(Instrumental)

What did you leave behind

One small clue from abstract pieces?

From a tangled web wound with loose thread

A single shred remains to form a thesis

What secrets were kept inside your head?

The final entry read: “Nothing of note, again”

This consistency of your non-existence seems

In and of itself a lead taken to the grave

As many ways to live as ways to grieve, to persevere

To endure seemed unconquerable

With so little written as words spoken, no keepsake tokens

This outcome deemed inevitable?

What impelled your cause beneath the surface?

What dwelled at the core? A sign of substance?

Traced last steps led down to the riverbed

Determined footprints pressed the silt in resignation

The Torridge took you, dragged you down and out of view

This ice-cold liquid tomb your final isolation

So much was left to give if a way was found to break through

To loose the noose and breathe again

With so little known as to how and why you took the path you chose

Undiscovered the truth remains

What impelled your cause beneath the surface?

What dwelled at the core? A sign of substance?

“The gentle breeze softly weaves

Through the swaying reeds about my feet

A magnolious scene, hauntingly serene

Such unopposed beauty beguiling me 

Becoming drawn to the clart slicked shore

With each step regret only enticing me more

All plights and strife an irrelevant gripe

Amidst the awe of nature’s unassailable might

Past victories, struggles and accomplishments

Washed away, great strides once made now a frantic wade

Cleansing waters douse egotistical pride

Proof of life isn’t living when it’s a mere facade…”

The cold light of day unveils the looming shadow close behind 

No exemption for the last one standing

With a sense of abject misery I feel the mask slip from my eyes

Night will fall upon us all in due course

What impells our cause beneath the surface?

What dwells at the core? A sign of substance?

Traced last steps led down to the riverbed

Determined footprints pressed the silt with apprehension

The Torridge took you, dragged you down and out of view

This ice-cold liquid tomb our final destination

Standing here the reach of the rushing river seems

As if to beckon me like a siren from the deep

The Torridge drag begins to snap about my shins

Creeping fear sets in too late to breathe again

Swept by the undertow never to surface…

The creeping evening shadows seep in

Dusk envelops her visage

Prognosticating this sickening night

The deepened breathing and maddened seething

An imminent eruption implied

By the red mist clouding furious eyes…

Hammered shattered life

A horror at Riverside

The toll of the truth comes too soon to intrude

Through the static impeding his brain

Scrambled, the signal stuck on white noise

Relentless tinnitus screaming in waves

Clarity comes clear for a second surveying

The fallout from this chaotic wake

Dismayed it retreats with seismic heaves

Vomitous sights far too much to intake

Awakening slowly

The pieces now falling in place

With the Biddiblak blindspot dissolving

Horrific epiphany

The dawning thought takes hold at last

Kaleidoscopic until this moment

An impressionist piece left at his feet

With a signature marking the art

The creator revealed in crimson, congealed

His own hands and the tool that they clasp

Aghast! He screams!

Conceding familiar stylings

(Each wound limning his vast malfeasance)

In shock he sees

This accurate depiction of their “Love”

(No fitful “short fuse”, quinquagenarius abuse)

The end for them

As bleak as the violent beginnings…

(He sneaks one last peek at his foul artistry)

At last he grieves

With sirens enclosing around him

(Her final pleas endlessly repeating

Over and over again…)

Peaceful nothingness shattered by a rude awakening

Snapped from the calming void flickering function saunters in…

The sudden feel of falling an intrusion through the mist

Sweat dampened sheets clung tightly restrictive like long lost memories

The still of night seems damning, judgement already cast

Fractured cracks of truth revealing once buried secrets now unearthed

It comes and it goes...

Golden leaves furbelowing dank silt

Brisk September air breathes its comforting chill

A picturesque scene set by the dying light

Concealing this soon to be unresolved cold case crime

A vow made beneath gazing harvest moon

Sole witness to this grim conclusion

Parting ways, never to speak again

Our secret confined to this sodden, shallow grave

Midst safety of the shadows evading prying lunar beams

Thoughts cannot be gathered whilst admixed with distant dreams…

Changing seasons slowly bringing with them crushing guilt

Wherein every sleepless second felt as if the walls were closing in

Time ticked by so slowly as months trickled into years

Decades scrubbing at “the Dirt” yet the stains refuse to yield

It comes and it goes…

Rainfall heightening the dire mood

Barely visible through the mist-veiled gloom

An overgrown marsh overcome and disused

Fittingly forgotten as with all the Biddiblak morass consumes

Digging down through mire and twisted weeds

Tension tightening with every mounting heap

‘Til daybreak where the evidence remains

Never to be dredged from this wholly fictitious grave

All those years spent silently screaming

Fabrication of the mind, haunting obsession

A life WAS stolen by these soiled hands

Yet only my own, this self-condemnation…

Sunrise, a sight for sore eyes

So long lost in the dark place between “dead” and “alive”

Relieved to cross the line, there and back again

Free from self constructed guilt and unfathomable, unbearable shame

Released from the gnawing mind-trap snare

The beginning of the end for this sempiternal nightmare

Acquitted at last, rid of these wretched chains

Returning only with a bouquet for this solely hypothetical grave

Nebulous shape in the night

A figure approaching the bed

Neath the sheets eyes shut tight

Silence perfected and then

Brace for the end...

Wrenched from hypnopompic state to a new nightmare

The feeling of falling hits hard like the cold floor

Flailing limbs, with no end in sight

A Biddiblak spell cast o’er the moon

Curled into foetal position, instinctually freezing

The dull thud of future bruising barely registering

Bleeding lip, broken bedside light

Glass bejewelled palms anticipate the next move

Crawling for the safety of the ensuite’s artificial glare

Momentary sanctuary, effulgence just ahead

Slam the door and bolt it, back against the tiled wall

Vibrations shake the foundations, enough to hold or will it fall?

“When will this cease?”

Whispered thoughts before sudden jarring peace...

Privily sneaking from refuge to survey

The aftermath barely lit by waning lunar beams

Blood spattered splinters and shattered chattels

The set dressing for this desolate scene

No sign of the predator remains

In the shadowy depths waiting to pounce again?

A path of destruction left in its wake

Passing debris with haste like dawn's burgeoning rays

Reaching the freedom of the outside world

A blast of fresh air stinging more than whilom assaults

The trail ahead framing a form in the road

Laying motionless face down exanimate on the asphalt

The carcass pained, a frothing rabid animal

Contorted expression of ineffable suffering

Consumed by a seizure, a sudden demise

Lifeless husk softly bathed ‘midst the fresh morning haze...

(Instrumental)

Darkened room, barely lit

Voiceless words seeping deeply in

Resounding through an empty chamber

A fire kindled, roaring later

Fuel poured on by passers-by

Sneering provocateurs disguised as allies

Planting seeds to watch the garden “grow”

Nurturing weeds, inculcation harrowed

Now imbued, through and through

Biddiblak infused fermented fruitless rubes

Once groomed, in full bloom

A hive, mindless horde embracing empty platitudes

Fallacies forged by duplicitous sources

A whole new breed of “feeders” serving venomous courses

Taunting from the safety of anonymities fortress

Gawking in the shadows, apathetic, remorseless

A familiar tale throughout the passage of time

Snake oil to sell miracle ointment for the malleable kind

Thunder rumbling betwixt lightning strikes

A swelling storm of bilious nescient blight

Dangerous prey played for fools by slithering leeches

The bluntest tools weaponised as legion

The noose tightens

‘round the throats of the easily fooled

Set loose only to lose

Pawns waiting in line for the clarion call

Dogs of war unleashed, rabid, raring to bite

Fed pathetic rhetoric by the conspiratorially inclined

Twisting threadbare screws of poisoned simple minds

Past breaking point to where grim “vengeance” thrives

Latest weapon unsheathed, perfervid, frothing, it seethes

The bloody trail it smears steeping all beneath keening Keyham skies

These wounds, deepened grooves

Carved into the world by pious barbarous fools

Who choose to elude basic truths

Favouring long abandoned putrescent views

This terrifying trend toward a new Dark Age

A willful return to ignorance brandished, unashamed

Death cult in the making, sweeping rancour in vogue

Delusional. The usual. And so the story goes.

A familiar tale throughout the passage of time

Far beyond the pale, oceans of blood devour distant horizons…

Sleepwalking through the months

Gathering dust in a fuguelike silent state

Plummeting through the motions

In freefall, downward, out of phase

Lost in thoughtless moments

Swarmed by an endless burning inner hum

Incomprehensible, inconsolable

Palpitations, numbness, blunt

Ebullient fragments flash behind blank eyes

Was it worth it at the cost of a torturous mind?

Ever veering into Biddiblak deep dark waters

Dreading the onslaught certain to follow

Weakened by the wrought out relentless plight

(The bitter truth once swallowed leaves little desire)

Belittling residual musings of old

Struggling to remember and to let go

Caught unawares between crushed dreams

And a reality far worse than ever feared

In stasis chilled to the frostbitten core

Frozen by the notion of enduring one more thaw

It remains a long way back…

Another awe inspiring glimpse of morning

Piercing through the dissipating mist

Shattering the maudlin lens

A breath of fresh air gasped again

Ebullient fragments flash behind blank eyes

Is it worth it at the cost of a further decline?

A momentary lapse of judgement doused

In volatile fuel for future fires to engulf

Breached once more despite the warning signs

Shrugging off the shudders, pure madness defined

A payment across the palm paid in full with fool’s gold

Endeavouring to surrender the self to let go

Ebullient fragments flash behind blank eyes

Waning in the wake of another brief respite

Now drowning in Biddiblak pitch dark sorrow

Relieved to reach the maw of this final tomorrow

Crumbling into a clearing with a view across the sea

Beyond the twisted boughs and autumnal leaves

Sifting scarce comforting thoughts of old

Ready to remember and to let go

“Child was born beneath tempestuous skies

Cursed with heartless beady Biddiblak eyes…”

Far too late to change

Scorched earth still aflame

This loathsome path engaged

From cradle to awaiting grave…

Unbalanced from an early age

Ever lunging at the leash

With foaming bit champed at

A dire misfire at the neuromuscular junction

Disrupting any chance of fueling regular function

A constant buzzing, erratic nature

Frozen from a future where a thaw could break through

Utterly inescapable but what efforts were made?

Each opportunity given another chance for disdain

A tragic and terrifying tale

Seemingly insurmountable

From the very beginning

Chasing mange ridden tail in flailing circle motions

No miracle cure, no magic potions

Unflinchingly Antagonistically

Belligerently igniting every volatile keg

Under influence from constant ghastly surroundings

Painting darker shades with a toneless pallet

She was raised to consume hatred

Fed on destruction she will stop at nothing…

Mounting decades of waste

All consuming rage

Her strident gait unchanged

Fuming furnace unabated…

(Guiltless…)

A dreaded diagnosis stops the world before her eyes

Blood coughed once in disbelief now a scarlet tinted sign

Never more perturbed, never more stillness found

Than in this rattled skull so famished for connection, for common ground

Nothing.

The loneliest vale performed by empty orchestra

Silent fanfare deafening, echoing throughout the suffocating air…

Reality bites a fatal visceral chunk

As storm clouds settle overhead

Yet she’ll still find time, aggressively primed

To kick and scream toward the bitter end

She will court chaos ‘til her last breath…

Unbalanced, ever off-kilter

Trudging through the misery

With crooked glance fixed on

Distributing malice every step of the way

Fated force of nature, primal, untamed

A fiery blaze, a hellish reign

Broken, jagged pieces scattered in her vengeful wake

Utterly unstoppable, a thunderous roar

Unleashed upon the world, pure vessel of scorn

A rabid gnashing snarl

Snapping ever more viciously

With darting eyes set on

Chasing the dragon in a permanent daze

‘Neath a pungent fug of sulphurous, bilious haze

Repeatedly, unyieldingly

Remorselessly disruptive in unbridled tidal waves

Under influence from a self prophetic existence

Dredging the depths for danker mires to plummet

Counting down the seconds

As the chimes begin to toll

Substance pouring freely

From bloodshot eyes and junk-rot nose

Slipping fast as colour fades

Cogitation setting in

Poring through the pages

Of the past for salvation

Blank and stained with time

Dust coated, mould-damped grime

No answers nor forgiveness

No clarity of mind…

Nothing.

Smur begins to fall, lightly passive spits

The gentlest touch she’d ever know

Her loosening grip (a former iron fist)

Can only hold on for so long…

(Instrumental)