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Re: grindael "Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads" Paradise Forum

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:30 am
by Jersey Girl
Image
Re: Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads
by grindael » Sat Sep 30, 2017 11:13 am


Image

i. spectres

I fall into the darkness
and it gives me no reprieve,
casting shadows upon paradise
as my beating heart still grieves.

While the memories that bind me
tightly wound about my sanity,
out of depths rise up like spectres
as I search through time for doors and keys.

But there are places in-between the shadows
that we stand upon: higher ground,
briefly here for the moment
then as quickly they are gone:

Overtaken by the stream of time
once felt then left in tracks of the mind,
overtaken by the shadows once more –
memories linger until we open up another door.

On this key time will slide
beyond the locks in your mind,
and as a door becomes open*
you face the shadows found inside
watching the dreamsongs pass you by.


Lost in a barren wasteland
between reality and dreams,
there are only haunted passageways:
Places that I see and have seen.

But there are places in-between the shadows
that we stand upon: higher ground,
briefly here for the moment
then as quickly they are gone:

Overtaken by the stream of time
once felt then left in tracks of the mind,
overtaken by the shadows once more –
memories linger until we open up another door.

* Again, Tangerine Dream

ii. whispering devotion

Empty eyes implore me
to believe for a while.
The offer made was tempting
but I could see past the smile.

Whispering devotion
like a dying man’s prayer,
a gift of no great value
from one who never was there.

The things you laugh about
will haunt you once again.
The bitter spell you cast,
will take you there my friend.

How many times I tried
I just can’t say,
how many times I died
each time you walked away.
One key to paradise
that I cannot forget:
That door I’m locked behind
alive, but left for dead.


Empty streets will call me:
neon nights will unfold.
Beyond the far horizons
I will walk them alone.

Whispering devotion
like a dying man’s prayer,
a gift of no great value
from one who never cared.

The things you laugh about
will haunt you once again.
The bitter spell you cast
is waiting there my friend.

You were the only one
this side of paradise,
you were the only one
who kept away the night.
How many times I tried
I just can’t say,
how many times I died
each time you walked away.
One key to paradise
that I cannot forget:
That door I’m locked behind
alive, but left for dead.


iii. bondage

Time stands still
moment by moment,
as it moves through
it’s eternal round;
while the doom
of mortal men it seems,
is to live with the chains
by which they’ve been bound.

She left me unwanted
by the roadside,
held in bitter bondage
by these feelings inside.

I don’t know how I lost it:
not sure of even what I lost.
I don’t know what the cost is,
I only know what was.

Chained here to a past
I can’t destroy: shadow-walking
in places that I can’t avoid.
Passing through changes
different, but the same –
looking for help and comfort
but feeling nothing but pain.


And I walk here
in the bright light
but shadows cover everything.
And I walk here
through the dark night
as the shadows claim
another victory.

I don’t know how I lost it:
not sure of even what I lost.
I don’t know what the cost is,
I only know what was.

iv. more than we bargained for

Taking the long road
through shadows and pain,
you’re masked in obscurity
with so much to gain.
Lost in a world that’s
turned bitter and grey,
time is a prison
and your mind is a cage.

That look of madness
I see in your eyes,
speaks volumes about
what you’re trying to hide.

Children build bridges
to heighten the view,
God watches o’er them:
allows them to choose.
Fables and fantasies
in front of their eyes,
just like the notion
that something has died.
Largely forgotten
our primordial home:
the blessings of evil
can weigh like a stone.


I see the shadows
but can’t read the signs,
waiting forever for you
to make up your mind.
Sparks of the tempest
reveal twisted paths,
shackled by freedom
but chained to the past.

Something was broken,
distorted and maimed;
the tracks of reality
were lost in the game.

Children build bridges
to heighten the view,
God watches o’er them,
allows them to choose.
Fables and fantasies
in front of their eyes,
just like the notion
that something has died.
Ignored and forgotten
our primordial home:
the blessings of evil
can weigh like a stone.


Peer through the windows
of cobwebs and time:
the fall was forever
and the price was her mind.
The reckless emotion
we all will embrace
can lock us in madness
with no chance to escape.

Carry the burden
and live with the truth,
there’s more than we bargained for
in me and you.
We rise up together
and watch those that fall,
the stirrings of madness
alive in us all.

The touch of reality
sweeps us all down the stream,
through a glass darkly
we see and are seen.

Children build bridges
to heighten the view,
God watches o’er them:
allows them to choose.
Fables and fantasies
in front of their eyes,
just like the notion
that something has died.
Largely forgotten
our primordial home:
the blessings of evil
can weigh like a stone.





Riding on a speeding train; trapped inside a revolving door;
Lost in the riddle of a quatrain; Stuck in an elevator between floors.
One focal point in a random world can change your direction:
One step where events converge may alter your perception.

Re: grindael "Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads" Paradise Forum

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:31 am
by Jersey Girl
Image
Re: Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads
by grindael » Sat Sep 30, 2017 11:26 am


Image

i. no answer

Walking in the night
like so many times before,
doesn’t make it any better
when you know you don’t belong.
When you don’t have the answers
and you’ve run out of time,
the promise of the future
you must leave far behind.

It doesn’t really matter
if you know the love was real,
because you know inside
it will not change the way she feels.
You just don’t understand
and have no reason why,
the love is gone forever
as she turns to say goodbye.

Goodbye...

You may call out her name
but you will get no answer.
You may call out her name
but you will never reach her.
Still you call out her name
but she gives you no answer.
There’s no way to reach her:
she’ll give you no answer,
no answer...


So you take a look around
at all the empty rooms,
as memories come to haunt you
like an open wound.
You know just where she’s going
and you realize,
the memories that haunt you
are of a love that has died.
So it doesn’t really matter
if your love is still alive,
there is nothing you can do
that can ever turn the tide.
You will drown in the love
you thought would only save,
when those cries in the night
are only turned away.

Turned away...

You may call out her name
but you will get no answer.
You may call out her name
but you will never reach her.
Still you call out her name
but she gives you no answer.
There’s no way to reach her:
she’ll give you no answer,
no answer...


ii. keys (i)

Tracks upon the wasteland
in the valley of fear,
left behind like images
of these passing finite years.
Refined in this mortality
to a crucible of cost:
I am overtaken suddenly
and in time become lost.
Chained and then freed –
bound up in the life of thee,
caught and then released
I still search for keys.

Silence is a virtue
to fools and to kings,
while violence is nurtured
by the weak and naïve.
War is a vision
to the souls of the damned:
the door to the prison
opens wide upon the land.


No forward, no reverse:
lost in the pitfalls of the absurd.
Chained and bound and terrified –
close to the edge like a caged bird.
Refined in this mortality
to a crucible of cost:
I am overtaken suddenly
and in time become lost.
Chained and then freed –
bound up in the life of thee,
caught and then released
I still search for keys.

For the moment
still free:
searching for doors and keys.
Still free,
searching for what is to be.
Still free,
searching for the life of me.
Still free,
I search for doors and keys.
Still free
I’m still free.
I’m free,
for the moment
I’m free.
You see my friend,
I am the key.

iii. corridors

Cold is the wind that blows
through the lonely wastelands of the soul,
and in its wake they ride:
the memories that stain
every aspect of my mind,
gradually leaving their mark:
a calliope of destruction
on a road ill-kept and dark.

I have walked down paths well trodden
in the years I’ve been accountable for,
where men have been broken
and washed away, to be heard from
again no more.

Down corridors filled with shadows
and somber shades of grey –
in places where dark recesses
choked with blackness
leave the mind as barren
as the tracks
I am forced to pass through.

Yet in the distance I know they wait,
those luminous beings that have
somehow made it to the other side:
to Paradise. Who with quiet patience
regard those of us on this side
who struggle with the concepts
of their own reality: always steadfast
in the notion that they are
out of place and lacking.

I walk in the dream vanquished
by the forces against me arrayed,
unable to stop this quaking passage
that no key will enable me to leave.
Lost in the pain of years
carefully counted, unassailable now
except when surrounded by
the blackness of times encountered
and thrown away – lost
in the madness of one more day.

Down corridors filled with shadows
and somber shades of grey –
in places where dark recesses
choked with blackness
leave the mind as barren
as the tracks
I am forced to pass through
once again.

iv. winds of change

It’s late October
and the leaves are brown,
soon to be carried away
on autumn breezes.
One by one falling
to the ground:
summer’s glory
deserting the trees.

Leaving them barren and lonely.

Like the leaves, love
is sometimes swept away:
the victim
of another windy day.
So the winds of change
do blow:
still you believe
that love will grow.

As you turn to let another go.




Riding on a speeding train; trapped inside a revolving door;
Lost in the riddle of a quatrain; Stuck in an elevator between floors.
One focal point in a random world can change your direction:
One step where events converge may alter your perception.

Re: grindael "Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads" Paradise Forum

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:31 am
by Jersey Girl
Image
Re: Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads
by grindael » Sat Sep 30, 2017 11:30 am


Image

i. tell me

Livin’ for one more try
it’s too late, you’re gonna fly.
Wings are spread they cover me,
caught in the shadows now I can’t see.

Shattered pieces; a broken soul
left for you to stumble o’er,
when you remember lovin’ eyes
left in the shadows of your dark designs.

Tell me, tell me
tell me, tell me.
Tell me what we both know.
Tell me why I can’t let go.


Waiting here in silence
once captured by your innocence.
Wings are broken I cannot rise:
caught in the shadows and left behind.

Shattered pieces; a broken soul
left for you to stumble o’er,
when you remember lovin’ eyes
left in the shadows of your dark designs.

Tell me, tell me
tell me, tell me.
Tell me what I have to know.
Tell me why I can’t let go.
Tell me, tell me
tell me, tell me.
Tell me what we both know.
Tell me why I can’t let go. Tell me, tell me
tell me, tell me.


ii. the two of us

We journeyed so close together
the two of us,
through times meant to treasure
all dust to dust.

If events happen to be preordained
they are often left unexplained.
Leaving us,
free to draw our own conclusions.
Giving us
the burden of our own elusions.

Once there was
only us, the two of us.
Once there was only you and me.
Once there was
only us, the two of us.
You were all that I could see.

We are strangers to each other
all of us,
so little time to know one another,
reminding us.

If events happen to be preordained,
how do we break through the chains
binding us,
and drawing us further apart?
Keeping us,
from knowing what is
in each other’s hearts.

iii. bind me again

I’m on the outside lost in time,
I fell away from the ties that bind.
Running from every dream I caught,
trapped by the havoc you have wrought.

All of the memories cried for someone.
All of the years spent on the run.
All of the promises turned to silence.
All of the pain of the dark descent.


You had me longing for the kill,
summoned up every kind of guilt.
Leaving madness and unwanted change:
yet under that gun I would walk again.

All of the memories cried for someone.
All of the years spent on the run.
All of the promises turned to silence.
All of the pain of the dark descent.


Under the shadow of another time
the world was innocent, the world was kind.
Shadows of Paradise are all that remain:
shadows that only wrap me in pain.

Somewhere out on the edge you’re laughing.
Somewhere out on the fringe you’re lost.
Somewhere out there the pieces are crashing.
Somewhere I know you’re counting the cost.


iv. somewhere in time

The empty streets are calling
as the night goes slowly by,
and I walk it alone
remembering you and I.
All of those times together
lost now like tears in the rain.
So many things I remember –
so hard to live with the pain.

How I wish I could return
somewhere in time.
And bring back those days
when I first called you mine.
When the night’s sweet music
played within our souls,
sharing each other
and the secrets we told.
But all of that is lost now
somewhere in time.


Love gives us no reason why
some dreams live while others die.
While so many believe
in love that becomes a lie,
I knew our love could not pretend
so I walked away (somewhere in time).
And so love withers and dies
as the night becomes another day.

How I wish I could return
somewhere in time.
And bring back those days
when I first called you mine.
When the night’s sweet music
played within our souls,
sharing each other
and the secrets we told.
But all of that is lost now
somewhere in time.





Riding on a speeding train; trapped inside a revolving door;
Lost in the riddle of a quatrain; Stuck in an elevator between floors.
One focal point in a random world can change your direction:
One step where events converge may alter your perception.

Re: grindael "Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads" Paradise Forum

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:32 am
by Jersey Girl
Re: Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads
by Maksutov » Sat Sep 30, 2017 1:43 pm

grindael wrote:Image

i. mass hysteria

Holy communion, what an illusion!
A thousand years of voodoo.
Leftover history of a world
on the brink of insanity.
And what do they do?
Well, I’ll tell you!

They indoctrinate the youth
with anything but the truth.
Such marvelous mysteries
unreachable by such as you and me!

It’s mass hysteria
prepackaged and sold,
God’s own words
(at least that’s what we’re told).
It’s mass hysteria
on the local T.V.
brought to you and me
by the smooth-talking clergy.


And what do they do
behind their closed doors?
Why they traffic with
all the dealers and whores.
Locked up inside
their mansions of stone,
the T.V. version of the happy home.

Holy religion, cornerstone of society!
Practiced in such false sobriety.
Leftover history of a world
on the brink of insanity.
And what do they do?
Well, I’ll tell you ...

They indoctrinate the youth
with anything but the truth.
Such marvelous mysteries
unreachable by such as you and me.
unless you’ve got the money.

It’s mass hysteria
prepackaged and sold.
Gods own words
(At least that’s what we’re told).
Just Mass Hysteria
and superstar clergy,
completely on the up and up -
just read the disclaimer
right on the bottom of the T.V!

Oh no, you’ll have to excuse me.
I just can’t live with the absurdity...
:biggrin:

Re: grindael "Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads" Paradise Forum

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:32 am
by Jersey Girl
Image
Re: Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads
by grindael » Fri Nov 23, 2018 10:01 pm


Image

i. slipping

Shadows my companion
cold tendrils cover me o’er.
Though innocently fashioned
that was a long time ago.
Hallowed ground no longer
will weary feet now abide.
The darkness in far stronger
here in this place and time.

I don’t know how I thought
I’d ever win (I’m slipping).
This course of suicide
that time has shut me in.
Forced to pay the price
this side of Paradise
and turn my back on everything.


State of sad misfortune
most would gladly eschew,
waits like an anxious bridegroom
in this dark shuttered room.
Blinded by the burden
of bitter longing and pain,
clutching keys to all the doors
I’ve passed through in vain.

Image before my eyes:
Frozen wheel of time,
specter in front of me.
It darkens the horizon
possessing all of me.

Faint twisted paths I walk
inside my head (I’m slipping).
No power to hold on
when everything feels dead.
For what has come to pass
left me here at last
at the end of everything.


Hallowed ground no longer
will weary feet now abide.
The darkness is far stronger here
in this place and time.
Blinded by the burden
of bitter longing and pain,
dragged down by keys that opened
doors I’ve passed through in vain.

Year after year pile up
inside my head (I'm slipping).
Then sit like an open book
too many times re-read.
And now to pay the price
this side of Paradise
and turn my back on everything.


ii. the killing time (i)

Reality is a crime.
Exploring the corridors
of your own mind.
You wait for the killing time.

When nothing matters
except the growing pain,
that keeps you coming
back to that place again.

Searching for keys
in the shadows of Paradise,
searching for keys
in the circle of life.
Searching for doors
you can’t seem to find,
searching for doors
to leave it all behind.


That lonely prison cell:
Falling back into hell.
Just waiting for a sign,
waiting for the killing time.

When nothing matters,
except the growing rage
that keeps you coming
back to that place again.

iii. no place left to hide

Once I could love you,
once I could lay me down to sleep.
Once I could love you,
Once I prayed for the memories to keep.


Send in the talkers
cause he's got a gun.
Nothing makes sense anymore –
the wind whispers "you're all done".
Unconsciously he backs away,
back up against a wall.
A mind dim and broken:
far beyond the last fall.

Once I could love you.
Once everything made sense.
Once I could love you,
once I could pledge allegiance.


All the turmoil screaming inside
but he’s got no time to decide.
No time to use his mind...
All the anger churning inside,
nothing left he wants to find,
no time to use his mind...
he’s got no place left to hide.

Once I could love them,
once I took the pain again and again.
Once I could love them,
once I never wanted it to end.


Send in the soldiers
cause he’s blown them all away.
Nothing makes sense anymore –
the wind whispers "there’s no other way".
Unconsciously he runs out shooting
and the pain gives way to freedom.
Body now twisted and broken,
far beyond the last act of treason.

All the turmoil screaming inside
but he’s got no time to decide.
Nothing but the killing time.
All the anger churning inside,
nothing left he wants to find.
He’s got no place left to hide,
nothing left but the killing time.

Once I could love them.
Once I took the pain again and again.
Once I could love them,
once I never wanted it to end.


iv. bent cold sidewalk (excerpt)

I die to fight!
I die to fight!
I die to fight!


Bent cold sidewalk, open the gate
I may be late but I can no longer wait.
Playing the god to fix your gaze,
I’m holding you firm on another plane.*

v. beguiled (iv)

State of grace,
an infinite state:
I see the paradox,
behind the face.
Drawn deep into
that steely gaze,
I shatter the mirror
and open the gate.

*Tangerine Dream, "Cyclone"

Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR6Z6Sratvg




Riding on a speeding train; trapped inside a revolving door;
Lost in the riddle of a quatrain; Stuck in an elevator between floors.
One focal point in a random world can change your direction:
One step where events converge may alter your perception.

Re: grindael "Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads" Paradise Forum

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:32 am
by Jersey Girl
Re: Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads
by Markk » Mon Nov 26, 2018 10:36 am

grindael wrote:ii. another alibi

Mother’s got her religion
and Dad’s got the big C,
leaving me with nothing,
nothing but those silent screams.
Always running, always running
with nowhere left to hide,
left with another alibi.

And no refuge from the feelings
buried so deep inside,
only scars and stains upon a soul
that got too deep to push aside,
leaving another alibi.

But I’ve come to know
the answer to it all.
It was just another fall,
just another fall.
And I’ve come to see
the reason for it all.
It was just another fall,
just another fall.


From my walk in that state of innocence
when things seemed to make so much sense.
But I can’t get back to that child-like place
and there is nowhere to run, no state of grace:
For all the blue skies that I used to see
have become another alibi to me.

Jenny’s got her freedom
and the past is now a dream,
leaving me with memories
and the chains she put on me.
Always running, always running
with nowhere left to hide:
leaving another alibi.

And no refuge from the feelings
buried so deep inside,
only scars and stains upon a soul
that got too deep to push aside,
leaving another alibi.

But I’ve come to know
the answer to it all.
It was just another fall,
just another fall.
And I’ve come to see
the reason for it all.
It was just another fall,
just another fall.


iii. a better part of me

If you told me all the secrets
so deep within your heart,
what would they be? What would I see?
If you showed me all the beauty
so deep inside your soul,
what would I see? What would I see?

Can I ever really find
what I’m looking for?
Can I ever really pass
through that open door?
Can I ever hope to see
a better part of me?


If you told me all the things
that I want to hear,
would I be happy? Would I be?
If you showed me all the love
that I need so much,
would that change me? Set me free?

Believe me when I say
you move me in your way.
And though love moves us all,
I never heard the call.
Believe me when I tell you
I wish that I could see this through.

So don’t tell me all your secrets
for I know they aren’t mine.(to know)
And don’t show me all your beauty
for I can never hope to find.(or show)
A better part of me.

If you told me what to do,
would I become what you are?
If you showed me all your feelings,
would I ever know what’s in your heart?
What would I see?
What would I see?

Can I ever really find
what I’m looking for?
Can I ever really pass
through that open door?
Can I ever hope to see
a better part of me?


Believe me when I say
I love you in my way.
And though love takes me high
so high, I always fall.
Into the pit of the abyss
descending down into darkness.

So don’t tell me all your secrets
for I know they aren’t mine.(to know)
And don’t show me all your beauty
for I can never hope to find.(or show)
A better part of me.
What is the back story behind this one Grindael?

Re: grindael "Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads" Paradise Forum

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:33 am
by Jersey Girl
Image
Re: Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads
by grindael » Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:36 pm


Oh boy, as I recall, it was about events that took place ... wow, in 89-90, (my Dad died in 1990), and I was with him until almost the end, until he was gone (cancer went to brain) and he couldn't recognize anyone anymore and he was in terrible pain and I couldn't take it.

There is a ballad called "Captured Innocence", (about the same "Jenny") and another about the plane ride back from Florida to New York after my father died (I went back and stayed for about a year or so), called"Carry On', but is not in "Passages" but in Book Three, "Dreamsongs".

I had written a lot of songs, and saw that it was kind of an loose autobiographical story in parts and so I eventually divided them up and so it's not a real tight timeline of events. I had this really bad experience when I left the Mormon Church, coping with my life's former expectations and felt that it was a complete loss of innocence, believing basically in a fantasy that I thought I would embrace and had hopes about from when I joined the church at age 12 after a pretty traumatic childhood of broken marriages and my mothers strict Catholic then Lutheran beliefs.

I remember a lavish Christmas when I was 11 and my parents were separated and my Dad got us all these really cool toys and when we got home to Mom she literally took them all away from us. It was that kind of a split with them. My dad was a cop and a drinker, and he beat up my mother, us kids, my mom's brother once that I witnessed when I was very young and that was just a crazy thing, my dad belted my mother and knocked her from a chair in my uncle's kitchen and he and my dad had a knockdown drag out in front of everyone. When I was 11 he threw me through the front window of our house (we were out west then and he with his second wife) and I cut my right hand/thumb really badly and have a scar to this day. When he split with his second wife, she wouldn't keep us and my father couldn't, so we (my sister and I) got put in foster care and they were Mormons.

After I left the church, (after a decade or more of membership - mission, BYU, etc), I felt that everything was turned upside down and my former hopes and dreams were just an alibi (excuse) from facing reality. The idyllic path, Mission, BYU, Marriage, kids, just didn't come to pass. (All the "blue skies") Trying to go back, to avoid facing the truth, an alibi. At least in my thinking.

The other one... an old poem I wrote even before I was working on the "Passages" stuff. (Which I started in 1989) I had always thought that a better part of me was the "Saint", but that was off the table. And how do you mesh that with relationships with believers when you don't believe any more? And those kinds of relationships seldom work out (though some do), but usually people want you to be something you cannot be. (To believe as they do) or would I want them to abandon their faith in the church as I did? That's what I recall about them.

Thanks so much for reading and the comment.




Riding on a speeding train; trapped inside a revolving door;
Lost in the riddle of a quatrain; Stuck in an elevator between floors.
One focal point in a random world can change your direction:
One step where events converge may alter your perception.

Re: grindael "Dreamsongs: A Collection of Lyrical Ballads" Paradise Forum

Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:40 am
by Jersey Girl
Image

"The Road Ahead" ~ Johnny Stephenson