Arcane Knowledge Imposed ideology shiny and glittering Effortlessly navigating inquiry Evading questions under scrutiny Demagogues spewing misinformation Deception expunging the wisdom of the centuries Of late I’ve suffered feelings of uneasiness Regarding our current state of affairs Fervour has rendered logic meaningless Entitlement negating compassion First World forcing on all humanity its greediness I’ve arcane knowledge of what happens when we go to war Beyond mere history you may have read Cull revelation from a page of long-forgotten lore Stop living lies that you’ve been fed Now more than any other time in history I’m haunted by images in my head Consequences of reason’s mutiny Liberty auctioned to highest bidder The wealth of nations taxed by legislated misery Long ago and far away There might be a place that’s safe for us to stay Peace might not survive to fight another day I’ve arcane knowledge of what happens when we go to war Beyond the history you’ve been read Cull revelation from the pages of forgotten lore Shit out the lies that you’ve been fed Recoil in horror knowing what the future has in store Foreboding fills my soul with dread Nations compelled to up the ante and even up the score Filling their coffers with their dead I’ve arcane knowledge of where we go when we wage our wars Places mere mortals fear to tread Must we keep making the same mistakes that we’ve made before Can’t we do something else instead?

Just One More Wish If I had more time I might continue this journey Walking, stumbling, crawling as I fall through this wasteland of desire You can’t just wish for just one more wish in this plastic corridor It will only ever leave you wanting more Never satisfied, a victim of desperate longing Sowing expectations that the field could not hope to provide Trapped on the path of least resistance to the emptiness of yore Leaving to rot the bounty grown before You can’t just wish for just one more wish in this bankrupt candy store It will only ever leave you wanting more

Not Everyone’s Cup of Tea Hard soled shoes clattering on cobblestone streets, avoiding chimney sweeps Icicles drooping from unkept eaves Trapped in the prison of the fire escapes and steaming sewer grates And still the cold rain keeps pouring down, concerned with neither hair nor wedding gown In characteristically well-heeled fashion another climber falls to his death From a height he could never hope to achieve Unwittingly at the time he believed the contrary to be true But then he hadn’t counted on meeting you Orchestrated on a subway train to sterilize the pain Invisible tears dripping from undressed wounds With uncharacteristically unbridled passion, concealing carefully cloaked contrived plans To become the one you’d hoped to deceive Unkowingly at the time you believed that was all you could ever be But then you’d never counted on meeting me The thrill of it all, empires rise and fall Ignoring our trivial little schemes Oblivious to butterflies flapping their wings Do ya do ya feel relief or a slight trepidation At this sudden intrusion into your dysfunctional world? Forgive this exposition of reality The chance to see things as they should be seen Is not everyone’s cup of tea Would you prefer a return to your fantasy? Are you not seeing the things that you hoped you’d see Or is it just me? Attention focused not on vision’ries, nurturing violent streaks Inspiration hidden in empty rooms Lost in the labyrinth of double speak and concrete ink A reign of confusion teeming down, taking no notice of the deserted playground With unequivocally nefarious logic a troubling plan presents itself to you Falling from heights of what you could have achieved Who would have thought what you thought you believed and the conclusions that led you to Could become the very thing that dismantled you Empires rise and fall and still after all People keep scheming impossible schemes Unconvinced that things aren’t quite what they seem Have you become desensitized to your own lamentations? Were they the portal you might get pulled through from the depths you’ve sunk to? Forgive this invasion of your reality It can be hard to see things as they might have been And things once seen can’t be unseen Is this a case of mistaken identity? I think that things should be seen as they ought to be, But everything’s not up to me Forgive this exposition of reality The chance to see things as they should be seen Is not everyone’s cup of tea Would your prefer a return to your fantasy? Are you not seeing the things that you hoped you’d see Or is it just me? Should that same subway train with renewed disdain find you on it again Would you consider altering your point of view? Or will life be measured in all-consuming hate that you yourself create And still the cold rain streams down like fear till one day without warning everything just disappears

Whatever Happened to Christmas? At the very first Christmas Shepherds heard glad tidings of great joy Left all they had in the distance Found a star in a poor baby boy They tried to sell me their Christmas Starting  one day after Hallowe’en But the thing that they missed was They couldn’t sell me what cannot be seen Whatever happened to Christmas? Whatever happened to joy and good cheer? Whatever happened to Christmas? Is it still the most wonderful time of the year? Somebody handed me Christmas Pleasant tripe on some holiday card I see you’re ready for Christmas Plastic Santa Claus out in the yard Whatever happened to Christmas? Whatever happened to peace and goodwill? Whatever happened to Christmas? Did they grow impatient lined up at the till? Whatever happened to Christmas? Did it go half price at some boxing day sale? Whatever happened to Christmas? Is it all just presents and cards in the mail? Did hearts used to be big ones? Are they now all just small ones? If hearts used to be big ones When did they all shrink to small ones? Whatever happened to Christmas? Did it get swallowed in some corporate merger? Whatever happened to Christmas? Was part of the deal gold, frankincense and myrrh? It’s time to wake up it’s Christmas And the time of salvation draws near If you really love Christmas Try to keep it each day of the year

Just as the present becomes past so the future will pass into antiquity Will this all make sense 10 000 years hence after lengthy inquiry? Welcome to your final dissent made without your consent – a one way trip to fantasy And now that logic and reason have been charged with treason do you trust your sanity? Or is this not your cup of tea? Sorry but our time together's drawing to a close We spin around and 'round but where we land nobody knows Don't be sad it's not too much for you to bear 'Cause in the end it's obvious nobody really cares Just keep your chin up, steel your nerve and don your armour because If this all goes well we may yet escape hell and secure our place in history Welcome travelers, please step inside Enjoy the journey, you're in for a ride A once in a lifetime chance is all I have to offer you To play a game no one's ever played The greatest invitation ever made Extended to you who've passed up a thousand chances on the way And if the operation goes as planned When this is all over you'll understand The Innocent Victim seeks and now is closing in on you The conversation that we never had Your brilliant deception back in Leningrad The spy that defected chasing shadows in the rain Still, nothing can harm me until I have to rise to confront a new day Consciousness securely locked away Somehow it all seems painfully obvious now This could be my last chance to move on And banish demons I've happened upon 'Cause the life that I once had is gone How did I suddenly arrive here, surrounded, engulfed by doubt and fear? A haze of mixed emotion dissolves me as I fall through this gloom An open empty tomb Infinity Maybe all that I see Was never meant for me – maybe something else is lurking in the darkness waiting to make off with the key What horrors awaken in this place, here where we meet madness face to face? St. Dymphna pray for us Our darkest fears have come true There’s no returning for us To anything we thought we knew Won’t anyone pray for us Is anything getting through? The end makes its appearance and draws ever near Somehow something has escaped through some small opening Somehow something somewhere’s broken free Something’s surfaced that somehow for centuries remained unseen Reality has fallen through a hole in time Tried, convicted and awaiting sentencing for future crimes Is all this just the imag’nings of my mind Beware for what you seek you just might find Listless on this path I wander A wayward ship upon the sea Through it all I can’t stop wondering What yet lies in store for me Free me from this spell I’m under Release me from this mystery From its enchantment set me free Evading police at security checkpoints Frustrating the efforts made by border guards Slip into the forest and escape in waiting getaway car Watching all this drama unfolding in my mind’s eye Oblivious to the shocked looks on the faces of passersby Questioning their validity and all that that could imply Devising a plan for the safe return of these passengers in time Fragments of your mind’s creation lay scattered in the Realm of time’s unforgiving truth that’s become the history of man Wise men speaking wise words in tongues none could understand Infiltration of rebel soldiers from hostile foreign lands Deliberations are underway for a viable extraction plan Agents of ill defined affiliation are seeking safe passage into Clandestine meetings secretly arranged by secret societies Enemy leaders from enemy nations found secretly cohabitating Intelligence has gone underground and weaponized the insurgency But nothing that lies in secrecy can keep itself from being revealed I’m afraid the time we have together’s nearly gone And truly wish I wasn’t all you placed your hope upon If you ever find one you can just walk out the door Just know things never will return to what they were before So this is how it ends – this close to being apprehended and the plan is simply to abandon me? All the things I’ve been conceding I find ever more misleading Isn’t someone somewhere missing me? To know what was, is, and what might have been To see things that nobody else has ever seen To witness things not even conceived of before Before you do though you’ll be transferred to another floor I never asked to be a witness to these revelations or be party to your generosity Through this barren wasteland am I doomed to roam, a wanderer without a home, without a history? I have it on reliable authority Concluding our affairs has taken on new urgency Sadly you have no idea what you have in store After fighting in the trenches of this mental war Doo do do do do... I’ll never escape the presence of these spectral apparitions Phantoms haunt me to my bitter end The cost has been so dear with every fear uncovered here tangled in this animation I suspend The joy of my childhood lost somewhere in time Alone in the darkest recesses of my mind Long gone are those days of innocence of my youth Who dares to solemnly swear to tell the whole truth? In an unexpected twist the court has been adjourned And the verdict of the jury declared overturned No explanation for this irregularity Perhaps it’s just a case of mistaken identity Doo do do do do... Psychology Professor: “OK, now we come to this concept of truth, and truth (as I’m sure many of you may recognize) is a bit of a dicey proposition, especially in a world as technologically advanced as ours, because not only are what we believe to be true and what is actually true often two very different things, the line between what we know to be the truth and what we only believe to be the truth has become increasingly blurred. And this becomes even more problematic when you recognize that some people will benefit from convincing others that a lie is actually the truth. This has potentially devastating implications, and here’s one example: A couple of years ago I watched a documentary on a book written by a former, let’s call him an “intelligence operative”. He described how they would go into a foreign country that they had some interest in, for whatever reason, and hire people in the streets to act in what would become “news footage”. He said it was a simple thing to get enough people to act like, say, they were rioting in the streets, to make a convincing “news segment” that would show that there was a great deal of civil unrest in that country. Now, we don’t know whether this type of stuff actually goes on – I think a lot of us suspect that it does – but, that’s exactly the point: How would we know? Now it seems to me in a climate like this it would be very easy to manipulate large numbers of people into believing things that have no basis in any actual reality...” ...and with that our time together now comes to a close You’ve sacrificed so much it’s such a shame no one will ever know I know you’re sad I know you wish someone would care But how much more time will you waste chasing things that might not really be there? Why don’t you let your guard down, calm your nerves, sit back and tell us Do you think things went well? Do you think you’ll escape Hell? Did you mark your place in history? And at the very least did you manage to free yourself from your captivity?