Let me ride with the ancients, die like a king Wrest our slender hope from death Arouse me, appease me, entertain me... Show me your worth! From the mangled earth With the spear of vindication And the armour of contempt Rise the fallen heroes Bloodied mouths dripping With hunger for reprise In earnest devotion the bulwarks are rebuilt The battlements refurnished, the palisades erect In steadfast patience and resolve they wait For the ghastly pale knives of attrition As the sky turns black Fusing ochre thunderclouds with sulphur Cataphracts stand aghast And archers peer in awe At the sight of the manafires Horizon engulfed with a deluge of incendiary rain In the saffron light of the tempest There shines a wall of steadfast bronze Exalted, the Gods pay heed Age-old scores to be settled, glory to be won Wagers to be made, bitter rivals undone The Pantheon holds their breath Artemis lends her bow Athena lends the Aegis Apollo grants one prayer And Poseidon heaves the earth And now the fateful day has at last arrived And yet that fateful day has turned to amber night But there still remains one unaccounted God The God of the brazen bull The God of the lightning bolt His schemes remain obscure His thoughts unsaid Meanwhile Antioch waits With no paean left unsung... ~ ~ ~ The battlefield trembles With the deafening glory of war cries The vanquished bite the hostile earth With cadaverous eyes The firestorm wanes Land rife with confrontation Avarice and spite Meet defiance of a nation Hoofbeats of Strife echo the realm While Discord strides in glee Robe all but rent, she spies... Choking forth red rivers of blood The king's dying breath Eyes rolling skyward, pleading... Phoebus Apollo, archer of Doom Grant me one last wish before I must die Ascend the sulphurous sky Strike into their raving godless eyes Leave them all fucking blind! Antioch, the sky now clears Great pyres are lit To send the dead to Elysium Amidst the smoke still stands unscathed The ornate pennant of Apollo, born of light Let their ruptured eyes endure engraved The God-seared sight Of the unbroken defender's spirit Ingrained forever The dust is settled, the battle is won The serpentine horde learns capitulation Hung from olive trees by their splendid bowels Blood-soaked remains left to nourish hallowed ground The clouds yield way to a sun-lit rain A purifying shower to cleanse the caustic taint Out of the ashes of the maelstrom The seedlings of rebirth now take hold In the pools of sweet rejuvenation For we bear the lifeblood of the gold Ichor divine Within the pulsing earth it seeps From the spilled amphora of rancour The essence of cupidity While once more conquered in ignominious defeat The eternal foe is but dormant To be drawn yet again from the well of vice Olympus erupts With the passion and the fury of the game The lauded conclusion reignites rivalries As flows angelic Ambrosia Thus enters Apollo Weary and bespattered with fresh gore With quiver spent, yet behind him With arrowed bolts in hand Stands magnanimous Zeus

Stranded on the reefs of time Clepsydra, turned to dust Shrouded within motes of starfire Threshing with the ancients Fawning with the spheres of the Sunwell Traversing deepest zenith rites Apparitions without number, ghosts without name The stars are just a fleeting atom's abyss away Dreadnoughts of the deathless gulf Thaumivores of fathomless hunger Procession of primordial conception A Colossus at the vanguard Undying crowns wrought of galvanizing plasma Endless blades of piercing chroma light Cloaked in a calyx of magisterial fire Are the heralds of Doom Hunters and beholders of the infinite truth Harbingers of the maw of life's destruction From beyond imperishable chasms Heed unto my call! When the clock strikes the hour Come to me, cohort of Oblivion Bring your godlike aura To flood this godless sky In quintessential conflagration I will set the fucking firmament ablaze Sovereigns of inviolate night Grant me your magnificent light Enter... Rigel, Vega, Procyon, Deneb Arcturus, Polaris, Canopus, Antares Castor and Pollux, Blinding Sirius Fairest Pleiades, Betelguese Assemble! Weapons drawn! Ignite this twilight with the sharpest spears Of annihilating radiant dawn Turn every snowlike cloud to ash And set every hillside tree alight With the purifying fires of renewal For in life, as in death we need The light, the light that sets us free Towering, engulfing... the Colossus So looms, the hand... of Orion The hunter's inexorable phosphorescence Unleashed upon the world Leaving desolation in its wake As all life turns to stone And the stone, melts into the mountains And the mountains, bleed into the sea And the sea, transmutes to Mercury Quiksilver, breathes life into the element of being Reborn anew in the acrid mists of creation In the ocean of Prometheus The archaic spirit takes hold once again From the surging tides of providential perspicacity From the purging winds of fate That destroy our spiteful enemies Enrich our soil with the opalescent sun Inspire our craft with the blood of the lustrous moon The velvet sky, and the stars above... Amidst the molten consummation There flickers the Hermean onyx orb Through which the stars were called In fervent sacrifice, by the nameless mage Now exalted with an ageless name Baptized through the purifying flames Aldebaran, ascends To merge with the stellar conclave The lava congeals and sighs The clouds revel and cry The ocean thrashes to life The lightning... strikes! In the aspect of the ancients On the threshold of the void Lies Khronos And the wheel forever groans Engraved in the coils of time In regal arrangement, a phalanx of stars A tribute of nectar for the Pantheon of old A feast for the Gods, the permanence of gold Celestial spheres of primeval lineage Seraphic arks of the thaumaturgic prisms The stage is set for reconfiguration Myrmidons in retrograde Cosmic wind Thermal pulse Astral dream Nuclear spirit Spellbound voyage ~ ~ ~ Remnants, lie in ruin Blackguards, fastened in decay Awaiting to conspire Shackled to the nexus Bound by streams of crushing entropy And should they ever break free Amidst deafening howls of infinity The congregation shall return In repose they breathe In deathless sleep they dream To illuminate With voracious fire they burn Scrying tempered zeal With ardent hearts they yearn To devour...

"Disgraceful if, in this life Where your body does not fail Your soul should fail you first."

Within shadows of dead dreams A bridge in ruin, a granite sky The blood of the mountain Comes alive In these caverns, hypnotizing iron heartbeat Feldspar whispers, amethyst eyes Firestone halls, veins of salt Cinder plumes of blackest pitch And the fallen shades engorged In katharsis with black Lycurgan broth Beside the bellows of the Demogorgon Of the Archaean lamp, lit by the embers of Malice He sees through your marrow The substance of your soul Your fears, every hesitant thought Your nerve, every ounce of resolve Your heart! On titan scales Weighed against the skeletons of angels How will you fare? From glorious hallways of bronze To the deepest gorge of odious unlight Beckons... the voice of the Demogorgon Marshal of Dread Hero! In the hindmost act of life You chewed the gory earth Set free your final breath Vanquished by the seventh head of Hydra To fall below, past the cenotaph Past the realm of Enceladus Past the monotonous black Stygian morass Typhon's spawn of Lernaean venom You dispatched me to a desolate world beneath Which world I do not know Imperious walls of caliginous zircon Despotic vaults of gore And the murmurs of a beast from the deep So the deep... is where I must sojourn Echoes, ghosts of sorrow, fleeting spectres of despair Light my path to black Oblivion Through vast stoneless graves Through fruitless orange groves Through bloodshot marble pillars Come visions of life's catechism With bountiful chalice now drained, how did you fare? In grace, in passion, in honour Beyond the corridors of time At the shrines of chimeric wonder The intractable custodian of Nihil Shall judge your depleted cryptic heart To be cast into the gaping maw of naught Or through the purifying furnace of rebirth... ~ ~ ~ The trial commences, the soma cascades A warrior in life, do battle in death With venom of the seventh head of Hydra Still coursing through the shadow of your veins Take shield, and spear The Arena Eternal, amphitheatre fit to enthrall a God A magnificent ornate Colosseum With circumference to accommodate the moon An audience of Gods and shades assembles With one Godess who intends to be enthralled For she made the seventh head of Hydra strike true And this, no ordinary hero The monstrous portcullis is raised for Talos Construct of radiant bronze and life-giving Ichor Learned hero savvy to Hephastean design Sends the bleeding giant plunging into the virgin ground Chimera! Unyielding fire from three dreadful heads A circling storm of searing flame sets the Arena ablaze Keen-eyed hero spies the smelting corpse of Talos The monster drowns in a fiery pool of molten bronze The Arena floods, there is no respite Loathsome Cetus looms above the boiling cobalt sea There is no trick, no Gorgon stratagem The warlike hero slays the great Leviathan Through Arete alone Vast portal, obsidian storms Gateways of unspeakable horror TYPHON The ground is rent, the soaring vaults are ruptured To the hulking stride and cadence of the son of Tartaros A hundred heads, a thousand raging storms Gargantuan piercing eyes, and voices black with terror Wreak havoc, wreak utter havoc On the flesh and the courage of the hero In crushing defeat he bites the earth One final taste before the void Halt! The voice of Hera... Typhon, recede to the abyss This man, shall be reborn For he strives for life like a God! The sagacious Demogorgon concedes And casts the heart into the furnace of rebirth... Destined to fail, no matter how blessed At the hands of abominable Typhon The wreckage of your flesh, still majestic in death Was judged by divine tribunal For defeat itself was the ultimate test The test of your volition to try On the crucible of Chaos Pouring infinite mists of Erebos Through the cauterizing flames of Aether I pronounce you, reborn... ~ ~ ~ I breathe... O sweet Zephyrous wind How unthinkable your absence O sweet rain and thunder How readily you purify Angelic petrychor, the dance of moonfire Aegean voyage, caress of Aphrodite And the greatest gift of all Hecatomb feasts and the roaring fields of war Worlds within worlds, spheres within spheres Eternal recurrence, the gift of Chthon Gladly surrender yourself to Clotho Let her spin your thread into whatever web she wills Wind blown from heaven, endure uncomplaining For everything is governed By frankincense and vitriol...