WE EXCAVATE

OXEN OF THE SEA

A:

You're lost in the sea
You're lost with me
You're lost in the sea
You're lost with me
And the blue sun king's oxen
Leviathan guarding the surface
See how the human comes to misfortune
See how the seafloor has many heartbeats
(beat, beat)
This ecosystem, older than are we,
Feeds on a dream: To be lost at sea

It's easier to believe you deserve this
It's easier to go along with fate
It's easier to carve out a safe niche
Find a dark crevice and wait out the aeons
It's easier to pray god to save you
Hear their laughter: The wind condemned you
You're lost in the sea with Leviathan
You're lost with me where we should not be
You're lost in the sea with Leviathan
Cursing the sea, forbidden from land

With cetacea
Welcome to the sea


ABA:

Drift across the benthos
Maybe Enki guides you well
Eridian prosperity
Gifts of civilisation
Don't cry
Tears lost at sea sail on, lifeless and forgotten.

Dispel these pale days
Would that this flood subside
Were it then the fate for me
I cannot overpower her:
That blue wish to eat the world
Don't cry
Tears lost at sea sail on, lifeless and forgotten.


CAB:

Kingship from heaven lowered too far
Cast adrift the deluge of dim mud
Great water men on the brink
A aba ab

(Kingship lowered too far...
Lowered too far...
Lowered too far...)


WE EXCAVATE

Taste the lightning's sweetness on the wind
As it tears you from your resting place
Old sea gods speak rays of accusation

Hear them chanting:
"We excavate souls"
And taste the lightning
Bolting down the deep
See the masses
See them decompose
As up the current
Something rides the light

Power in a surge of electric branches
Painful uproot of corpse mound derelict
Up go the souls to feed the king

Fading thunder
And nothing remains
At the foyer
Of the global mains
Yet there you are
One the gods forgot
Daren't go backwards
Carry on your thought

Estuary open ocean song
Underwater tidal current pulls you on with its song
Sea floor leaves you a colossal drop
More things in heaven and earth and the ocean
than are dreamed
Feels like flying, falling down the deep
Only me to guide you, the voice in your head,
you and me
Hear that rumbling from the dark below
God made the abyss so He'd be not a--

Song from above and a song from below
Current above and a current below
Thunder above and there's pressure below
Great fish above, great fishes below
But you're heading downward,
slowly drifting down, you've got time
We excavate, we excavate time
What pathetic existence,
what did you learn from the gods?
What will you learn? What's at the bottom?
Made the abyss so He'd be not alone

Why did they spare your life?
What did they intend?
Great noise, and it's over
Sweet sensation
The gods are gone, leaving you
You hit the reef, take a breath

The least rumble still sends you
into a wave function
Are you up above?
Are you down below me?


ALREADY OUT OF BREATH

Past underwater forests
And past high extrusive seamounts
We find that place called Midnight

Total dark
Total sound
Only faintest trace of blue
Hear a rush
Fast approach
Movement lifts you into a float
Cold as hail
Diving whale

Midnight fills you in the whale
Don't cry
Your tears will do no good

Swimming fast

In the Midnight, don't you cry
I'm with you, I'm the music
I'm with you, I'm the voice in you
And you have more to see

See the whale already out of breath
Its carcass cuts on the floor
Feeding small fry
Life survives
Even on the shoulders of giants

Go now, swim free

Mussels let you past to the open vast
Glowing fish swim through
Let them direct you
Midnight fast and blue


THE SINKING SONG

All it takes is one false step,
just a glance over your shoulder
And now you join the deep,
sinking into your watery grave

Sinking, in darkness you sink
Sinking into the abyss

Then something, strangest yet found,
A hand lifts you up and onto flat ground
Looks like you, exactly right
But for glowing skin of unholy light
"Bringer Mine," says the double,
"There's a haven in the deepest bubble"

Look at your Doppelganger
Flowing hair black as abyss
"I'm impressed you made it
Shrewdly you have played it
Greater minds than yours have
Given up the ghost here
Dwelling on the worst fear
Fallen to the siren song"

All it takes to crumble in pressure:
Something unexpected
All it takes is one false step,
just a glance over your shoulder

You follow carefully down
Deeper steeper into nitrogen town
Step over rotting whale bone
Voice inside your head contributes a moan
Crashing sound, no one around
Intense water pressure shoves you in ground

Sinking, in darkness you sink
Sinking, Siren of the Abyss

Sinking, rockface on your skin
Vox in capite tuo
Sinking, self-hatred transforming
Deus in abyssum irent
Reach your arm up
Reach for haven

Sinking, in darkness you sink
Sinking into the abyss
Sinking, in darkness you sink
Sinking until you sink free

To the end, guess you stayed true
Doubted me because I don't look like you
Damn to your treacherous twin
Underwater serpent mirror tailspin
Now I am calling the shots
See your story as if Gordian knots
Cut through fear and vertigo
Let the earth consume and see what's below


LOWEST POINT

i- The Holy Question

At the bottom I can't believe your eyes
Light pours out the Earth
Illuminates the largest prison cell:
...God?

Feet of brass, flesh torso plugged into
the stone through writhing blue tentacles
Arms covered in amoeba
and a featureless humanoid plastic face
Some kind of blood's flowing from
the holes dug by those 'tentacles,' ghastly strings
In between the amoeba
you can barely make out hundreds more of them
This imprisoned titan must be at least
thirty thousand feet tall
He says he fears his God

Taking the sharpest rock,
you cut the titan loose from his bonds
After all you have been through,
you'll be damned if you fear the sea anymore
Only takes several cuts
and the tentacles all withdraw from the trench
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?"

Down comes lightning
Strikes the titan
All of those tentacles concentrate on you now
Steam vent opens beneath
And you are dragged to Hell


ii- Molten Rock

Dawn, I still wait for my God
Despite the self-help of my faith
Dawn, I still wait for my God
Despite that this is Hell on Earth

Eighty-five water men on the brink
Of a vile planet-sized machine
Absorbing blood of souls in her magma
On fire, our Earth's insides eat you whole.

Something like peace, something like heat
is what we excavate
Something like change, something complete
is what we excavate

Something like peace, something like heat
is what we excavate
Something like change, something complete
Something living, something to eat

Something like feeling
leaving your nerves trembling
in their cosmically hard battered scream
Ready to end, ready to dissolve
into atoms that are no longer your own
Powerful new voice speaks for you,
has no room for competing voices in your head

Dawn, I still wait for my God
Despite the self-help of my faith
Dawn, I still wait for my God
Despite that this is Hell on Earth

Dawn, I still wait for my God
Despite the self-help of my faith
Dawn, I still wait for my God
Despite that you are now with Her

Deep at the lowest point of the sea
In magma, spirits like me fuse and
Fission while we wait for the lightning


iii- A Piece of Disembodied Melancholy

Maybe Enki knows more about the sea than me
Maybe I killed you by taking you through the sea

Maybe my fate is best served
in riding the lightning up
Maybe my music crawls
when what you needed was to swim
Maybe you will see me again,
we'll survive this breakup
Maybe in total dark I can turn to a better hymn

Close my eyes...


iv- At the Edge of Knowledge

I can see the sun
I can hear the dawn
Thanks to faith in you,
there is light

I can see the sun
I can hear the dawn
I know I'll see you again
I'll see you


IN THE SUNKEN BLUE

City of old, towers of gold
At the bottom of love and on the ocean floor
A city vanishes in a blink
Or was it ever even there?


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