Sing for sorrow,
Sing for your supper
Where there is strength in wounding,
I’ll go for the upper
Cut the cord when you’re leaving into the
Wilds so black, the horizons that beckon and tempt with the
windswept, unkempt
A pretext, to how we wept
A garden of abandonment
With flowers of the deepest red.
Relinquish your atonement
Adopt the prayer position
De Profundis Clamavi but
God called in sick today.
I’ll pull you under
I’ll push you through
A love like winter
For the folks who knew.
We stumble, we fall
Into a world that’s overcrowded,
With my house ablaze, I’ll walk back in
Unnerved and unguarded.
Impress upon your starstruck gaze
Lower it, avert your eyes and look away.
When you stoke a fire inside
The flames are for all to see,
What becomes of me, unfolds before me
I’ve lived but went unseen.
They engulf, an ignition that’s a touch too much.
With seventeen crimes, at this imperfect time
The fire inside is my only crutch.
A deep slow panic when you’re tied to a tree
Surrounded by flames, eating away at your freedom.
It was a trial by fire to quench the bloodlust
The stakes couldn’t be higher, read the room if you must.
In our times of trouble
You betray
Just sit and stare as I walk away.
Pushed to our knees so let us pray
At your altar, in an altered state,
As no device can stop the rot
Sanguine, serene,
I’ll bide my time,
With black sails it’s worth a shot.
How from the depths I cry
I no longer fear death, I fear life.
There’ll be one last kiss
Under the midnight sun
One last breath
When Miss Murder points the gun.
A phoenix to help you rise
Through the clove smoke
Pitting soul against soul
The catharsis of the silver and cold.
There’s a leaving song for the girls not grey
Wounded and weeping, through dark nights and arid days.
The misfits, pick ’n mix
The waifs, the strays, those adrift,
I’ll launch the ship, do you want a lift?
All coming together to come undone
The outcasts, the downcasts
Those forever shunned
Feel the warmth of a fire inside for
Through our bleeding we are one.
Azra Pathan
AFI – Black Sails In The Sunset- 25th anniversary May 2024