Heat Death

Verse 1

Still night: the phone glows three o'clock
The city fog descends upon the town
The farthest one can see not past two blocks
The stars are hid, the gaze is driven down

The neighbours' human faces all eclipsed
Amidst the fog, one cannot hope to glimpse
The girl immersed in books, the man
At his piano, the child with building bricks
Assembling worlds, his starfish hands
Are curled in stout, determined fists
Isolate, disparate, forsaken, in schism
Within the abysm of the mist.

Chorus 1

Between the heat and cold there is the fog
Half-hearted wrath, agnostic Chernobog
And human warmth is spread increasing thin
A host of embers scattered to the wind
They lose their heat without a constant core
Cold grey ash in heaps about the floor

Separation, slow dispersion
Of tiny points of light, growing ever dim
Approaching the ultimate inertion
And weak against the encroaching chill of night to contend:
Entropic end.

Verse 2

Of only the concrete is one aware
Ten steps ahead perhaps, or less
Heads bowed down to trace the immediate path, the thoroughfare
To count the cracks, avoid the crevices
Never lift their sights to meet the solemn, lidless stare
Of an everpresent cloud of witnesses.

Would you heed the songs and poems of long ago
If I should speak the words to you, to clear the haze?
And would you feed thereon with thanksgiving and faith?
No, my people, you would turn your face away

Bound in chains of darkness, we eke out feeble lives
Tired roles we endlessly reprise
Drinking, laughing, never seeing face to face
Divided, in one fell stroke we are erased
And the voice that crieth in the wilderness
Is as utterly alone as all the rest.

Bridge

But the Word of the Lord came to me in a roundabout way
And as I stand upon the stage
To call upon that ancient Muse
I see your faces unconfused

Behold the book which bound am I to impart
The scroll inscribed upon a consecrated heart
Comfort ye my people, saith your God
For between the cold and heat there is the fog.

Chorus 2

The everpresent cloud of smoke, the mist
Which rises fragrant from the coals, thrice-blest
Eclipsing faces 'midst the gentle but unwavering effluence of light
Stand aright!

Our souls are spread increasing thin
A breath, a whisper upon the wind
The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work
By the Self-same wrought the renewal of the earth
Remember, O Man, that dust thou art
A dying ember upon the hearth

Separation, slow dispersion
A flickering light grows ever dim
Approaching the ultimate inertion
And weak to stand as night encroaches on the world's o'erflowing brim:
O Elohim, the end, the end
Wisdom! Let us attend.