To The Rapture of Belial (Lucretia Suite)

The original version of To The Rapture of Belial has been published in All of Me Vol. I, courtesy of Shadow Spark Publishing. Featured art is by Cesare Longhi.

Listen to To The Rapture of Belial by Richard Charles Stevens (Lucretia Suite)

Listen to Lucretia My Reflection by The Sisters of Mercy

(Feel)
Society teaches us to be cynical
To be ruthless and clinical when our hearts are endangered
It’s merely human nature to protect ourselves from those within our range with the potential to be strangers
(Feel)
From tender age they train us to send kisses back to sender
With razor wire intent to tell the truth the way we see it
Claim back our retainer should we see fit
All the while to rapture of Belial
.
I wish to show the world that there’s a pearl in certain oyster shells
A truth in certain eyes which kisses far more than it’s poised to tell
Unspoken is the dialogue of souls of shared diameters
Each monologue a travelogue of places in the mind declined parameters
(Parameters)
We blunder forth like amateurs and plunder forts of all subconscious thoughts
(Parameters)
Caught between the head lamps like tortured souls in death camps
We follow basic sketch maps formalised to lead to leg cramps
Walking lines designed to blind us as to Midas and demoralise us every time we stray from what they say defines us
Nothing timeless
Sensitive to ties that bind our tiring limbs
Empty pockets
Not a solitary pebble left to skim
Contacting our next of kins to phone our imperfections in
Expecting ointment for our stiffened joints and our infected skin
All the while we’re festering
Our inner voices pestering
A thousand others lecturing of pinned on hopes sequestering
.
Surrendering our home advantage
Pending further fortunes slanting
Altered courses disenchanted
Horses with a blinkered vantage
Hurdles may well be advancing
Final furlong fast approaching
Inner monologue reproaching
No time left for inside dancing
(All the while to rapture of Belial)
.
Planting seeds of doubt while weeding out all keen devout
Delivering its curdled sermon from inverted mount
Less we do our best to bleed it out before it teases out the only valid reason to proceed without one cautious eye on treason
.
In the height of bleakened season
We can paint the broadest canvas
Frame each thought in daisy chains
Retrain our brains to chase away the fade away
(Feel)
(Feel)
I wish to lay awake in fields of seraphim not napalm
Of healing balm and bracelet charms
Tenor of a symphony of unspoken soliloquy of calm
.
May have had my heart-strings broken
Still my arms remain wide open
Done with going through each motion
Frozen to the spot
Never been my chosen lot to stop dead in my tracks
Been to hell did rather well to make my own back
Sick of losing hub caps as I wheel spin in the mud tracks
Not about to cut slack to the voices predisposed to moan of cutbacks
(Feel)
(Feel)
Not about to pity me for that which principally should be acquitting me
Permitting me sound reason to proceed
Thus each time committee meets to sit and pass decree
I head off to the cemetery
Bury heavy loads beneath the very oldest oak and sow below the seeds of hope
Feed them light and water
Watch them grow
Even when I’m reeling
Feeling lower than I ever thought I’d feel
(Feel)
I will not subscribe to what society deprives each time we silently defy each caustic spill
.
Thickening our skin and thinning out our noble dreams
Broken reeds on frozen streams
Weeping sap like oaken beams
Handicapped by hopeless screams
Held back by denial
.
Society abstracts us as it jacks us into cheating polygraphs
(Cheating)
(Cheating)
Cheating
Cheating
Cheating
Manufactured antitrust in bitter little vials
And all the while to rapture of Belial
For Gods permit our capture
While all those deemed as monsters stand in trial
.
We have to break the cycle spokes
Provoke a revolution
Not the war of bargain
But in everlasting hope of resolution
(Feel)
(Feel)
This is where we rewire every fraying nerve to centre
This is where we fry up the placenta
This is where we venture forth with wealth of swollen pride
This is why we shall not be denied
It’s written in the white gold sands of time
.
Written in the white gold sands of time
Written in the white gold sands of time
Written in the white gold sands
Written in the white gold sands
Written in the white gold sands of time
Written in the white gold sands of time
.
Feel (repeat to fade)
.