CAGLIOSTRO

Another song

 

Patient as a stone...

He stands on ivory towers

He watches for signs of the builders

We all hear him shrieking...

Not yet high enough

Never strong enough

How long until these walls

Come tumbling down again?

Mad captains of industry

Gather round the fire and whisper

The stories we all know

About the way forward

The storms wrack distant land

So tuck in safe and hold my hand

And I'll sing you bedtime tales

Of the man waiting at Heaven's door

Their iron bells do split the ground

Calling all the angels down

To confound this progress

And shatter all our languages

Still, he rises from the ashes

Still, he rises up from the deep

We all hear him shrieking...

Not yet high enough

Never strong enough

How long until these walls

Come tumbling down again?

He stands on ivory towers

He watches for signs of the builders

A pious, maddened incarnation

Of nature given to ambition

Not yet high enough

Never strong enough

How long until this spindle

Breaks through the celestium?

Hold on tight and come with me

To see the twisted wreck

Conjured in the mind's eye

Of the way leading forward

The steel drips and scorches skin

Of the eunuchs and the journeymen

A-burning for this task

He lays before them

A confabulation of pride and bone

Rises from foundations of fragile stone

And here they come to smash it down

And throw the pieces to the ground

Still, he rises from the ashes

Still, he rises up from the deep

We feel him screaming in our fingertips...

Never high enough

Never strong enough

How long until these walls

Come tumbling down again?

He stands on ivory towers

He watches for signs of the builders

The world's last unhinged magician

Determined to pluck down

The stars from Heaven

A witness to this tragic scene

I hear he fell from the mezzanine

And yet he stands before the walls

Of thine own kingdom

Still screaming:

Rage against the laws of divine justice

Rise up from the earth we were made of

You may crush all our fortresses

And steal all our words

But we hunger for the sky

Our hearts are too bloody

To ever be satisfied

Patient as a stone...

Patient as a stone...

We rise up from the deep

Not yet high enough

Never strong enough

How long until these walls

Come tumbling down again?

He stands on ivory towers

He watches for signs of the builders

A monument to limitless vision

Of the fires of nature given ambition

Not yet high enough

Never strong enough

How long will we wait until

We break the gates open?

Patient as a stone

He stands on ivory towers

Patient as a stone

He watches for signs of the builders

Patient as a stone

He falters for no man

A beacon to light the way home

Not yet high enough

Light the way home

Not yet strong enough

Light the way home

How long until...

YOU CAN HEAR HIM SHRIEKING!

Author's Note

This is part of a series, including Prospero and Harlequin & Columbine, with more to follow. The larger concept, though I'm sure it exists, has yet to make itself apparent.

Reviews

[Legion]

I knew that man! Bravo on an enchanting piece. The ascension of man (men) has always been a fascination of mine. A piece you might find interesting of mine is called "Some Things in the Shapes of Men". Although that is actually about the descension of man (men), but I think you might like it. Anyway, Rick Puetter suggested this to me and glad he did. Kudos to you. Well done. Could be a song with the way you wrote this. Bravo.

[Brad]

this was eerie, i like the build up on it, but you captured the reader spot on from the first line