SILENT PLANET LYRICS

1. Inherit The Earth

After the fire, after the rain [1]
After the sacred kissed the profane -
When you came and left again
Such a captivating pain
After that night I left my comfort
To find where your body lies
I'd wander upon this grave then fall...
I'd fall inside

I searched the clearing for that spark
Hands sifted through the ash -
Knowing what we felt was real
But some delusions never pass. [2]
So I took shelter in the woods
With the naked shaking trees:
Deciduous, fraternal twins
We're both wilted, stem and leaf
Then the mist turned sleet into snow;
My senses shook numb, I've nothing to show
But a rain – stained book that once contained
My literary charades:
New blots of ink, archetypal shapes and shades
Bleed through each and every page. [3]
And I ask myself:
What's the weight of my life on the scales of eternity?

We inherit the earth, [4] we inherit the war
I inhabit the wound, I dwell in the harm
Oh how far we fall: [5] We're casualties of time
Oh how far we fall: Begin to forgive existence

Retreat back from reaching trees
When a frigid shadow climbs inside of me [6] -
That specter of recompense -
It's a sound I've heard ever since

Amidst the endless mortal strife
And the constantly dying light [7]
The truth we felt from the start:
"How can I hold myself together when everything falls apart?"

We inherit the earth, we inherit the war
I inhabit the wound, I dwell in the harm
Oh how far we fall: We're casualties of time
Oh how far we fall: Forgive existence

I wandered upon the alter of human intervention [8]
An exhibition of erudition
Find me here, Son of Man. [9]
How far we fall...

[1 Hours after the events of Depths II.
2 My human condition.
3 Found within this booklet.
4 Matthew 5:5.
5 René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightening.
6 Pre-language/Pre-Babel (Genesis 11:1-9).
7 Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.
8 The Panopticon (A Creation of Jeremy Bentham).
9 Mark 14:62.]

2. Psychescape

I sank down the plane of delusion
It's vast expanses mocked my advances, and bid me,
“Oh fragile mind, you will learn how to fracture.”
Scrawled across the walls the suffering saint cries out,
“Is it madness to retreat from the myopic gaze[1] that holds us captive?”[2]

Follow me, I'll take you to the edge of reason
Fall with me[3], we'll make a home in our delusion
I split my mind[4] ten thousand times, but in every world there's no exit
No exit.[5]

No madness in a dream[6] - no walls surround me to keep me safe
The straight line you draw for me:
So perfect, so pure.
Untie me from reality
When every word is falling from your mouth, don't let it become your escape.

Make an escape from the monolith[7]; scale the lies of material despondency
I waited on the tracks of reason, but my train of thought it never came, it never came.[8]

The straight line you draw for me:
So perfect, so pure; so perfect, so pure.

I'd change the world but I can't change myself.
I saw you shout at the shadows.[9]
I'd change the world but I'm chained to myself.
Define paranoia[10]

Follow me, I'll take you to the edge of reason
Fall with me… but could the lips of God grace a withered fruit?[11][12]

[1 George Orwell, "Nineteen Eighty-Four".
2 Frantz Fanon, "The Wretched of the Earth".
3 Søren Kiekegaard, "The Concept of Anxiety".
4 R.D. Laing, "The Divided Self".
5 Jean-Paul Sartre, "No Exit".
6 John Nash, "A Beautiful Mind".
7 Michel Foucault, "Discipline and Punish".
8 I had an encounter a man suffering from delusions in Penn Station, NYC He was fixated on a particular train coming, one that seemed wholly fictional from my perspective.
9 Albert Camus, "The Stranger".
10 R.D. Laing, "The Politics of Experience".
11 Matthew 21:19.
12 Schizophrenia is a long-term, complex medical illness.]

3. Dying In Circles

Beside the shadow of a frozen chapel, under the marriage of the cross and crown [1], outside the privilege of the "chosen ones", the Image of God [2] is sleeping on the ground

Spires pierce the sky like steel through your hands, [3]
Planks from our eyes [4] plunged in your side
Water poured out [5] but we want wine
You said, "Take and remember" [6], but we always forget

To the outcast sons, [7] to the sojourners - descendants of loss
I'll hold my breath until you can breathe
To truly live I must begin anew and be consumed. [8]
Make a heart of flesh from these hollow stones
I'm learning what it means to trade my certainty for awe

When you fell to your knees to wash my feet did you see the trampled shadows stained underneath? [9]
Did you hear the acrimony, perpetuated by the puppet sewn to the pulpit? [10]
We forgot your life and became a people of death: Spell-bound by the celibate spectacle, inhabiting mausoleums. [11]

We are the eulogy at the funeral of God [12]
To the outcast sons, to the sojourners [13] -
Descendants of loss: be consumed. I'll hold my breath
To truly live we must begin anew

Trade your certainty for awe

[1 Greg Byrd, The Myth of a Christian Nation.
2 A Homeless Mother.
3 Isaiah 53:5.
4 Luke 6:42.
5 John 19:34.
6 1 Corinthians 11:25.
7 Isaiah 56:8.
8 Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World.
9 Native Blood.
10 Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell Jr. and Other Religious Figures Coopted by Cultural and Political Forces.
11 Matthew 23:27.
12 Zao, Funeral of God.
13 To read about a radically beautiful approach to faith, check out: sojo.net.]

4. Understanding Love As Loss

Searching for solace in a toxic temple; [1] fragments of lead climbing through your head; [2] stones load your coat as you wade through the winter current - dancing with the dead on the riverbed; [3] wanton hanging of the wise pale king. [4]
And I see myself. [5]

Here we dream in a bed of seamless sleep
The rain never wakes you from your descent
Sinking through subtle waves that disguise the current down below. You're pulled in the undertow. [6]
Intricate: I watched the world dance inside your head
Ephemeral: everything created must expire
Misery: Losing hope for a dying world, or did we lose hope in ourselves, my ineffable?

Words lose sound with every fathom, further down

Torn between two worlds - floundering in a state of metaxis. [7]
One is waning one is dead. In both we feel too much...
We feel too much

Intricate: I watched the world dance inside your head
Ephemeral: everything created must expire
Misery: Losing hope for a dying world, or did we lose hope in ourselves, my ineffable?

Most nights we merge into one dream; you mouth that four word sundering - soundless, but somehow deafening, "I can't go on."
I'll strain my voice to make you relent, but the tide holds me in my dissent
We're bound to each other in the undertow
You were my ineffable. [8]

[1 The suicide of Sylvia Plath.
2 The suicide of Ernest Hemingway.
3 The suicide of Virginia Woolf.
4 The suicide of David Foster Wallace.
5 Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity.
6 Depression.
7 Plato, Symposium.
8 If you or a loved one are experiencing suicidal thoughts, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24 hours, 7 days a week: 1 (800) 273-8255. If you think you may be experiencing depression, tell your loved ones and seek professional help. It's not your fault that you feel this way, and trust us, things can get better.]

5. Tout Comprendre

[Instrumental]

6. Panic Room

Lustrous lines obscured by opaque blinds -
frozen metacarpals tap tap tap the window glass.
Syncopated staccatos with the broken clock
synchronized with my post-traumatic ticks ticks -
talking to the space in the room that echoes back indiscernibly
to my disconnected self/self -
it's self-consuming, what's ensuing is my undoing -
the nightly casualty of war. [1]

And it sounds like this: War, endless war.

In my endless dance with entropy
I must rescind my sentience,
the sickness that I know. [2]
Rearrange the disarray of disintegrated senses -
puzzle pieces, spectral splinters of a soldier's worn and tattered soul.
In my endless dance with entropy
I must rescind my sentience,
the sickness that I know.

Machines of air looking down on us [3] -
the beasts of dust as we grapple heel and hand, [4]
mud and sand, (blood red oil) [5]
the chaff of the harvest [6]
converted to currencies of wealthy means,
stepping stones cut from our perforated bones.
Riches are reaped beside our bodies sown just to be thrown back again
and forgotten if we stumble in,
laid inside a homeless nest, [7]
stuck with eager dirty needles, [8]
shipped to an early steeple where boxes close,
descend with grace as you defend yourself -
both charitable and chaste. [9]
Praise me for my valor, lay me on a crimson tower -
justify my endless terror as my "finest hour." [10]
Treat me as a token to deceive the child
whom we fatten for this scapegoat slaughter. [11]

I learned to fight; I learned to kill;
I learned to steal; I learned that none of this is real.
None of this is real.
None of this is real.
None of this is real.

But there's a war inside my head.

Beleaguered by my breathing – choking, screaming, heaving.
Time drags me back to the desert.
This is war:
A child stumbles from the wreckage holding his salvation -
the trigger to cessation – to end us all.
I took a life that takes mine,
every quiet moment we collapse.
Have you forsaken us? [12]
All the darkness comes alive. [13]
Take my hand, drag me to the void. [14][15]

[1 Soldiers who have shared post-war experiences with us, especially Jeriel Clark.
2 Come Wind, Come Weather, A Flood Strong Enough to Consume the House.
3 The Drone Army of The United States.
4 Genesis 25:26.
5 Michael Klare, Blood and Oil.
6 Isaiah 33:11.
7 Between 1/4 1/2 of chronically homeless males in America are veterans.
8 Aaron Glantz, The War Comes Home.
9 Jerry Falwell and a number of other evangelical voices advocating "pro-war" positions.
10 Winston Churchill.
11 Leviticus 016:010.
12 Matthew 27:46.
13 Rodney Ascher, The Nightmare.
14 PTSD and related disorders due to combat stress often go overlooked as soldiers reintegrate into general society. Please visit and get involved at: rebootrecovery.com.
15 This song was inspired by the testimony of our friend, Jeriel Clark, and is dedicated to every listener who has experienced the horrors of armed conflict. We love you, we are thankful for you.]

7. REDIVIDEЯ

"I am autonomous," You told Father
First immortal, but now fleeting
All creation reveals me about this said time, called death, cursed the reverse
All we bought was brokenness -
That shelter of illusion

You see me see You splitting myself even
There is me, forgiving nothing, manic then depressive - hopelessly sinking
Sister Moon, Brother Sun eclipsed one another, forgiving one another

Tides receding

Death ran away then life flooded in world
This I am: Imbalanced, beautifully so
Hands connected, perhaps...
Then dead reflections saw You
I did, didn't I?

I didn't, did I?
You saw reflections dead then
Perhaps, connected hands...
So beautifully Imbalanced: Am I this world?
In flooded life then away ran Death

Receding tides

Another one forgiving, another one eclipsed, Sun Brother, Moon Sister
Sinking helplessly - depressive then manic, nothing forgiving me is there even myself, splitting? You see me see You

Illusion of shelter: That brokenness was bought, "we all reverse the cursed death called time," said this about me
Reveals creation, all - fleeting, now, but immortal. First
Father told you, "Autonomous am I."

8. Nervosa

Look straight through me – look at the nightmare. Our past is but a dream that we're trying to escape,[1] trying to evade to erase ourselves. Look through me and see the advent of our obsessions.[2] Behold, your child, perfection – a rotting shell of atrophy

Watching: Crowds like crows, we furiously flock to tragedy; observe the hurt then hasten back to our peaceful, quiet nests of blasphemy
Scapegoat: Rather die and know,[3] drag your failing body in tow – witnessing the wake, conflagrate the ready oil at the stake
Binging: The culmination of purging what our lusts have borne. We hoarded all the world to find we'd lost any semblance of ourselves.[4]

This dying dance

I am not my own reflection. I am not myself, I am not myself. No, I am haunted by a non-existent Lover: The spectre, the ghost, the soul-starving host.[5] I am haunted by a non-existent lover

I was gifted with the vision, but cursed to be the witness.[6]

I'll be pale to match the walls and warped to trace the beams; flushed to fit across the floor so you can step right over me. Scouring this filthy slate these crooked bones they won't break straight – cracked and splintered like our house, upended by that first summer
squall

Fading: so thin, you could snap me into the shape you need – gaunt enough to slide through that wedding dress. Then stitch me to a fraying matrimony embalmed inside a never-ending ceremony.[7]

I am not my own reflection. I am not myself, I am not myself. No, I am haunted by a non-existent Lover: The spectre, the ghost, the soul-starving host. I am haunted by a non-existent lover

I was gifted with the vision but cursed to be the witness

Invisible to me… invisible to me… invisible to me[8]

[1 James Joyce, Ulysses.
2 Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Currency.
3 Genesis 2:17.
4 Matthew 16:26.
5 "Ana".
6 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex.
7 Anorexia is the most deadly psychiatric disorder with an estimated mortality rate of 5.86.
8 If you or a loved one is experiencing eating disorders, please get help immediately.
For more information, visit: www.nationaleatingdisorders.org.]

9. C'est Tout Pardonner

[Instrumental]

10. Orphan

Respective perspectives worshiping directives - blindly killing for our dogma,[1] until our sons meet in the garden.[2] Torches scald the night sky; the youth rise up and set their elders to the gallows.[3] Fire in the lighthouse: All our advances, a spark away from
conflagration.

In the night I saw you fall, oh wicked star,[4] illuminate our hate, show us who we really are.

Books were burned away - only swords remained.[5] The prophets died for peace, stabbed by preying priests. As the wise man said I'll keep my heart and lose my head.[6] Without a neck how can I sink with a millstone to the bottom of the sea?[7] The bottom of the sea - and
I’m finding the violence - it looks like me.

Singing songs of life when all we know is death.[8] A world of orphans[9] left empty-handed. If love’s a sin I’ll become a heretic.

Recurring intervention:[10] Framing the narrative to cleanse our tainted conscience.[11]
Harvesting destruction: Reaping the sow from weapons planted in the soil.[12]

Terrified little son, encumbered by your sword, you can hide your fear but won’t shed the sheer weight of your own humanity - humanity. You can face me towards the mountains[13] where I meet our Mother’s gaze.[14] Too blinded by this hatred to recognize your brother’s
face.[15]

Singing songs of life when all we know is death. A world of orphans left empty-handed.

I’ll collapse - head parting from my weary shoulders - seeds of life spilling from my palms.[16] Subverting love[17] will take hold in this hateful soil; my blood is the water. Inshallah, Shalom. Love will take hold.

[1 The clash of violent Jihadists and western imperialism.
2 The Fertile Crescent.
3 The most common, and often overlooked, victims of violent Jihad are peaceful Muslims.
4 Luke 10:18.
5 The United States has dropped 20,000 bombs in Iraq and Syria in the last year.
6 Mark 6:14-29.
7 Luke 17:2.
8 Shane Claiborne, Jesus for President.
9 Over one billion children are currently experiencing deprivation of basic needs.
10 Noam Chomsky, Failed States.
11 Stanley Hauerwas, War and the American Difference.
12 Iran-Contra affair (1985-1987) and more current instances of Western supply of weapons to unstable regions for means of political and economic capital.
13 Golgotha.
14 Acts 7:54-60.
15 The twins, torn apart by war, reunite - one the prisoner, one the executioner.
16 Tertullian, Apologeticus.
17 John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus.]

11. No Place To Breathe

I saw you stumble out from the social slaughter house, oppression's progeny, you lift your head and plead for mercy. Rocks began as building blocks until they turned to throwing stones; a monolith of dominance we set atop your plinth of bones.[1]

This privilege[2] is a prism, reflecting our indecision, the iniquities of inhibition, our indifference gave way to a prison.[3] Classes at war,[4] castes are born – criminals are sworn in.[5]

Place your hands to the pulse of this city,[6] keep your ear to the ground, hear her gasp, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe."[7]

Are we so blind to believe that violence could give birth to peace?[8]

Lay down our weapons and raise our arms.[9] Make every breath a protest in a world where your neighbors cannot breathe. Every second in the shadows,[10] lives are stolen in the sun – slowly waking from our apathy to see the fascists have won. They already won – just ask
the child in front of the smoking gun.[11]

Are we so blind to believe that violence could give birth to peace?

Place your hands to the pulse of this city, keep your ear to the ground, hear him gasp, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe."[12]
We shout at fascist[13] hands fixed on asphyxiating those in need. Place your hands to the pulse of this city, keep your ear to the ground, hear her gasp, "I can't breathe, I can't breathe."[14]

Are we so blind to believe that violence could give birth to peace?

I've seen the end, the tyrant on his knees.[15] Will we starve our need for retribution, or take his eye and all go blind?[16][17]

[1 Michel Foulcault, Discipline and Punish.
2 Allan G. Johnson, Privilege, Power, and Difference.
3 Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow.
4 Noam Chomsky, Class Warfare.
5 Several past and near-future presidents of the United States of America.
6 Blackstar, Respiration ft. Common.
7 Eric Garner in Staten Island, NYC on July 17, 2014.
8 Matthew 26:52.
9 Isaiah 2:4.
10 Walter Brueggemann, Out of Babylon.
11 Countless children who have been victims of both gang and police shootings, who have been disproportionately ethnic minorities and in lower socioeconomic areas of USA.
12 Hernan Jaramillo in Oakland, CA on July 8, 2013.
13 Donald J. Trump.
14 Kelly Thomas in Fullerton, CA on July 5, 2011.
15 Sic Semper Tyrannis.
16 "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" – commonly attributed to Mahatma Gandhi.
17 For more information on social inequality and systemic incarceration please visit: Equal Justice Initiative at www.eji.org. An excellent community resource for inner-city African American families: www.aapci.org.]

12. First Father

Do you remember when I said you'd never feel the sting of death?[1] But now I'm waiting where you left, beside that snow-kissed clearing.[2]

I pressed a seed through that frozen fleece, the earth embraced you in the ground. No invention of my mind will ever compose a melody so profound. I'm a priest afraid to pray,[3] terrified at what the silence couldn't say – tongue tethered to the skeptic beating in my
chest

We're no longer quite ourselves nor reflections of someone else. Lover, do you feel that tension as we drift between silence and eternity? Death is the road…road to awe.[4] I stood atop the world, it's asymmetry laid bare in front of me: Thanatophobic societies taking
life to mourn their tragedies

I feared this world would never change, but you steady your resolve anyway. Let's set the pen against the sword.[5] How orphans long for peace before they learn to love the war! Perhaps it's our language,[6] perhaps we are incomplete. Words like shadows to what we see:
Faint flickerings across the cavern in our minds.[7] Candles in the dark,[8] defiant to the night

"You pulled me through time",[9] through the edgeless night.[10] I learned to love as you learned to die. I'll begin to feel again and finish the chapter you couldn't write

Candles in the dark, defiant to the night – defiant to the shadow. You pull me through time, through the edgeless night. I learned to love as you learned to die.[11]

[1 1 Corinthians 15:55
2 Present Tom in Act II of The Fountain.
3 Past Tomas in Act I of The Fountain.
4 Darren Aronofsky, The Fountain.
5 Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Richelieu.
6 Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks.
7 Plato, Republic.
8 Matsuo Basho, Basho's Death Poem.
9 Future Tommy in Act III of The Fountain.
10 Frank Bidart, The Third Hour of the Night.
11 If you are experiencing grief and feel isolated, we encourage you to share your experiences. "Heart Support" is an organization we are personally invested in, and it may be a helpful resource if you are tired of struggling alone. You can find them here: www.heartsupport.com.]

13. Inhabit The Wound

My son, my son[1] borne from the war. We trade shovels for swords.[2] My son, my son, inherit the earth,[3] inhabit the wound

Oh how far we fall… we fall.[4]

My love, my love[5] captive to lusts: consumed. My love, my love buried beneath the vile machine.[6]

The earth with a final gasp shook free from our inventions. Grace and nature[7] reconciled I heard, "It is finished." The final seal was broken, the concussion blew me back – I teetered on the edge of re-creation and the wrath. Nine Lovers stumbled out from their shells
of brokenness, they reached inside their wounds to find the seeds borne from their suffering. Coalesce upon me to plant the tree of life inside the heart of the machine.[8] Reach inside – heal the wound – make us whole.[10]

[1 The generation who will follow us (the Nine Lovers).
2 Reversal of Isaiah 2:4 and the Wasteland (Vechnost) narrative.
3 Matthew 5:5.
4 René Girard, I See Satan Fall Like Lightning.
5 You, the reader.
6 Tower of Babel.
7 Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life.
8 Revelation 22:2.
9 The center of the Panopticon.
10 The Deluge, Come Wind, Come Weather.]







SILENT PLANET LYRICS