Before the Fading Tears…

A light I had seen in yonder years,
When the trees were green and the Sun was sweet.
Within my decrepit and decaying memories,
I oft saw its fading rays.
Of hope all but lost,
Of love changing to rust.
I dreamt not of rivers and hills,
But only felt the eternal suffering of existence.
Dragging my soul through burning grass,
I ended up in the hands of Mistrust.
Embracing darkness in my lifeless arms,
I rose to rule this frozen Earth.
But all was not what it seemed,
As Death awoke from its momentary sleep.
Enraged and bitter it sneered at my putrid feat,
The sky it bellowed with a deafening shriek.

Shrapnel of hatred perforated my withering cheeks,
And as I lay dying upon the ashen heath,
A sardonic laughter echoed through the mist.
It roared and roared until my ears started to ring,
And then in whispers most foul,
I heard its final verdict.
“Thy faceth judgement in this auspicious day,
I gave thee humanity but thy chose to be devoured by death.
But I being free from all malice and malevolence,
Will grant you thy final wish of salvation and eternal rest.
But beware for a moment my dear heron,
For having witnessed thy malicious intent,
My blessing thus will have its own twisted bend”.
And a blessing indeed it was which I did get,
Of perdition and solitary confinement.

The Voice from the Shadows

Come and sit beside me ye old mortals,
Let your dying God speak to thee,
I will tell ye all how thee come to such a state,
The story of thy pitiful remains.
It started when humans crawled above,
From their sepulchral graves,
And rested on their two decaying legs.
It is ye all who made thy Earth fall on her knees,
As thy slowly rose above the shadows,
That lay beside thee.

Mankind earned his ghastly gallows,
By deriving pleasure from his own miseries.
Killing and slaying all that stood in his way,
He lived to see the digging of his own grave.
Filling his puny self with abject abhorrence,
He spewed filth in a fitful rage.
In the ominous darkness that followed,
He severed his own pounding head.
Then he took that one fateful step,
And plunged into that eternal well.
Ricocheting from one wall to the other,
He plummeted into the never ending shaft
Of unfathomable suffering and hatred.
Destiny laughs at thy twisted Fate,
Makes a mockery of thy intellect.
And when thy pledged repentance,
And begged for forgiveness,
The Light above froze into Darkness,
And whispered, “Too late too late!”

Signs of Bloom

I have finally found out the truth behind happiness. Yes, it's simple. Yes, it's practical. Yes, everyone of us can be happy. So what is it? Simple:
GIVE UP!
Yes, give up your hopes. Live for the present. Live for each second you face. Don't look ahead in life. Give up hoping for things that you do not have. But don't give up dreaming! Therein lies the difference. Hope is expectation. What does expectation give us? Nothing but burns! It burns your mind. It dries up your sinews. It leaves you vacant eyed and thirsty. So stop it from overwhelming you.

But always be a dreamer. Dream everytime you go to sleep. Force yourself to dream the impossible. Dream of money laden trees, moving mountains, golden tear-drops from the heaven above. Relieve yourself of your earthly burden by dreaming. And best of all, you will never hurt anyone by dreaming!

The Fallen.

It seems I chose the path of a cynic on my own. My misanthropic sentiments and icosahedron nature causes much grief and destruction. It's a sickening feeling inside which surges out at times. I don't wan't to cause harm yet I do. I don't want to mix with anyone to cause further suffering yet I feel entangled. My malignancy causes much suffering. A pain for others to bear. Yet this thorn lives on to bring untold misery in the times that will come by. But everything dies. And so will this carginogenic existence. If I am of such grave disposition, let it come sooner. Let it engulf me and accept my embrace.

Abattoir of intellect

While playing Return to Castle Wolfenstein, I was whisked away momentarily into a trance to reflect on the fact that I really find this Nazi business enigmatic. It is quite possible that the Nazis, in all their hideousness, had secret projects to surmount humanity with new faces of horror. Did Hitler or his henchmen have connections with the occult? Though I am significantly ignorant of his biography, it is quite possible to have such links in that huge Reich of his. The game took away the whole of my imagination with such possibilites. In fact, these thoughts occurred to me first with Wolfenstein 3D. Its primitive graphics and haunting soundtrack encouraged me all the more to have vivid dreams (or, nightmares) dealing with this theme. Imagine a post apocalyptic world under his tyranny. He could have well been the unborn child of Satan, for his inhuman grit, determination and abject perspective on life hinted towards the supernatural.

Review of Tiamat's "A deeper kind of slumber"

What heals our snow-blind weary eyes

When all stars are slain by fiery skies

And every word upon your spiraling cross

Is but a misled sun, a bitter loss

There is sorrow in his eyes. There is pain in his shadows. There is grief in his voice. But Johan Edlund combines all of his suffering into sixty minutes of throbbing aural cataclysm. He starts gently. The first track, "Cold Seed" is almost upbeat. But dare not challenge his romanticism. For amidst the fast rhythmic post metal music lies words of deadly melancholy. He shows us a glimpse of his untiring attempts to break free from the vortex of doom. The "Depeche Mode" type synths add to the grumbling atmosphere, like the lull before a storm. And when the storm hits, it hits with a silent apocalyptic thunder.

The higly experimental sounds are scattered throughout the album. "Trillion Zillion Centipedes" and "The Desolate One" sound more like the intro track of a lounge album. The chanting vocals reminisce of Enigma but there is no slow buildup of ecstatic outburst like one would expect. The music trudges along at the same rhythm and the same beat like a prayer.

Floyd makes a comeback in the latter tracks starting with "Atlantis as a lover". The spacey, dreamy guitar work and soothing vocals remind you of the hallowed vocalists of the legendary band. Combined with neat ambient backdrops like the swishing of waves which make you feel as if you are sitting at the far end of a deserted beach on a silky black night, the tracks effortlessly teleport you into the sinister netherworlds hidden beyond the chasms of your mind.

"Only in my tears it lasts" is a gloomy archaic composition of love lost in the depths of time. It entices you to bring back those sad memories which nobody wants to bring back and then derives a sadistic pleasure once it does its job. The proof is there in the tears that come flowing from your organs of sight.

The best should come last and it is the last section of Tiamat's "A deeper kind of slumber" that shakes the very foundation of your emotional nerve rack. Ignore "The whores of Babylon" and you will enter the realm of sepulchral paradise. Starting with the timid instrumental "Kite", the heart wrenching "Phantasma De Luxe" will deluge you with neverending sorrow. There is immortality etched in the very words that whisper in your ears.

This dole crowner gallows me

As this mere welkin hallowed be

Whereupon I trick and train and tire

To limn my umbered love in fire

Before this noble mare bewrays

As I clearly see it decays

In debile coil of smoke suspires

If this is not enough, the grand finale, which is the title track, should finish you off with a thundering clasp of emotional drainage which will rob you off all your worldly desires. The poetic, grieving phrases combined with haunted synths cast a spell that cannot be negated. And it best you leave yourself in its wake. For it is futile to break away from the deep slumbering music of Tiamat.