A Penitentiary Triptych Lyrics

A shameful walk through the lamplit streets
Framed for murder
The days crept by
Week followed sluggish week

Shivering all the time
When the sun reveals its careless face
Unbroken rows of iron doors with massive bolts
Barred windows

The palace of rot, a dreadful home
A cavity with a pestilential smell
In the middle of the prison yard
A bare half-dead tree –
We are alike

My nails – all torn
A despair-ridden heart bound in scorn
I stared out into the black murk outside
It stared back devoid of life and soul –
We are alike

The roaming one
Lend me your sight
These eyes can reach where I cannot reach

I counted the hours
Praying for them to pass
What did it matter
Whether I reached my end
On the gallows
Or by my own hand

A half-open mouth
A corpselike face
Lips slightly restless
Through them old words are born
I will follow the voice
To a casket or to a throne.