Year of the Tiger - Fucked Up

Bristled by a peaceful air

Wound up by the soft wind that berates his hair

He’ll sharpen his teeth on the sky

A fire passes through a tiger’s eye

As long as his days are old

As old as his tail is white

As white as his stripes are black

As black as the ghosts that sulk through the night

He’ll take you before you can see

Him strike like thunder before lightning

Goes the tiger burning through the night

Tear into the empty world

Howl back at the sound of the void

As tame as the wildest dream

As soft as the loudest scream

Two eyes blink like stars in the dark

A shudder of light that you drink and are marked

The fear drips like blood from his teeth

The fear drips like blood from his teeth

Beneath him just violent thoughts

Streaks of memories, prey he forgot

His castle of gristle and bone

The king sits on his throne afraid and alone

Between the earth and the sky

A struggle on both sides

The tiger lives afraid as the tiger dies

Chasing shadows across the sun

Streaks of light he can’t outrun

Cut through the darkness like the shot from the hunter’s gun

Stalking a naked terrain

At the top of his barren chain

No one left to remember his name

So he kills again

Lash out at the unknown

Rank that is grown on the bone

A company of order and flesh

His foul caress

He rips the sun right out of the sky

Clawing tears in the haze as the dark fills his eyes

Blind to a merciless god

Smothered by the facade

He’ll take you before you can see

Him strike like thunder before lightning

Goes the tiger burning through the night

The king of the shortest stick

The beast above with one last trick

Sovereign of his defeat

In the end it was bittersweet

Prostrate in a royal cower

The cat is a mouse to the eyes in the tower

His blood falls from the highest plateau

Above as it is below

It takes him before he can see

Pulls his shadow away right from under his feet

Now the darkness is a part of the light

As the tiger goes, burning in the night

Between the earth and the sky

A struggle on both sides

The tiger lives afraid as the tiger dies

Chasing shadows across the sun

Streaks of light he can’t outrun

Cut through the darkness like the shot from a hunter’s gun

Who is the beast

And who are the spoils?

Who makes the trees

Grow up from the soil?

And charges the sky

With imperious fire

Brutes in the dark

Afraid of the sire…

Who is this beautiful beast

A tear of light on his teeth

A fearful smile on his face

Tokens of blood leave a trace

Whimper and bowed to the ground

A scornful sun bearing down

Grimace and howl through the pain

Get up, get shot down again

Light drips like paint from heaven

A shining pall on the horizon

Life weeps away from his frame

Stretched to the bone by the flame

Corrupt the stripes on his back

And burn the white into black

Iron imprisons his rage

Violent stains colour a cage

So filled with sorrow

So filled with hate

Otherwise empty

A relic of grace

Shot like an arrow

His fateful arc

He’ll charge until

He’s lost in the dark

Bring down the father

Who brought down the son

A blinding madness

He won’t overcome

Strike out in anger

Eclipsed by fear

His last breath wasted

The end is near…

Remember life as a king

The coil of life in the spring

The silver stare of the stars

Before the snare of the bars

That deathly coddle of light

Cut through the space of the night

So say goodbye grandfather

The body spent to confer

As the flesh kisses the earth

His stripes dissolve to give birth

To the beasts in the sky

That ride the tiger tonight…

Between the earth and the sun

A struggle on both sides

The tiger lives afraid as the tiger dies

Chasing shadows across the sky

Streaks of light he can’t outrun

Cut through the darkness like the shot from a hunter’s gun