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What Gods Pay
What Gods Pay e un rock opera mitologic — douăzeci și șapte de piese (plus patru variante bonus) în patru saga: Iubire, Război, Moarte, Renaștere. Fiecare piesă pune doi zei față în față — Afrodita și Hera, Hades și Persefona, Zeus și Odin — într-un duet care cântărește ce a plătit fiecare pentru ce a vrut. Rock modern epic și alternative metal cinematic, cu instrumente antice ca accent: liră greacă, tagelharpa nordică, sistrum egiptean. Un consiliu de voci divine, cântat integral în engleză.
Track List
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- What Gods Pay (Prologue)
Before the first temple, before the first prayer,
There was a market.
And the gods came down to trade.An eye, dropped in a well, for wisdom.
A hand, left in a wolf's mouth, for peace.
Six seeds, sweet as honey, for a crown of iron.
Nothing in heaven was ever free.What do you give for what you want?
Every heaven keeps a ledger,
Lay your heart upon the scales
And pray it weighs less than a feather.They will tell you gods are good, or gods are cruel.
The truth is smaller, and it is worse:
Gods pay. Same as you.What do you give for what you want?
Every heaven keeps a ledger,
Lay your heart upon the scales
And pray it weighs less than a feather.The court is assembling. The scales are hungry.
What do you give for what you want?
- Foam & Blood
I built your throne before I asked your name —
That was my crime. I never learned to ask.
The ground was quicker than my courage,
The chariot said what I could not.The meadow was a cage of light,
My mother counted every step I took,
And when the earth cracked open like a door —
Tell no one — I looked in.They will ask you: did he take you?
They will ask me: did she stay?Six seeds — sweet as honey, heavy as chains,
Six months of winter running in my veins,
Did I fall, or did I follow?
Ask the flowers. They won't tell.I am the only faithful son of heaven —
One theft of love, and then a thousand years
Of setting one more place at every table,
Of keeping half a kingdom warm for you.I ate them slowly. Count them: one... two...
Nobody's hand was on my hand.Six seeds — sweet as honey, heavy as chains,
Six months of winter running in my veins,
Did I fall, or did I follow?
Ask the flowers. They won't tell.The narcissus never grew back where the door was.
Did I fall, or did I follow?
Ask the flowers. They won't tell. - Six Seeds
I built your throne before I asked your name —
That was my crime. I never learned to ask.
The ground was quicker than my courage,
The chariot said what I could not.The meadow was a cage of light,
My mother counted every step I took,
And when the earth cracked open like a door —
Tell no one — I looked in.They will ask you: did he take you?
They will ask me: did she stay?Six seeds — sweet as honey, heavy as chains,
Six months of winter running in my veins,
Did I fall, or did I follow?
Ask the flowers. They won't tell.I am the only faithful son of heaven —
One theft of love, and then a thousand years
Of setting one more place at every table,
Of keeping half a kingdom warm for you.I ate them slowly. Count them: one... two...
Nobody's hand was on my hand.Six seeds — sweet as honey, heavy as chains,
Six months of winter running in my veins,
Did I fall, or did I follow?
Ask the flowers. They won't tell.The narcissus never grew back where the door was.
Did I fall, or did I follow?
Ask the flowers. They won't tell. - A Hundred Eyes
I set a guard on everything you touch:
A hundred eyes, and none of them may close.
The girl you kissed now grazes in a field —
I made her chew the grass of your affection.You count my sins like coins at market.
Careful, wife. You're starting to enjoy it.I am the vow. I am the ring. I am the law you wrote —
A hundred eyes and I still can't stop watching,
A hundred eyes and you still find the dark,
I punish everything you love but never you —
Because the vow was the only thing I loved.The watchman died. I saved his eyes.
I sewed them on a peacock's tail —
So something beautiful would grieve with me.And still you set my table every night.
A hundred eyes and I still can't stop watching,
A hundred eyes and you still find the dark.I don't want you faithful.
I want you afraid.Because the vow was the only thing I loved.
- Four Nights
Deep under stone, four brothers made a fire,
And in the fire, a circle of the sun —
Gold like a dawn that never has to end.
I wanted it the way the sea wants shore.They named their price without a word.
Four smiths. Four nights.Four nights — what is gold to the goddess of love?
Four nights — and what is love to the goddess, but gold?
I paid in the only coin I mint,
And I wear the receipt around my throat.We shape what burns! We keep what's paid!
No god leaves debt below the earth!Judge me — you, who sell your years for copper,
Your backs for bread, your names for peace.
I bought the most beautiful thing in nine worlds
And I would pay it four times over again.Four nights — what is gold to the goddess of love?
Four nights — and what is love to the goddess, but gold?Half the battle-dead are mine.
The necklace was the cheap part.I paid in the only coin I mint,
And I wear the receipt around my throat. - Queen of Heaven
Write this in clay, before you write it in marble:
I was here first.In Uruk they called me INANNA —
I walked through seven gates into my sister's dark,
And at every gate they took a piece of me,
And I came back. That's the part they always skip.In Babylon they called me ISHTAR —
I offered kings the harvest of my hand,
And when one laughed, I loosed the Bull of Heaven.
Love refused has weather of its own.Queen of Heaven — four names, one throne,
Carved in clay, in cedar, and in foam,
You buried every empire that adored me
And dug me up and called me something new.In Sidon, on the ships, I was ASTARTE —
Salt merchants paid my temples for the wind.
And when the sails reached Cyprus, I stepped off —— And Greece looked up and said: APHRODITE.
As if the sea had only just invented me.
Child, I had outlived three alphabets
Before your marble learned to hold a curve.Queen of Heaven — four names, one throne,
Carved in clay, in cedar, and in foam.Speak them in order. Kneel between each.
You buried every empire that adored me
And dug me up and called me something new. - The Golden Apple
Nobody invited Discord to the wedding.
She came anyway. She brought a gift.An apple made of gold rolled through the dancers,
Three words upon its skin: FOR THE MOST FAIR —
And three queens turned their heads at the same moment,
And heaven held its breath, and picked a shepherd.Boy. Choose me, and wear the world:
Every throne from sea to sea, one crown.
Kings will graze like cattle at your gate.Choose me — and never lose again:
Every battle bending like a bow,
Wisdom in one hand, victory the other.They offer you the world and all its wars.
I offer you one face.
The most beautiful woman alive.
(You've already chosen. I watched you do it.)One apple, three heavens, one hand —
The smallest choices burn the biggest lands,
He weighed a crown, a sword, a kiss,
And heaven learned what shepherds pay for this.And Paris put the apple in her palm,
And somewhere north, a harbor started counting ships,
And Hera smiled the smile that queens keep loaded,
And Athena did the math and walked away.One apple, three heavens, one hand —
The smallest choices burn the biggest lands.Look closer at the apple's golden skin:
A city, upside down, already burning.He weighed a crown, a sword, a kiss —
- A Thousand Ships
The apple found a palm.
The palm found a city.
Count the ships with me.They painted her on every prow for luck,
The woman every oar is rowing toward,
A dowry made of smoke and spearheads,
A wedding vow rewritten as a fleet.And every king who ever lost a coin
Suddenly remembered he loved honor —A thousand ships for one face on the water,
A thousand mothers learning one girl's name,
Love lit the match and called it honor,
And honor never puts out flames.I told him: choose the crown. He chose the kiss.
So I will have my crown out of his city —
Stone by stone, gate by gate, son by son.
Brides remember. Queens collect.The harbors emptied like a wound un-stitched,
The sea grew masts the way a grave grows grass,
And somewhere on a wall a girl was watching
A thousand reasons sail to call her guilty.A thousand ships for one face on the water,
A thousand mothers learning one girl's name.Troy had walls the gods themselves had built.
The gods took contracts on both sides.Love lit the match and called it honor,
And honor never puts out flames. - Three Faces of the Sword
I am the scream inside the shield-wall,
The red mathematics no one audits,
I don't count the dead — counting is for after,
I am the moment counting stops!Three faces of the sword: the butcher, the builder, the shield,
Same iron, same rain, same field,
Tell me whose hand you'd rather feed —
The sword doesn't care. The sword agrees.I am the road the legions straighten,
I plant a flag and call the ashes spring,
The wolf that nursed my sons still owns the hilltop —
I made war punctual. That's civilization.Three faces of the sword: the butcher, the builder, the shield,
Same iron, same rain, same field.I am the hammer between your farm and darkness,
I never wanted thrones — I wanted weather,
When thunder rolls, the children should think: safe now.
That's all my war has ever been for.Blood! Order! Home!
Take! Build! Hold!Tell me whose hand you'd rather feed —
The sword doesn't care. The sword agrees. - The Butcher's Tears
On Olympus they keep one chair no one sits beside.
My father called me the ugliest word in heaven —
To my face, at the family table,
The god of everything they profit from
And no one wants to touch!They pray to Wisdom for their wars,
Then send the invoice to my altar —The butcher's tears — the only rain that fell on Troy,
The butcher's tears — you made me, now you look away,
I am the job nobody wants and everybody orders,
I am the war you love to hate to love.And when my boy went down beneath the ramparts,
The marble faces didn't even turn —
I rose to drag him home through the whole slaughter,...And Wisdom held me down, and called it order.
Fathers aren't allowed on battlefields.
The god of slaughter is the only one who mourns.The butcher's tears — the only rain that fell on Troy,
The butcher's tears — you made me, now you look away,
The butcher's tears — the only rain that fell on Troy,
The butcher's tears...Count your heroes. Check the ledger.
Every statue stands on someone's son.
I am the war you love to hate to love.The butcher's tears — the only rain that fell on Troy,
The butcher's tears — you made me, now you look away,
The butcher's tears — the only rain that fell on Troy,
The butcher's tears...Count your heroes. Check the ledger.
Every statue stands on someone's son.I am the war you love to hate to love.
- The Wolf's Mouth
They came with ribbons. Smiling.
The third chain looked like silk and weighed like guilt.
I smelled the lie on every single god —
And one of them smelled honest.We swore the fetter was a game, a test,
We swore we'd cut him loose. We never meant to.
A lie needs one true thing to lean against —
So I put my hand between his teeth.Hold still.
I am.
Don't lie.
I won't.The wolf's mouth — where every promise goes for testing,
The wolf's mouth — the price of quiet is a hand,
They bound the future with a lie in silver,
And only one god paid it honestly.The silk held. The smiles didn't.
I felt his pulse against my tongue — steady —
The only heartbeat in all heaven
That didn't skip while lying.I count in nines now. Fair enough.
Peace is a debt that someone's flesh must settle —
I'd rather it be mine than what he'd take.
A hand is cheap. Ask anyone who kept both.The wolf's mouth — the price of quiet is a hand,
And only one god paid it honestly.When I get loose — and I will — he eats last.
They bound the future with a lie in silver,
And only one god paid it honestly. - The Flawless Weave
I learned this craft with bleeding fingers, goddess,
No temple funded me, no owl blessed my loom,
And what I wove is only what the world saw:
Your father as a swan, a bull, a rain of gold.Technique: impeccable. Color: true.
Subject: the crimes of heaven, thread by thread.
I've searched your tapestry for one wrong stitch —— The weave is flawless. That's the crime.
The flawless weave — truth in thread and dye,
She hung the heavens' laundry out to dry,
I could not find the error, so I became it,
And wisdom tore what wisdom could not answer.You rip my work because it's right.
Gods correct with lightning what they lose in argument.
Go on. I'd weave it all again tomorrow.Then weave forever.
Eight legs. No thread you spin will hang in temples —
But every ceiling in the world will wear your signature.
I call it mercy. Even I don't believe me.I could not find the error, so I became it,
And wisdom tore what wisdom could not answer.I kept a corner of her tapestry.
I look at it when no one prays.The flawless weave — truth in thread and dye.
- Serpents in the Temple
I came to your house to pray.
The sea came in behind me.
I said your name until my voice gave out —
The marble watched. The marble always watches.My temple was defiled. Someone wears the sentence.
The sea is... inconvenient to punish.
Girl, understand: this isn't justice.
This is housekeeping.So you crowned me with serpents!
You took my face and made it a weapon —...And now I live where no one visits,
And everyone who finds me, finds me last.Serpents in the temple — say who the monster is:
The one who turned to stone,
Or the ones who turned away?
Say it. Say who the monster is.I count my visitors in statues now,
Brave boys with borrowed swords and daddy's blessing,
They come to kill the story, not the girl —
Nobody ever asks the girl a question.Ask me! Ask me what the sea did!
Serpents in the temple — say who the monster is:
The one who turned to stone,
Or the ones who turned away?Somewhere, a boy is polishing a shield like a mirror.
Say it. Say who the monster is —
- Marsyas' Skin
I found the pipes a goddess threw away,
They only know one trick: they play the truth.
I'm just a goat-legged nothing from the river —
But listen. Even nothings have a song.Sweet. Rustic. Almost touching.
Now hear what perfect sounds like, little river.Play for your skin — the stakes are what you're wearing,
Play for your skin — perfection shows no mercy,
He judges music, medicine and light,
And none of them will save you if you're close.There! Even your sun leaned down to listen!
Lovely. Now — the tiebreak:
I play my strings inverted, and I sing.
Turn your pipes around and do the same.
...No? Then we both know who won.Play for your skin — perfection shows no mercy,
And none of them will save you if you're close.They hung him from a pine above the water.
What happened next, the river tells in reeds —
It took his name, and weeps it to this day.I won.
Why does winning sound so quiet? - The Black Chariot
I taught her the names of every flower.
One of them was bait.
The narcissus never grows where it isn't planted —
Someone gardened my daughter's grave-door.I bless this ground. I make it give.
And the ground I bless split open like a jaw,
Four horses black as held-in screaming,
A door where no door ever was.The black chariot — I turned at half a scream,
Half my name, half hers, then only hoofprints,
Summer ended in the space between two heartbeats,
And I still stand where the meadow swallowed her.I know what it looks like from above.
From below, it looked like the only door I had.
You taught her flowers. I will teach her thrones.
Hate me in the spring. She'll tell you the rest.Thrones. My daughter has a swing
Still tied to the black poplar.
Bring her back, or I will show all heaven
What the ground does when a mother lets it go.The black chariot — I turned at half a scream,
And I still stand where the meadow swallowed her.Every mother knows the exact sound of her name going silent.
Summer ended in the space between two heartbeats.
- Three Doors
My door is honest. It swings one way.
No scales, no trial, no appeal —
I do not judge you. I just do not lose you.
Eternity is mostly filing.My door has scales beside it. Bring your heart.
Forty-two judges, and a feather, and the truth —
The light ones pass to fields of reeds and morning.
The heavy ones… my door has teeth beneath it.My door is neither cruel nor kind. It bargains.
You want your shining boy back? Simple:
Make everything that lives and rusts and rains
Weep for him at once. Everything.
I'll wait. I'm good at waiting. I am half made of it.Three doors at the end of every road:
One that will not open backwards,
One that opens for the light of heart,
One that opens if the whole world cries —
Choose your road. The doors already know you.No one is early. No one is late.
The feather never lies. The heart can't either.
And somewhere, one dry mouth is all it takes.Choose your road. The doors already know you.
Three empires answered the same question.
None of them asked it out loud. - Heart & Feather
The hall is quiet. The hall is always quiet.
Forty-two judges, and not one of them speaks —
The scales do all the talking here.
On one side: a feather. On the other: everything you were.No coin can bribe it, no crown outranks it,
No lie has ever weighed less than itself,
Kings arrive with armies in their titles
And stand in line behind their kitchen slaves.What do you give for what you want?
Every heaven keeps a ledger,
Lay your heart upon the scales
And pray it weighs less than a feather.What makes a heart heavy? Not the crimes.
The crimes you carried openly walk free.
It's what you swallowed. What you kept and fed.
The dark you watered daily like a garden.What do you give for what you want?
Every heaven keeps a ledger,
Lay your heart upon the scales
And pray it weighs less than a feather.The monster waiting by the scales
Does not eat the wicked.
It eats the heavy.
There is a difference. Learn it while you're light.Lay your heart upon the scales
And pray it weighs less than a feather. - The Mistletoe Arrow
They made a game of him, the shining one:
Axes bounced like compliments, spears bowed mid-flight,
His mother had made everything alive
Swear on its roots to never do him harm.Everything? Every-thing? How thorough. How maternal.
...She skipped the mistletoe. Too young to swear.
Too small to matter. Barely even green.
Funny — that's what they used to say about me.My brother was the only light I never saw.
I knew him by his laugh and by his warmth on my left side.
They put a bow in my hands — "join the game!" —
And someone kind stood close, and aimed my arms.The mistletoe arrow — the smallest thing unsworn,
The summer died of one forgotten sprig,
It wasn't the wolf, it wasn't the fire,
The dark just borrowed the gentlest hands it found.The laughter stopped so fast I heard him fall.
I am the only god who'll never see
What everyone can't stop describing.
My hands. His heart. Whose deed?Yours. Mine. Hers, for skipping one small plant.
Every murder is a group project, little brother.
I just... coordinated.The mistletoe arrow — the smallest thing unsworn,
The dark just borrowed the gentlest hands it found. - The Mouth That Would Not Weep
The queen of the half-dead named her price:
"He comes back if everything alive will weep."
And everything wept. The iron wept in the forges.
The stones wept. The frost wept on the glass.Wolves wept with the sheep. The sea wept upward.
Old enemies stood weeping in one field.
The whole world, for one morning, was a single
Salt-wet YES — the boy was coming home.Weep him back — it only costs you water,
Weep him back — the cheapest toll there is,
All the world agreed on something once,
Once — and it was almost, almost enough.They counted every tear like signatures.
Rivers: signed. Mountains: signed. The nine worlds: signed.
And then, in a cave that maps forget,
One mouth. One dry mouth.Thokk will weep no wet tears
For the pretty one's funeral.
Alive or dead, he gave me nothing.
Let Hel keep what she holds.All the world agreed on something once.
Once. And one dry mouth outweighed it all. - The Dead Field
I am the reason bread exists.
Remember that, while yours goes stale.
I blessed these fields a thousand thousand springs —
I have unblessed them. Watch.The seed goes down and stays a stone.
The plow writes letters no one answers.
I did not curse you. Curses take effort.
I simply stopped. Grief is a kind of stopping.The dead field — my sorrow, acre by acre,
The dead field — I am the bread, and I am done,
Give her back, or learn by winter
What mothers grow when they grow nothing.And heaven blinked first. Heaven always does —
Not out of mercy. Out of bookkeeping:
No wheat, no offerings. No smoke, no prayers.
Gods diet poorly. Send the message down:The dead field — my sorrow, acre by acre,
Give her back, or learn by winter
What mothers grow when they grow nothing.You call it blackmail. I call it arithmetic:
One daughter, weighed against the world.
The world lost. It wasn't close.I am the bread. And I am done.
- The Trusted Thief
Nice cave. Very... permanent.
I'd have brought flowers, but you know how I get around plants.
Brother-in-craft, they let me in to see you —
I'm the only god your guards don't check for knives.Look at you. Sandals with little wings.
A badge. A staff. A government position.
We told the same lies, you and I — the same!
Why do you have a throne, and I have venom?Same trick.
Same tongue.
Different price.
Same crowd.The trusted thief — they gave the keys to the liar,
The punished thief — they chained the one who's honest about it,
Same tongue, same trick, same crooked smile:
One walks the dead, one waits below.You want the difference? Fine. Free of charge:
I stole THINGS. Cattle. Trinkets. Songs.
You stole TRUST. And trust, once taken,
Never walks backwards like my little cows.Cute. Rehearsed it long?
When the wolf gets loose, bring me that speech —
I'll have them carve it on whatever's left.
Same tongue, same trick, same crooked smile:
One walks the dead, one waits below.Between us? The pay's the same down here.
I ferry souls all day and no one thanks the courier.
But tonight I carry something UP for once —There's a queen in the dark who's owed a springtime.
Orders are orders. Somebody open the gates. - Three Thrones
I took the sky the honest way: by war.
My father ate my siblings — I un-ate them.
Don't lecture me on prices, greybeards —
I paid in childhood. The receipt is missing.You inherited a war and call it payment?
I HUNG nine nights on the world-tree, spear in my side,
Myself, an offering — to myself.
I dropped my eye down Mimir's well and drank.
Wisdom is one-eyed and it limps. That's how you know it's real.Children. You bargain once and boast forever.
I pay at every sunset. Every one.
Twelve gates of night, a serpent at each hour,
I age, I die, I row through my own kingdom's dark —
And every dawn I pay it all again.Three thrones — one seized, one bled for, one that burns,
Three crowns, and every crown a kind of debt,
You kneel to what your king agreed to carry —
The throne is just the visible receipt.You mutilated yourself for trivia.
You learned nothing, and it shows, boy.
You will both be myths while I am still commuting.Three thrones — one seized, one bled for, one that burns,
The throne is just the visible receipt.Ask any king the price of his chair.
The honest ones show you the scar.
The liars show you the flag.Three crowns, and every crown a kind of debt.
- The Pieces of Osiris
They cut my love into fourteen pieces
And mailed him to the corners of the Nile.
His brother built the coffin to his measurements —
A tailored grave. How thoughtful. How precise.I walked the river like a needle walks a wound:
A shoulder in the reeds at Busiris,
A kingly hand beneath the sycamore —
I am collecting my husband like a harvest.Piece by piece — love is a needle and a thread,
Piece by piece — I sew the night back into a man,
They scattered him to make me small,
They only taught me all the map by heart.Thirteen found. The river kept the fourteenth —
Some tolls not even goddesses get back.
I shaped the missing part from prayer and clay:
He will be whole enough. Love does the rounding....I was nowhere. Fourteen nowheres.
And through them all, one thread kept pulling: her.
I woke up green as wheat. I am the proof:
What love reassembles, death may keep — but not delete.Piece by piece — love is a needle and a thread,
Piece by piece — I sew the night back into a man.Ask me the price. Go on.
I traded certainty for him. He rules the dead now —
I get him the way the fields get rain. Sometimes. Enough.They only taught me all the map by heart.
- The Eagle Returns
I smuggled sunrise in a fennel stalk,
One ember, downhill, to the shivering apes —
And every stove and every forge and every
Rocket is a child of my one theft.The eagle's punctual. I'll give it that.
It reads my liver like the morning paper,
And every night the print runs fresh again —
My body learned your trick, old man: returns.You gave the monkeys matches. Look at them.
They burn each other's roofs with my own weather.
The chain stays. Order is a kind of love.The eagle returns — so does the morning,
The eagle returns — so does the fire,
You can eat my healing every day forever:
What I gave away, you cannot un-give.Down there, right now, a child leans on a stove,
Warm for no reason she will ever question.
That's me. That's mine.Chain that, thunderer —
You'd need a link for every lit window on Earth.
The eagle returns — so does the fire,
What I gave away, you cannot un-give.They say one day a hero shoots the bird.
I can wait. I'm very good at mornings.The eagle returns — so do I.
- Dread Queen
Spring writes me letters. I write back in frost.
Half of my mail is prayers now — did you know?
The dead don't pray to Hades. They pray to ME:
The one who remembers what having a body cost.I was the girl who counted flowers once.
Now shades line up for sentencing at dusk
And leave my hall lighter than they came —
I judge like someone who was judged unfairly.Six seeds — sweet as honey, heavy as chains,
Six months of winter running in my veins —
I didn't fall. I followed. Write it down:
The flowers knew. I told them not to tell.I built the throne. She made it mean something.
Mother, I eat the winter and it feeds me.
Zeus, I outrank your thunder six months a year.
And to the girls still counting flowers up there:
The dark is not the end. Sometimes it's the promotion.I didn't fall. I followed. Write it down:
The flowers knew. I told them not to tell.What did I give for what I wanted?
Half a year. Every year. Forever.
...It was cheap.Six seeds — sweet as honey, heavy as chains —
I didn't fall. I followed. - Spring Returns
I heard the gate before I heard her footsteps —
Iron remembers. So do I. So do I.
I baked again that morning, out of instinct:
The oven knew before the calendar.The light up here still fits me. Barely. Strangely.
Six months a queen, and now my hands
Remember flowers' names all on their own —
Mother. You've gone grey as January.Spring returns — not as a gift, but as a treaty,
Spring returns — we sign it every year,
Six months mine and six months his and
The almond trees stand witness at the border.I will not say I've made my peace. I've made
A schedule. Peace is for the ones
Who never had to split a child with winter.
But look — the wheat. It rises when you laugh.And when I go — don't watch me to the gate.
Bake something. Let the smell walk me down.
I married darkness, but I kept the mornings:
Both can be true. That's what a year is FOR.Spring returns — not as a gift, but as a treaty,
Spring returns — we sign it every year.Half the year is a wound. Half the year is a window.
The world lives in the swing between.The almond trees stand witness at the border.
- The Scales (Epilogue)
The court is assembled. The ledger is open.
Each will state, for the record, what they paid.I paid in childhood, war and marriages —
The sky is heavy. Someone has to wear it.I paid in patience. Centuries of watching.
The vow was mine. The vow was all I loved.I paid one crime, and then a thousand years of keeping faith.
Ask her.He's right. I paid six seeds — and bought a kingdom.
Best bad bargain in the whole ledger.I paid in certainty. I tore what I could not answer —
I keep the corner of that weave. For auditing.I paid at birth, in blood and foam, before I could say no.
Everything since has been collecting interest.I PAID IN SONS! Next question!
I paid in trust — mine's non-refundable — and for the record:
I carried every one of you home at least once.The court observes: no god got anything for free.
The court observes: neither did you, listener.
Approach the bench.What do you give for what you want?
Every heaven keeps a ledger,
Lay your heart upon the scales
And pray it weighs less than a feather.What do you give for what you want?
Every heaven keeps a ledger!The court adjourns. The ledger stays open.
Your turn at the scales. - Serpents in the Temple (Cover)
I came to your house to pray.
The sea came in behind me.
I said your name until my voice gave out —
The marble watched. The marble always watches.My temple was defiled. Someone wears the sentence.
The sea is... inconvenient to punish.
Girl, understand: this isn't justice.
This is housekeeping.So you crowned me with serpents!
You took my face and made it a weapon —...And now I live where no one visits,
And everyone who finds me, finds me last.Serpents in the temple — say who the monster is:
The one who turned to stone,
Or the ones who turned away?
Say it. Say who the monster is.I count my visitors in statues now,
Brave boys with borrowed swords and daddy's blessing,
They come to kill the story, not the girl —
Nobody ever asks the girl a question.Ask me! Ask me what the sea did!
Serpents in the temple — say who the monster is:
The one who turned to stone,
Or the ones who turned away?Somewhere, a boy is polishing a shield like a mirror.
Say it. Say who the monster is —
- The Black Chariot (Cover)
I taught her the names of every flower.
One of them was bait.
The narcissus never grows where it isn't planted —
Someone gardened my daughter's grave-door.I bless this ground. I make it give.
And the ground I bless split open like a jaw,
Four horses black as held-in screaming,
A door where no door ever was.The black chariot — I turned at half a scream,
Half my name, half hers, then only hoofprints,
Summer ended in the space between two heartbeats,
And I still stand where the meadow swallowed her.I know what it looks like from above.
From below, it looked like the only door I had.
You taught her flowers. I will teach her thrones.
Hate me in the spring. She'll tell you the rest.Thrones. My daughter has a swing
Still tied to the black poplar.
Bring her back, or I will show all heaven
What the ground does when a mother lets it go.The black chariot — I turned at half a scream,
And I still stand where the meadow swallowed her.Every mother knows the exact sound of her name going silent.
Summer ended in the space between two heartbeats.
- Three Thrones (Cover)
I took the sky the honest way: by war.
My father ate my siblings — I un-ate them.
Don't lecture me on prices, greybeards —
I paid in childhood. The receipt is missing.You inherited a war and call it payment?
I HUNG nine nights on the world-tree, spear in my side,
Myself, an offering — to myself.
I dropped my eye down Mimir's well and drank.
Wisdom is one-eyed and it limps. That's how you know it's real.Children. You bargain once and boast forever.
I pay at every sunset. Every one.
Twelve gates of night, a serpent at each hour,
I age, I die, I row through my own kingdom's dark —
And every dawn I pay it all again.Three thrones — one seized, one bled for, one that burns,
Three crowns, and every crown a kind of debt,
You kneel to what your king agreed to carry —
The throne is just the visible receipt.You mutilated yourself for trivia.
You learned nothing, and it shows, boy.
You will both be myths while I am still commuting.Three thrones — one seized, one bled for, one that burns,
The throne is just the visible receipt.Ask any king the price of his chair.
The honest ones show you the scar.
The liars show you the flag.Three crowns, and every crown a kind of debt.
- The Eagle Returns (Cover)
I smuggled sunrise in a fennel stalk,
One ember, downhill, to the shivering apes —
And every stove and every forge and every
Rocket is a child of my one theft.The eagle's punctual. I'll give it that.
It reads my liver like the morning paper,
And every night the print runs fresh again —
My body learned your trick, old man: returns.You gave the monkeys matches. Look at them.
They burn each other's roofs with my own weather.
The chain stays. Order is a kind of love.The eagle returns — so does the morning,
The eagle returns — so does the fire,
You can eat my healing every day forever:
What I gave away, you cannot un-give.Down there, right now, a child leans on a stove,
Warm for no reason she will ever question.
That's me. That's mine.Chain that, thunderer —
You'd need a link for every lit window on Earth.
The eagle returns — so does the fire,
What I gave away, you cannot un-give.They say one day a hero shoots the bird.
I can wait. I'm very good at mornings.The eagle returns — so do I.