The Ballad Of Arthur Quixote

(with apologies to Don Quixote)

I've grown too weak to cope with this world
Or is it that I've never actually tried?
All that I can recollect in my short time here
Is that I've spent much too long trying to hide (and I don't mind)

From rational though and critical thinking
It's just too easy to numb the pain of being alive
And let the rest of the world do the thinking for me
So that I can focus on remaining blind (and I don't mind)

Blind to everything around me because thinking is for fools
Better to be spoon-fed my ideals and convictions
Brainwashing is underrated, keep feeding me lies
Just keep it black and white and don't clutter me with distinctions (I don't mind)

Are you ready for your hero?
Are you ready for your hero?
Are you ready for my ego?

So the time has finally come for me to fight for what's right.
Who cares if I'm right, 'cause I've got a right
To stand on my pedestal and point to the sky
And become the moral compass you've always denied

All for love of the Empire!

This Hero's Conquest of mine is a good fight,
Only because I said so, and I'm never wrong
And I can feel the world slowly changing for the better
With my patriotic four AM songs

All for love of the Empire!

Watch me as I don my self-righteous cape,
Stained with blood, cocaine, and glue
To champion a kingdom I know nothing about,
Only to defend what they've fed me as true (I don't mind)

I waiver no more; my path golden bricks
From the delusions I insist I must follow
It matters not that I still suck the teat
Of the complacent, the ignorant, and the shallow (I don't mind)

Do not dare to oppose me
I shall speak in tongues where truths are but whores
And your own feeble words meant to question me
Will be construed as an act of domestic war

Are you threatened yet?
Are you threatened yet?

As I strike you down with my ox-blooded boots
While insisting that my love for you is pure
With compassion, I shall hold you at knife-point
Until you learn that my facts are your cure

Are you threatened yet?
Are you threatened yet?

Now is the time...
Now is the time!

I've thrown down my gauntlet as a challenge
And I'm calling you out for your evil deeds
If you cannot agree with my self-righteousness
I will love you from afar as my sworn enemy

All for love of the Empire!

On my island of truth I'd rather you drown
I demand that you respect the sacrifices I've made
Once I thrust my righteous sword into your neck
I'll walk past my pedestal and spit on your grave

All for love of the Empire!

Identity Crisis

Pathetic little thing
Even you have no clue who in the hell you really are
Self-esteem permanently scarred.

High on the throne
Everyone else has the problem, certainly not you
You’re too busy stroking the ego you’ve fueled

Simply being there for you is impossible
Which version of you am I friends with today?
You’re content with leading your own identity astray.

As you pull yourself around
One fanatical obsession after the next
Ignore the wake you leave behind and the lives you have wrecked.

Forgotten Justice

Loretta Lewis
Ernestine Patterson
Kristin Lopez
Whitnei Dubois
Laconia Brown
Crystal Zeno
Brittney Gary
Necole Guillory
Keoshia Felix

Were they not the darling children of your hipster scene?
When they went missing did you simply forget to care?
Where was your outrage? How about your sympathy?
Didn’t see you plastering "MISSING" signs anywhere.

Blatant selective justice has never been more obvious.
As we revel in complacency, their killers still stand tall.
No closure for their loved ones or the community.
Not that it really matters to you after all.

So they led dangerous lifestyles on the fringe of right and wrong.
So they didn’t have the “looks” or the popularity.
Does that condemn them to a lack of simple sympathy?
Does that condemn them to your lack of utter empathy?

Condemned To The Shadows

Condemned to the shadows
For who I am inside
Didn’t ask to be so different
Why should I have to hide

A fear of what comes next
If I reveal what I’m about
Too hard to keep it locked up inside
Yet shunned if I come out

Why is acceptance so hard to achieve?
For something as simple as what I am and believe
What I feel as right is refused or denied
Never your equal, no matter how I try

Kawakami

Sound of disaster filling the air

Rest in peace
Kawakami

Cries and loss filling the air

Rest in peace
Kawakami

Destruction and madness filling the air

Rest in peace
Kawakami

Haven't We Learned?

Do you even care
That thousands point at you every second of the day
Deliverers of death
For generations yet to come with a poison here to stay
A button does it all
War pigs never change and it’s only gotten worse
As it was before
Sound off the alarm and be ready with the hearse

This is our reality
Harbinger of death
Awaiting Armageddon
Take your final breath

Are they so blind to repeat the past?
How can they deny the world of a future?

Thirty-thousand strong
And they’re pointed at you
A deadly game of chess
What’s a pawn to do?

Are they so blind to repeat the past?
How can they deny the world of a future?

Over & Over

Resorting to violence, but that’s nothing new
Means to an end, who cares for the truth?
You’d keep on fighting ‘til the world burns to death
But you don’t even care… you don’t even care

Over and over
Wars built on lies
Over and over
You just can’t stop…
When will you realize?

Creating new conflicts to play your war games
Bigger and better ways to lay waste
Brainwash your masses to join in the cause
Imprison anyone who thinks your policies are flawed

Over and over
Wars built on lies
Over and over
We’ve got to make it stop…
When will you realize?

Over and over and over and over...

Violence, death, living hell
Nothing left but remnants of humanity’s shell
Armageddon, final breath
Watching the destruction and awaiting your own death

Over and over
Wars built on lies
Over and over
It’s finally got to stop…
When will you realize?

Small Minds

Small minds
Get left behind
When reason and logic
Are thrown aside

Vomiting empty slogans
That border cliche
If that’s all you’ve got
Stay the hell away

You don't have to agree,
Just think for yourself.

Open your mind or get left behind.
Open your mind or get left behind.

Discourse and debate
The only way to affect
The change you so desire
With any respect

Childish tantrums
Get you nowhere fast
With no appreciation
That’ll ever last

You don't have to agree,
Just think for yourself.

Open your mind or get left behind.
Open your mind or get left behind.

Damnation Alley

Arrival of the beast
And the equalizing feast
The maker’s fist a gavel
Works of man unraveled

99 miles of hatred
Slowly getting wasted
Landscape deteriorating
Tired of all this waiting

Bereft of any compassion
Hopelessness in action

Survey the aftermath
Futility of habitat
Search for the familiar
Destruction front and center

Uselessness sets in
Nowhere to begin
Onward to rebuild
Worthless dreams fulfilled

Bereft of any compassion
The self-righteous preach inaction

Never Enough

They dangle the carrot since we’re out the womb
And we keep reaching for it til the day we’re entombed
The more you get your hands on it, the more you feel you need
We’re all pathetic fools for giving into greed

Never enough

Strips of worthless paper, presidential ink Consumes your feeble mind ‘til you no longer think
Prioritized and worshipped over all else in life
The cause and the source of most your strife

Never enough

You are the commodity, you’ve swallowed the bait
Hooked onto their drug, there is no escape
You are the commodity, you’ve swallowed the bait
Hooked onto their drug, and now it's too late

Never enough

Time Is A Thief

What in the hell have we finally done?
Time itself has splintered what we thought was one.
Dust has gradually settled and days have slowed dow
Need to finally stand back and take a look around

Time is the enemy not you and me
As we continue burying friends and family
Anger is so easily misused and misplaced
And friendships are so easily forgotten and erased

Pissed at the lack of change, pissed at the lack of rage
Became an apathetic weapon, became middle-aged
More pissed than ever but don’t know what to do
It happened to me, don’t let it happen to you...

Forests Of Madness

Sprawling heights above me
And an endless maze below
Intertwined illusions
This path is all I know

Undulating creatures
Writhing in their greed
Slithering uncontrollably
Slaves to their disease

Lost amidst the darkness
Claustrophobic fears
Nervous skin is crawling
And I’m reduced to tears

How did I find myself here
In this bleak, abysmal place
Nothing more do I want
Than to see it all ablaze

Delictum Gravius

Demon spawn among the church
Frocked and preaching from your perch

Liar, bigot, holy hypocrite
Liar, bigot, back to earth, you’re full of shit

Pedophile roaming free
Protected by the Holy See

Liar, bigot, holy hypocrite
Liar, bigot, back to earth, you’re full of shit

Preying on children behind closed doors
Blessed yet rotten to the core

Liar, bigot, holy fucking hypocrite
Liar, bigot, back to earth, you’re full of shit