Why do we live?

To till the earth in our gardens
To reap whatever we have sown
To fade as life's flame slowly wanes
While gazing forlorn
At the horizon

To scratch at dust in barren deserts
To clutch at all which we can claim
To flail as death's hand reaches out
Never thinking beyond the bars of our cage

To plant our seeds in far oases
To set free that which we create
To rejoice as the wheel turns again
Dreaming far beyond
The bounds of our realm

Why do we live?

To where did you go, oh wanderer of the bleak unknown?
Under what suns did you dance and play
But when the stars align, you'll come back to me
I'll call you back to me

The spirits move in me, the galaxy converging
The music of the spheres will sway the hands of time

So long ago, twenty-six thousand years
I remember when you departed
The agony, the ecstasy, the entropy
I beheld clarity through strange windows

Your spirit moves in me, the spheres are in alignment
The stars answered my call, we are as one again

Here in my final jubilation let me tell you of my trials
The vistas I've seen, the places I've been, the things I've done
Now hear my lament

To where did you go when you died
For all that I was I gave to you
But you are gone and left me bare
Bereft I cannot reach the other side
My arts were thought so mighty yet humbled for
Who could know the mysteries of life itself?
But I resolved to breach the tower
Its arches knew no limit
Time could barely enter there
Its walls containing all the knowledge
The power to reverse and even cheat death
I longed for it yet the toll was heavy

My mind opened - I felt the pain all living things feel
What is the point in being alive - I'll know why we exist
When the stars align

Legends tell of a place abandoned
A distant island shunned by my race
There a once great city lies
Haunted by dreams from time yet to pass
There something fell to Earth
A sphere which came from beyond our skies
From it the traveller emerged
The knowledge she shared was to be her doom

Her statue stands alone as stone
Expectantly pointing into the sky
Since my specious ancestors
Dared to turn her gifts back on her
But the legends also say
She foretold she would return to life
When the planets and stars aligned
And her last words were spoken

I know the words, the curse
Discovered on aeon old tablets
Beneath the temple
Transcribed to devices
Lost to history
When the ancients fell

Where did they flee my forebears?
What did her curse do to those who remained - they are gone
Now I speak the words and free her
Will she give me her grace?

I speak the words

She wakes
Speak to me
Speak unto me
I have come here for I must know
The enigma given to our ancients
The races who knew the secret
To the entrance
The passage to other worlds
The gate between the stars
Pour into my ears the secret
Whisper to me the key

She speaks
The knowledge flows into me
Yet her gaze pours molten lead into my soul
Fixed solid, I cannot flee
She departs
Becoming a fading light flying up into the black of night
I realise my fate
Rooted to this spot I'll remain

Minds unrivalled, unravelling the answers
Solutions, to master
Great talents break the worlds' divide
Striving to break the chains
Seeking to change the patterns of the universe
To twist the strands of time
Is to work beyond the gods

I'm beyond the known
Opened minds, confronted doom
The ways are parted for
I am the one who ended time

Worlds beneath me
Creations lesser than my mind
I am the one who conquered the unconquerable
Your lives are nothing
Memories forgotten
For I have made the leap
Into the great void

Searching, beyond the realms of time
I parted the ways
Reaching for the last unknown
I am the god of gods

Witness the dawn of a universe
He parted the ways
Seeking the last utopia
Lost beyond the gods

When I began
I ravaged from where the serpents lie
Descending on you, barbarians, hunters and the
Gods of sun
Consuming civilisation

My eye, transfixed upon your moon
Reaching out beyond Earth's loams
Your wars brought me the terror
A terror destined for Theia's grave
I begin my quest into the universe

I use your curiosities
To reach further
And with your icons
Absorb galaxies into my mind
Conquered races add to my arms
Stretching out into the blackened skies

Searching the edges of existence
The unknown ceases to be
All of space now filled
Knowledge swells inside me
From your world's promise
I've taken all you see
We searched together
Your odyssey's at its end

When I began we were as one
The clock ticks on
You are left and I move on
Your clock ticks on
...our time is done

We read the signs
We hadn't seen before
Drifting across the solar waves
What could it be?
Uncharted space or time
A race unseen by our eyes
A revelation for our times

We drew towards it
A voice speaks out inside my mind
Harrowing dread
It was the end

Harrowing dread - a voice speaks out inside my mind
We found the end
The howling of the distant spaces

What have we found?
This is the end of all we know
Turn back
Surely we did not see

The mouth of the universe is open

It will take forever
For us to meet again
If you even live - how could you know?
The door we used, so casually
That ancient gateway
Bridging vast spaces between which
Light itself had barely travelled
That great eye
Would blink, flare, close forever
Fading from our existence

There was no time, no recourse
Horror encroached upon the system you were in
Abandon you to save us all
Between Scylla and Charybdis

I mourn for you - but more I mourn for me
For it was me who closed the gate
With you on the other side
So how can I live
When you are gone
Fallen into memory
Your path ends - mine stretches on
I journey on alone

Now a solitary figure

Because time never lasts
It ran down and out
Frozen we never were
Once endless now entropic and relative
Ending with no fanfare
In the beginning of the end
We tried to find escape
But time never lasts

Our hearts became so cold but once burned
With cores of fire our auras everlasting
If only those moments could last forever

Joined as one we chose this existence
Now all our works will be lost with time

The attraction fades
We drift apart
You grew so cold
We'll dance no more
Off into the dark
To orbits far from here

When young we played
Between the stars
We never knew
Time was set against us
And when the distant
Began to fade
We'd stayed too long
Our time was gone

Because time never lasts

I dreamt of God
He turned his gaze unto me
I stared
His eyes of fire
Into my mind
I was blinded
Was what I saw the mind of God?

I remember what I saw
Mere words could not illuminate
How will my mind contain
Thoughts so alien?
Monstrous visions
Of the vastness of void and time
And bear
The ululation
Which lies beyond
The final wall

In the spiral
Where all beginnings end
Lurks a horror
A palsy upon the face of god
Expressing
The uncreation of all times
When all becomes nought
In the minds of the world eater

The shimmering

Nearing the beginning of an end
Was just the end of our beginning
Born on strange loops
We burst into life and decay into death
Dreaming on alternate planes of existence
We aim to trace the steps to paradise
Back to that time, that moment, that place
Where it all began and all were one
We must leave this realm
So barren, so lonely
Abandoned by the creator of worlds

We watched the stars die out
Knowing one day they'll sing again
When all matter draws to matter
Crushing to a fiery dawn
Set on an endless loop
Our domain became our cage
Let's strike out far for vistas new
And places only dreamed of

So come with me into the outer dark
We'll pass the last redoubt
To where the cold closes in
And all the lights go out
There time stands still..
We'll leap beyond the curve of space
For another time, another place
To rejoin the pantheon alongside our ancestors
And wonder
Why did we live?