Distant Epitaphs

Distant epitaphs drain the world Of color so vibrant And leave dark craters A constant drone of loss howls the words And rains in torrents Upon desperate masses A frantic, captive throng -- prisoners Of men and madness Of hate and power Gasps of snuffed-out light reverberate Like some foul wind That tears through nature Resentful eyes will track the men who destroyed them Accusations pierce the silence The unheeded testimony of stolen voices Betrayed in contempt to an unmarked grave Distant epitaphs roar from where sanity fled And horror gives chase Snarling and ravenous creatures emerge from the dark Nightmare monstrosities shamble forth Decayed and servile to rancid ambition Dredged from a past of primal virtues Wherein nothing grows but Dread machinations of violent compulsion That stalk the virgin day and strangle dark crisp nights In terrible campaigns Resentful eyes will track the men who destroyed them Accusations pierce the silence The unheeded testimony of stolen voices Betrayed in contempt to an unmarked grave Fearsome echoes of death pang eternal Conscript the world to war The ever-constant pulse of degradation The pounding drum of ceaseless confrontation Awash in sorrow, we gaze from distant vistas And thrash against the tearing claws of time The helpless victims of an empire's failures Chained to dark annals of a history that's already written Unending screams, inhuman conditions Forever to speak their deafening truth Forever to sing their sorrowful dirge Forever to command we cling to the future that they were all denied