The Copper Shroud

[Intro: Extremely quiet. The sound of fingers sliding on Spanish guitar strings. A slow, muted, finger-picked Spanish guitar rhythm begins, hesitant but deliberate.] … [A single, low cello note drones softly in the background like a distant wind.] … [Act I: Vocals are a hushed indie croon, incredibly close to the microphone, feeling like a secret spoken directly into the listener's ear.] [Spanish guitar continues melody] I dragged the marrow of the mountain up the spine of old Saint Jude, A jagged monolith of grief where the gargoyles sit and brood. The bishops wanted guardians to watch the turning tide, But I just saw an empty tomb where my faith had died. (Where my faith died) I took my chisel to the heavens where the pigeons freeze to death, Where the altitude is holy and it steals away your breath. I stared into that granite block, a cold and calcified abyss, I struck the silence each clang a pang for she I miss (My life for one more kiss) [Instrumental Break I: The Spanish guitar plays a sad melody.] [The cello introduces a mournful, weeping melody that weaves between the guitar chords. It sounds lonely and expansive.] … [Act II: The guitar pace quickens slightly, mimicking a racing pulse.] I traded daylight for the contours of a memory in the grey, As the masonry became a seance, chipping time away. I bled the sorrow from my knuckles till the granite learned to weep, To carve the girl I couldn't save a sanctuary she could keep. (A sanctuary deep) I coaxed the stillness into cheekbones, carved the curtain of her hair, A monument of longing anchored in the freezing air. For every chisel was a syllable I never got to speak, And every dust cloud was a promise that the waking world is weak. (The waking world is weak) [Instrumental Break II: Spanish guitar and cello duet] … … [Act III: Vocals are a pained, sad whisper, teetering on the edge of collapse.] I blew the marble from her lips! She drew her first and only breath! A heavy, perfect argument against the arrogance of death! She looked out at the sleeping town, a queen above the frost, A masterpiece of memory to balance what was lost! (To balance what was lost!) But then the master builder came climbing, putting ledgers to the bone, He said, "The physics of your love is far too heavy for the stone! The mortar here is fracturing, the limestone will succumb, We are dressing up your angel in a copper martyrdom!" I screamed until my throat was raw, I begged them on the ledge, But they wrapped her in a metal shroud across the Buttress edge. They soldered her in darkness, in a dizzy, hollow tomb, They sealed away her breathless mouth inside a copper womb! [Instrumental Break III: The cello plays one single, agonizingly slow, heavy-pressure note that groans with friction, slowly fading out into absolute silence.] … [spanish guitar plays a slow dirge-like fingerpicked solo melody.] … … [Act IV: Unbearably fragile. Just the Spanish guitar playing a broken version of the intro. The cello is gone entirely. The vocal is a tired, hoarse whisper, resigned and quiet.] It’s been twenty years of winters since I laid my hammers down, … I am just a limping ghost walking through this modern town. … The cathedral casts a shadow on the market and the pews, And they point up at the verdigri, bleeding like a bruise. (Bleeding like a bruise) [vocals become more impassioned with a confessional delivery] Let the scholars write their volumes on the art that no one sees, I am keeping my communion with the quiet and the breeze. In the pitch-black of the steeple, untouched by rain or sun, She is staring through the metal, my eternal, perfect one. My eternal, perfect one… [calmer now] And it doesn’t matter if they see, it doesn’t matter if they know, She is breathing in the copper dark, a hundred feet above the snow… Breathing in the dark… Breathing in the dark…