1. |
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I awake to the sound of crashing waves.
“Take the kiss upon the brow,
and in parting from you now,
thus much let me avow,
you are not wrong who deem
that my days have been a dream.
Yet if hope has flown away,
in a night or in a day,
in a vision or in none,
is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem,
is but a dream within a dream.”
What is written will remain until the final hour, until the final day.
Bound by prophecy.
(with excerpts from Edgar Allan Poe’s "A Dream Within a Dream")
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2. |
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First they broke my bones,
then they filled them in,
a ferromagnetic skeleton.
They broke my bones, they filled them in,
with a matter more able to withstand.
For the first time in my life I began to feel the universe alive, the essence of being.
Still I wanted more.
With this altered state of being I could quench my thirst.
(always wanting more)
Magnetic imprinations across the universe,
any limitation for myself would be absurd,
I will use this to:
Cut the stone, build the bricks,
then we can rebuild.
Cut my flesh, tear my skin,
break my bones, refill.
Stitch me up, mend the seams,
now forget, reseal.
Wake me up from my dreams,
a past life, revealed.
A bastard son, torn between two worlds,
I am just a sketch, a drawing in the third.
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3. |
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“I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?”
I awake to the sound of crashing waves,
no sense of purpose, out of place, out of name.
There is only the sky and earth below me,
the sea stretched in my vision, seemed an eternity.
When will this madness end?
As soon as I become conscious sleep returns again.
(with excerpts from Edgar Allan Poe’s "A Dream Within a Dream")
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4. |
Solipsist
04:28
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“Cogito ergo sum,” I think therefore I am.
Break the seal, release the damned.
Flowing forth from my being a cosmic energy radiates.
All I’ve ever known is lost, no sense of purpose, no fight for cause.
~
Remission to reality, fills a space in my mind.
Consciously unaware of the life I left behind.
Break the seal, release the dam.
I am lost in a world of fragments.
Break the seal, release the dam,
welling up inside me is my personal hell.
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5. |
Penance/Oppression
05:34
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Penance:
The clock has stopped, the game’s begun,
There are no new tricks under this sun.
Long is the line for the gallows,
in the air is an uneasy calm
as passerbys witness the deaths of loved ones.
Their former princes and knights
not deemed worth their lives.
Now realizing the magnitude of the price of their crimes,
they will now seek the light at the end of the tunnel.
They fear for their lives.
Nobility speaks, “Was the sacrifice of our king not enough?
You would have the rivers flow with royal blood?
Where would your lives be
without us set above?
Without us who clothed and fed you,
without us who satiate your pleasures, your lusts?
Did you not live comfortable lives?
I hope you suffer as we turn to dust.”
Oppression:
Destined to kill me, the immortal man must face his demons, take them in hand.
Facilitation of the apocalypse: the savior will not hold out against the temptation of a brand new world.
He will be the catalyst.
He will see his palace falter , crumble to ash and bricks,
Previously a place of worship, now rubble, insignificant.
Biological disposition turns priests to peasants.
As the sun sets, changes will pass upon the land and in the head of the immortal man.
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6. |
Possession
06:53
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Layeos the alchemist lies lifeless before me,
hands clasped upon his chest, what is it he’s holding?
It seems to be a manuscript, title etched in gold,
with turbulent hand I open the alchemist manifesto:
Colors swirling, my head spins.
Pages turned from within parrallel dimensions.
Welcome home!
Exit the dwelling of the mage,
Staticity in perception is changed.
What’s written will remain,
they say until the end of time,
voices speak of unknown things,
they’re waking up inside, screaming:
“All I want to do is leave this life,
For something new, for something I’ve not felt.
I digress…we are you,
Entrapped in a psychoactive prison from the beginning.”
Shown to me, a world torn, broken buildings, every field scorched.
Arising in a cloudless sky, a sun with a shadow haunted,
Signs of the impending wake we will face after the carnage.
Of these things I’m certain. All will be tossed into a furnace.
The end, so it began.
SICKENING GLOW PERMEATED THE MIST
ITS MARK UPON THIS WORLD, CANCEROUS
THEY TOLD US IT WAS HEALTHY
THEY TOLD US IT WAS PURE
NOW WE DEAL WITH THE PLAGUE,
ALAS! THERE IS NO CURE.
“Here is the manual that will teach you to bend,
the fabric of space-time itself,
but be warned you are not in control,
you are beyond our help.”
I inscribe, save all their lives,
prevent Noctifer from triumph,
will you sacrifice your very life,
for those who decay in silence?
For this is the price that we pay for immortality.
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7. |
City in the Sea
05:41
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Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently —
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free —
Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls —
Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls —
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers —
Up many and many a marvelous shrine
Whose wreathéd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in the air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye —
Not the gaily-jeweled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass —
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea —
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave — there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide —
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow —
The hours are breathing faint and low —
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
(Lyrics taken from "City in the Sea" by Edgar Allan Poe)
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8. |
Dawn
12:39
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A gaping hole and a stillness in the room,
Through this portal a world is being entombed.
We tried to close it off, we tried to shut it down,
but the rip in the pattern refused to be unfound.
Couldn’t keep it contained though we made an attempt.
No blend of alchemy was proven effective.
“But why should we fret?” said one of the Guild,
“We could be gods, after all.
We have the control to create what we wish!
What could possibly oppose us?
we could be gods.
Recreate the world in our image.”
Our eyes wander throughout the room, not sure what to say
One by one we gave consent, it made so much sense in that moment
it was unanimous, a decision to rip it apart and render it again,
make reality of our vision. A perfect world.
Now begin the process: tear apart, terraform
write the world as we see fit.
Control their minds and attention,
use the power of their worship.
Torn apart. Terraformed.
Reverse entropic fields enforce the borders,
between the fiction and what’s real.
Reality written by hand.
But in creating a new world, we made our own god-damned.
The pattern bleeds beyond the cracks in a fractured sky,
This world will be born again, this earth now dies.
How foolish were we to think that we could corrupt the space-time continuum.
For an endless year each evening brings the same sight,
Sun setting in the sky,
it's not normal anymore,
instead a pair of crescent horns,
the color of blood so bright.
Our caravan traces burnt roads,
our souls weary, our feet tired.
Nothing in this wasteland is left unburnt by the fire.
Yet here we are.
If we cut the stone, build it into bricks,
it might be possible to rebuild.
If we find the immortal man,
as he wanders to no end,
he might take mercy on us,
help us build the bricks.
So that our children and the generations to come
will find comfort underneath the crescent sun.
Or he could just kill us all.
Finish the job and wash his hands clean.
He’s not human anymore, so we will see
if there will be forgiveness.
No forgiveness. No second chance.
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9. |
Dusk
09:18
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“Fall into my disaster,
sink down to the depths!
dive within this dream I’ve built
before the great collapse
Final Setting of the Crescent Sun, by its fall at night my work is done.
And when it’s through I will be satisfied,
for ruining such selfish lives.
Don’t question the reasons why I had to leave you all alone,
Don’t plan ahead too far, my path is a winding road.
I speak with sincerity. All you love, and all you keep,
will be ripped, torn, taken away.
What’s written will remain.
As I decide, so it is.
A perfect life will soon exist.
Fall into my disaster, now that it’s begun
Fill the skies with blood of martyrs for the Crescent Sun.
Beautiful the sight, an image so pristine, so pure.
Sacrifice the immortal, he might not die but he can burn.
Acid deteriorates the gift cells from the bone,
taking the pain away, leaving the soul.”
They broke my bones,
then they filled them in,
now they take it all away,
I begin again.
The sun shines down, warm on my face
a primary sensation I can trace.
Then a second, so loud a clamor,
Within the pauses I hear the unheard.
Crashing waves, a sound so clear, distinctly familiar.
In my gut, in my bones, I know I’ve been here before.
All that we see, all that we seem is but a dream within a dream.
What’s written will remain until we clean the slate.
Then all is clear in that instant, I remember this time.
Just the calling of the birds is enough to break the silence.
My sense of urgency is gone, the clock has stopped.
How long have I been lost? I must return.
There is life in this place like I’ve not seen
Through my infinite dreams, my endless sleep.
So beautiful the sight, an image so pristine,
I sense a turning of pages with growing of leaves.
I awake to crashing waves.
I awake.
My eyes are open.
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The Collective Unconscious Morehead City, North Carolina
Based around common musical interests and a passion for being creative, The Collective Unconscious blends a stream-of- consciousness music style with a conceptual narrative. The Placebo Effect EP, self-recorded in a home studio, is our first attempt at making an engaging auditory experience. Free downloads encouraged, we hope you enjoy. Thanks for listening! ... more
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