---

Decadent, nearly divine.

Their shadows dance like velvet moonlight.

In the mezzanine above they applaud

Transfixed by the dancers, silently awed

The sterling attraction - the ballet of the gun

Murder in cold blood, as art in motion

Masquerade! they rise and they fall.

A pirouette, in the cadence of song

One mask falls down, another appears.

It's not what they see.

It is what they believe

It is there, at the crux of their judgement,

That the fantasy becomes the desire

The tragic poem ends as it begun.

And the men in the masks in death will live on

Awash in gold and velvet, with wandering eyes

You feel it burning within you, you're paralyzed

Please take my hand, and step into the night

The great dionysian facade

Is held upon our backs

The callous belief in blood elegant

Perpetuating from fathers to sons.

Spiraling down the grand halls of the dream.