BETHLEHEM LYRICS

1. The Eleventh Commandment

[Music by Bartsch/Matton January '93]
[Poems by Bartsch December '92]

When the dark lord told me to live
I felt the raised lust of possession

afterwards the death yell of an impaled nineye
gotten through my dutiful ears

I had to think of all the lost creatures
which strived of their existence
in the streaming of my black blood

nocturnal shadows, which glorified
the resurrection like trumpets
offered me the right way into hopelessness
enlighten my path into inaccessible license

2. Apocalyptic Dance

[Music by Bartsch November '93]
[Poems by Bartsch November '93]

In coldness of my dark bowel
a yell after mercilessness
bequeaths a trace of eternal destruction
to my decency

Uneven throbbing shadowfire
streams with raised melancholy
through twisted channels
of my forbode grief

In the black storms
of my mental agony
the deliverance ripens
in form of a godless dusk
The faceless ancient
grasps with stony miming
into the cradle of mercy
and severs the blood stained flag

But still it seems to me
that the lightbringer
spreads a shining shroud
over the shadow being
of an owl which died in chains

As the rock in me bursts asunder
the round dance of the colouring
grows up in my twilight

3. Second Coming

[Music by Bartsch/Matton March '93]
[Poems by Bartsch February '93]

Black hopelessness
venoms the hidden unholiness
of your withered virgin

speechless remonstration
grinds the arches
of your risen dominion

dark superstition
drinks coagulated blood
of your blasphemic lust

the age of the glorified god
yields to a cold endlessness
which, with vivid stiffness
awaits my resignation

the second coming
the faceless lash
in the unholiness
of my destination

4. Vargtimmen

[Music by Bartsch/Matton December '92]
[Poems by Bartsch November '93]

The banished sorrow
buried in aurora
causes lifeless emotion
in the flame of my faded heart

If dead life immerses in dawn
and the shade of my schism
is to be lost into brightened blackness
death will be the only redemption

5. 3rd Nocturnal Prayer

[Music: Bartsch/Matton '92]
[Lyrics: Classen, May '92]

Welcome to the slaughter
Bleeding bodies lying on the floor
Destructed corpses on the ground
And death stands behind the doors

Bestial saviour of the undead legions arise
And the unholy resurrection of evil omen
Of the black priest, the seven satanic rituals

Lucifer's vengeance is here
Sons of Satan born in a fire
And your fucking death is clear

The slaughterhouse in evil hell
The Christs are in never ending endless pain
In the land where Satan fell
And the evil demons rang the Sabbath bell.

6. Funereal Owlblood

[Music by Matton September '93]
[Poems by Bartsch September '93]

The night grows pale
as with faint wing stroke
the cradle of decay
emerges from the ruins of reason

the roaring silence
sinks under the new trial
which escapes with speechless ardor
into decline

i tasted the morning dew
on a withered leaf
and forgot the acrimonious unrest
which awoke during the moon-shine

coz' only me is the frame and the blood
and i open your door into autumn

7. Veiled Irreligion

[Music by Matton November '92]
[Poems by Bartsch October '92]

Desire's my saying
Final's my appearance
Care-worn's my glance
Apathetic's my devotion

through yearning rises
out of deep dark chasm
up to deceased brightness
with the original power of life

a black feathered bird
trips softly in the surge
a last sunbeam illuminates
in a bleeden darkness

8. Gepriesen Sei Der Untergang

[Written by Bartsch]

Durch unglückselige Weiten
einer unbefleckten Sonnenferne
schreitet langsam Fußes
das letzte Sakrament, bereit,
die Tür zu öffnen,
welche das Vergessen
in seiner glorreichen Allwissenheit
meiner sterblichen Leere offenbart

Es ist nicht die Asche
welche auf mein Haupt regnet
es ist viel mehr
die gekreuzigte Verdammnis
welche der Wiederkehr
meiner filigranen Unrast entsagt

Hoch am dämmrigen Firmament
erklimmt meine Geduld
die Versagung meiner frühen Söhne

Denn ich bin das Geleit
der erhabene Schönheit
des Todes.

[English translation:]

[Praised be the downfall]

Through treacherous vastness
of an untouched distant sun
slowly striding on foot
the last sacrament, readily
Opens the door,
To Obliveon
in its glorious omniscience
revealing my empty mortality

It isn't the ashes
Which rains upon my head
But rather
The confused damnation
That reconsiders
My renounced restless filigree

High on the dawning firmament
Climbs my patience
Denying my early repentance

For I am the guardian
of exalted beauty
of death

9. Supplementary Exegesis

[Music: Matton, September '92]
[Lyrics: Bartsch, August '92]

The shriek blockaded machinery
Tears me away in this very moment
Deep dark night embraces me like a casket
Black rain cauterizes the protecting surface

It's not only one which fulfills me with fear
There are lots of like a mask
For each situation another countenance
Like cadaverous fire it overcasts my being

I can't see the course any longer
Death is no expectation
Truth is broken in mediocrity
And in there repeatedly rituals

I got the crushing perception
Of my own insignificance

The marmoraccon angel
Offers me an occult smile
But I only see the mourning
And the dissociation in it's eyes

It's not the religion which delivers me
Like a ship in the deep black sea
It's the animalistic abyss
A really flowing stream perverted desire

I could show my paradise
But you won't understand
I could snatch the blindness away from you
And you would perish with me

10. Wintermute

[Music: Matton/Bartsch, December '92]
[Lyrics: Bartsch, November '92]

Produced from the maelstrom of neglection
My nocturnal prayer died away in the unreality of a never-ending happiness
"My prayer...?"
"Died away in eternity!"

If there's live before death
It's not for me
Who spreads his dark cold pinion
Over the eternal silence
Of a gnawed frosty winter landscape
"My prayer...?"
"Died away in eternity!"

The answer of the mystery
Which is put into my hands
Is the unholy property of a longest forgotten insufficiency
Which built on rusty pillars
Indulges in sensuality to the morbid repulsiveness of ruin
"And what moves there in the shadow?"
"It's your image!"
"Who calls there in the mirror?"
"It's your comprehension!"

Unrestlessness whispering appearances
Shatter the frail ear
Which escapes with the folly of an unconcerned remonstration
Up through black dirt into the light







BETHLEHEM LYRICS