The Bells of the Abbey: Ten Years Past

Once did I speak to the prophet
    his words of melancholy and despair
Rang freely in my wind chaffed ears
Once did I speak to the messiah
    his visions of silence and dischord
Cleft my soul like an ice cold blade...

...did we stoop to sing, did we break to dream,
as the screams were blocked by the tolling of the Abbey bells...

Here in the sudden silence of these endless shadows
    the monks, who speak in sullen whispers
Know the voice of my very soul
    they have listened
     just outside the confessional door
    and I left them slack-jawed
        and empty eyed.

Electric was this cellophane charged city night
    my only solace
        the tender cleft of a whore's breast
Only there might escape
    the ghosts that haunt my brain
Only there was I as invisible
    as tears in rain...

...did we pray for belief, did we cry for relief,
while the sinners mocked, as the faithful flocked
    to the tolling of the Abbey bells...

Somewhere in the distance
    I heard the monks chanting
And thinking it was my mind ranting
    I fled to the world outside
        I, the criminal of the cause
Sometimes called saint
Sometimes called heretic
    the names mean nothing to me now
And the wanted posters say
    "Look for the man with the haunted eyes
        hermetic by nature, prophetic by design"
My sentence all too clear
Twenty years to life
    a prisoner of my own mind
        victim of the sublime touch...

...did we seek comfort in the night, did we fall victim to second sight
as we ran in fright of the tolling of the Abbey bells...

Now I lay stranded on the wayward path
    once a child of the night, but that's ten years past
Only dark tradition and a season of sedition remain
    with the future unbridled and coming fast
It is cold comfort
    living in the solitary beat of the Dragon's wings
        with only the stars in my eyes as the nightbird sings
"Catch me, catch me if you can
    I'm the one they call the magic man
And I've got rings and things that will boggle your eyes
        and make your hair stand on end
    baubles and taudries stolen from the king of the skies
Catch me, catch me if you can
    I stand between you and the path you seek
        where all you sow is what you reap
    Where we can freely barter for all your sins
        just one step on the moonlit path and your adventure begins"
And the fool I was,
    stepped forth into the gloom
To find myself lost
    where the laws of conventional reality
                 are all null and void
But that's all ten years past

As an initiate into that bereaved brotherhood
    my hands were bound in cords of silver
Into the whirlwind of despair, the maelstrom of obscene delights
    I, the seeker, was unawares cast
The piper screamed and the poet dreamed
    as the jester stolidly laughed...

...did we speak to the prophet, did we hear the messiah
in that state of denial as the bells of the Abbey continue to toll...

And I ask now,
To any who might dare to listen
To any who might dare to care
    Do they toll for me?