We trekked across the ice heading for the middle
that lay a hundred yards beyond
The edge of the great smoking griddle
The pit where I would release the bond
I’d taken at the iron door
And we stood and I bent in the wind like a frond
of a plant that bloomed too late for
the season it was born
And Eliot pointed to the ice floor
And said I’ve shown you what I’d sworn
I would so meditate a moment on the luck
of those below that are planted like an acorn
Frozen in the frozen muck
And I said hey it’s not that the wind blows
that hole has a serious suck
That’s where all the evil goes
he said onward Christian soldier into hell
The sinners frozen under your feet
They’ll wake again for the final bell
but for now it’s just you and the prince
It’s time you finished what you started when you fell...
There will be no violence
cast yourself to the crater
Hereafter, ever after, ever since
You’ll know what it was good for later
so go and take your leap
Get on the escalator
Going down, you’ve promises to keep
back in your sunny town
Miles to go before you sleep
I won’t see you again not down
there in the dreamless time
So say goodbye here destiny’s clown
And I thought back on my downward climb
I clasped my guardian’s hand
And I scuffed my shoes of the icy rime
I picked traveling over that land
and took a running start
And didn’t look to see ol’ T.S. watch me from his stand
I just leapt out into the heart
Out into the middle of it all
And I flew towards the center like a dart
I twisted in the great stony hall
Past where the fog cleared
At a great chamber, a sphere I felt my fall
slow as the last denizen appeared
Hew was as small as a walnut
But I felt his mass pull at me as a I neared
I almost slowed to a stop but
I was still moving as I passed
His eyes were closed his chin rested on his gut
A dark aura around him was cast
A kernel a seed of evil stone
a tiny seethingly still iconoclast
I felt the pull on sinew and bone
I rotated once when I faced him
And drifted slowly slowly, helpless and alone
But before I could grow to grim
I picked up speed the other way
So soon I saw the outer rim
of the way out I saw the new day
was dawning on the other side
And I was weightless free I didn’t have to stay
And so I just stayed on the ride
rose above the atmosphere
And from my freefall orbit glide
I saw the planet hell laid out tier by tier
The grooves cut deep the levels I never knew
From way out there was no pain or fear
And my distance grew and grew
And I felt myself passing through
fin
This song is the last of a series loosely based on Dante's Inferno. You can read an essay about this series here. You can read a more general explanation of the origin of these lyrics here
No comments:
Post a Comment