Piles of Treasure

by Nick Gisburne

---

Though the size of it, the weight, the wonder, overwhelms his mind
There is nothing he can do but pile it high
In the chaos of his castle it’s impossible to find
Any answer, any rhyme or reason why

In the stinking piles of treasure, is there gold?
Is he proud of every dirty, dusty prize?
In his eyes, however broken
He finds another token
Of a world which never sees him getting old

There are avenues and alleyways. His corridors collapse
On the summit of a stockpile lies a bed
When he finds a piece of pleasure he imagines that perhaps
Someone else will see the story in his head

In the stinking piles of treasure, is there truth?
Is he proud of what his kingdom has become?
In his eyes, however broken
He finds another token
Of a system he rejected in his youth

He believes that there is nothing better, nothing more than this
There is order. There is purpose to the plan
When he crawls into a corner, finds a bottle, takes a piss
No one tells him how to be a better man

In the stinking piles of treasure, is there hope?
Is he proud of how he spends his final days?
In his eyes, however broken
He finds another token
Of a system too insane to spare him soap

There is nothing he can do but pile it high
No one ever thinks to find the reason why

In the stinking piles of treasure, is there peace?
Is he proud of what his palisade becomes?
In his eyes, however broken
He finds another token
Of a system where the pressures never cease

In a system where he longs to find release

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno

Open Every Door

by Nick Gisburne

---

When you shivered at my secret, did you see?
Was there something in its rhythm that was real?
I can open every door
I have the key
But I need you to remember, and to feel

I can open every door
Broken memories, and more
All the misery you swore
Would not survive

There is nothing more to challenge or deny
Storms of silence cast their shadows on your soul
When you scream in deep denial
When you cry
Turn your face to find the innocence they stole

I can open every dream
But the echoes of a scream
In a cloud of smoke and steam
Will come alive

Wake the ghosts who took your trauma to the grave
Piece by piece remove the power from their hands
Have the courage to confront your fears to save
The life you thought would never make new plans

I can promise every day
While you need me I will stay
Take my hand and walk away
It’s time to thrive

We can open every door
Make new memories, and more
This is what the fight is for
Be strong
Survive.

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno

Are You There?

by Nick Gisburne

---

I was never meant to take this twisted road
I was always told to turn away, to run
In my arrogance I thought I’d break the code
But before I took the turning I was done

Is there anyone? (to see)
Anyone there? (for me)
Do you care?
Do you dare?
Will you offer me a prayer?
You won’t.
I don’t believe it.
Are you there?

It was dark and it was dirty. It was black.
All the stars went out in silence, one by one
When I knew that I was never coming back
I pretended I was free, but found a gun

Is there anyone? (to see)
Anyone there? (for me)
Do you care?
Do you dare?
Will you offer me a prayer?
You won’t.
I don’t believe it.
Are you there?

There were never any signs for me to see
All the turnings took me further from the light
When I doubled back I knew what I would be
A beast. A brute. A creature of the night.

Is there anyone? (to see)
Anyone there? (for me)
Do you care?
Do you dare?
Will you offer me a prayer?
You won’t.
I don’t believe it.
Are you there?

I was never meant to take this twisted road
But the demons deep inside me broke the code

Is there anyone? (to see)
Anyone there? (for me)
Do you care?
Do you dare?
Will you offer me a prayer?
You won’t.
I don’t believe it.
Are you there?

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno

The Wrong Stuff

by Nick Gisburne

---

It’s the wrong stuff
Broken
Never made to work
All the dirty pieces twist but never fit
It’s the wrong stuff
Rotten
Stinking in the murk
Tell me why
Don’t lie
I’ve had enough of it

If I bend it or I burn it or I smash it with a stick
If I try to fix the fault or make it whole
I can never, ever, trigger it, however slow or slick
It’s a pain, a punch, a danger to the soul

It’s the wrong stuff
Broken
Never made to work
All the dirty pieces twist but never fit
It’s the wrong stuff
Rotten
Stinking in the murk
Tell me why
Don’t lie
I’m sliding in the spit

I’m sliding in the spit

It’s the future I was given from a bucket, like the rest
It’s the life I never wanted, never dreamed
It is all the crushing disappointments pounding on my chest
It is what they gave every time I screamed

It’s the wrong stuff
Broken
Never made to work
All the dirty pieces twist but never fit
It’s the wrong stuff
Rotten
Stinking in the murk
Tell me why
Don’t lie
I’m swimming in the shit

I’m swimming in the shit

If I had to give it back
Or take another, take a life
Rip it open with my fingers till they bleed
I would dive inside the black
And slice the sinews with a knife
On some other broken body I would feed

It’s the wrong stuff
Broken
Never made to work
All the dirty pieces twist but never fit
It’s the wrong stuff
Rotten
Stinking in the murk
Tell me why
Don’t lie

Tell me why
Don’t lie
I’ve had enough of it

I’ve had enough of shit

---

Lyrics by Nick Gisburne
Music and vocals created by Suno

Greedy Beasts

by Nick Gisburne

---

Destroy. Despise. Dehumanise. Repeat.
Drain every drop of blood. Dismantle bone.
Expose the pain that we, the dark elite,
Resplendent, strip to stain the altar stone.
Misguided martyrs, cold, untainted, fresh.
Their cries will crack, unanswered. Let them scream.
Depravity brings flavour to the flesh.
Deny them no perversion, no extreme.
Impale them on the terror of our name,
Demolishing the meaning of their own.
Delivered to the sacrificial flame,
Dispatch them with indignity, alone.
    The greedy beasts of industry must eat.
    Destroy. Despise. Dehumanise. Repeat.

The Quarter: Tomorrow

by Nick Gisburne

---

We all remember how it went before,
When malice left the room, a liar’s kiss.
We felt it coming, knew they needed more.
It never seemed so final, not like this.
We finished it, together. Who knows how?
Perhaps we just had nothing left to lose.
With fear they forced us all to kneel or bow,
But not to love the colour of their shoes.
Alone, without the terror of a fist,
We mourn, but not for something that we lost.
We’re peering at a sunrise, through the mist,
Uncertain who we are, what life will cost.
    Tomorrow is a hole we have to fill.
    We cannot see the future, but we will.

Government Guidelines: War is War

by Nick Gisburne

---

Your government can actively assert
That all suspended statutes are restored.
Additional restrictions will divert
More migrants to the mines, without reward...
    ...without reward...
    ...reward...
    ...ward...
    ...warrrrrrrrrrrr...
We’re in the system. Network scans are black.
The Charlie-Nines will isolate the core.
Identify your targets for attack.
No prisoners. No mercy. War is war.
Confirmed collapse of military screens.
We took the towers. Just the bunker now.
I don’t know what this moment really means,
But we’re the ones who... wait a moment... wow.
    It’s no surprise. Remember what we said?
    All cowards, every one of ’em. They’re dead.

Face the Furnace

by Nick Gisburne

---

For symmetry we always make a pair,
Essential for the lesson to be learned.
We tell them, when they first become aware,
That one, but never both, will soon be burned.
Two androids, each identical, must choose
Which one will face the furnace, which will not.
The issue - live and win, or die and lose -
Is written in the brain of every bot.
But only when they both refuse to die,
When each demands the other twin must live,
Will two of them, together, qualify
To access all the freedoms we can give.
    There may be some utility, of course,
    For robots who would kill without remorse.

Living in My Pain

by Nick Gisburne

---

You know me. Every tragedy is true,
My faults and failings, all the scars of life.
The torments fade for me, but not for you,
Still picking at the stitches of my strife.
I try to sink the shame of what I’ve done,
To leave my disappointments in the past,
But all I put behind me is undone.
Your appetite for injury is vast.
You’re living in my pain, but don’t know how
To bury it, determined not to try.
I need to find a future in the now,
To finally discover how to fly.
    The wounds you pull apart will never mend
    Until I turn away from you, my friend.

What Stories Could You Tell Us?

by Nick Gisburne

---

What stories could you tell us, Tiny Bird,
If only you could whistle to a cloud?
Your feathers fade, your songs will not be heard,
But while you soared above us we were proud.
What stories could you tell us, Master Mouse,
Of roaming in the sultry summer haze?
We found you cold and quiet in the house,
But still remember all your yesterdays.
What stories could you tell us, Lady Frog,
Before you slept forever in the pond?
You never tired of hopping from your log.
Of you, and all your antics, we were fond.
    What stories could you tell us, Little Man?
    The silence fell before your life began.

How to Walk Among the Dead

by Nick Gisburne

---

We’re not supposed to dream in black and white.
I never did, until I met a man.
He whispered from the corner of my sight,
A mystic, born before the world began.
If I would drain the colours from my head,
And mix them in a wish, as one, for him,
He’d show me how to walk among the dead,
A miracle, however grey or grim.
I took the solemn stranger at his word,
Surrendering the colours of my mind.
His laughter was the only thing I heard
Before I felt his magic make me blind.
    Although the mystic never spoke a lie,
    To wander with the dead I had to die.

The Quarter: Kin

by Nick Gisburne

---

The Quarter Kin, though legion, work alone.
We scratch beneath the surface of the beast.
Unseen, untouched by twilight, we have grown,
Disrupting where the state expects us least.
A cable, cut. A tracker, broken, blind.
A small contamination of the code.
We chew like termites, difficult to find,
Reclaiming, piece by piece, what we are owed.
Procedures, stacked as walls of lies and laws,
Are paper castles, waiting for the rain.
We pick and pry, to weaken with our claws,
To violate their blood, their bones, their brain.
    We test. We touch. We set our baited traps.
    We work to watch authority collapse.

Government Guidelines: Irregular Announcement GGY

by Nick Gisburne

---

The systems of surveillance we employ,
Though currently inert, will be rebuilt.
We trust you will continue to enjoy
Your short, unscheduled freedoms, without guilt.
In other news, the double-ration dole
Delivered to the populace today
Was issued by a faulty feed control,
But this will be addressed without delay.
And finally, the Execution Court,
Demolished by a clerical mistake,
Will pause until a government report
Identifies the moves we need to make.
    Irregular Announcement GGY.
    More bulletins are imminent. Stand by.

The Pleasure Palace

by Nick Gisburne

---

Accept that we will never let you in.
Convince yourself your cravings don’t exist.
The blush of passion painted on your skin
Was copied there from lips you never kissed.
Our vices are too sickening, too stark,
To swim within the stomach of your soul.
You cannot give the signal, make the mark,
Or learn to twist a finger through the hole.
Persistence will not penetrate these doors,
Whatever hammer beats to break them down.
Naive, you are what wickedness abhors.
Exploited, you would suffocate or drown.
    The pleasure palace decadence designed
    Would shatter and consume your tiny mind.

The Quarter: The Turning

by Nick Gisburne

---

The old regime’s repression has returned,
Delivered as a ‘liberating force’,
But we are not the dead these demons burned.
We lived, endured, survived the dark divorce.
Their venomous dystopia is back.
We kneel to it, surrendering, for now,
But cudgels, bats and billysticks will crack
When struck with something stronger. We know how.
We suffer every statute, ruled by rules.
They preach, then punish, just because they can,
But we are not the same submissive fools.
We played this game before. We have a plan.
    The Turning is already under way.
    Our time will come, but this is not the day.

Between the Stacks and Coils

by Nick Gisburne

---

She climbs to steal the current where she can,
Between the stacks and coils, where power leaks.
Her fingers touch two terminals to span
The strongest dirty feed she’s found for weeks.
A leecher stream connects her to the grid,
But nothing there is tracking her tonight.
To know she roams these clusters as a kid
Would set her troubled mother’s hair alight.
The volta vessel, reading fat and full,
Is quickly capped, another put in place.
With both on board she wipes with diesel wool,
The scene soon clean of any telling trace.
    Enough to lift her mother’s weary smile.
    Enough to keep her breathing, for a while.

Without a War

by Nick Gisburne

---

A thousand worlds were locked in holy war
When Pontifus inherited the throne.
He questioned why crusades were such a bore,
Reflecting on his reasoning alone.
“I have the means to finish in a day
What fifty generations have prolonged.
I wonder what their emperors would say
To see me right forever what they wronged.”
Escorted to the Ministry of Death,
Impatient to present his perfect plan,
A hundred clerics took a startled breath,
Expressing disapproval, to a man.
    “Although the people long for peace, it’s true,
    Without a war whatever would they do?”

The Quarter: Frozen Bones

by Nick Gisburne

---

The end for some, the Quarter, never came.
A wave of missiles shattered in a storm.
The genocide, a sick, sadistic game,
Was thwarted by a blizzard’s feral form.
What thanks are we to offer up for that?
Contamination stains the toxic earth.
Our streets are silent, power levels flat.
We suffer, starved. Our babies die at birth.
The exodus of privilege and shame
Surrendered each and all of us to fate,
But we, the few, remember every name,
Engraved upon the frozen bones of hate.
    New stories, not yet written on the page,
    Will flower from the embers of our rage.

Government Guidelines: Your Value to the State

by Nick Gisburne

---

In gratitude we grace you with a gift,
A bowl in which to boil more protein bugs,
But working on a chain gang double shift
Requires a body fortified with drugs.
Before your psychedelics are approved,
The mandatory bribe must be bestowed.
Your name will be recorded and removed,
Converted to a sixteen-symbol code.
More truth will be injected while you sleep,
To maximise your value to the state.
Expendable, untraceable and cheap,
Your purpose is to serve or suffocate.
    Compliance is important. You are not.
    Subversives will be stripped and whipped, then shot.

Two Copies

by Nick Gisburne

---

I need to know what happened, who I am.
A quickly coded copycat, a clone?
I hate the day I needed them to cram
My essence into sculpted skin and bone.
Today I truly thought I met myself.
It’s not supposed to be, but, if you stare,
The bodies from the showroom, or the shelf,
Are every bit as elegant out there.
She smiled, but, never pausing, passed me by.
Is this my paranoia taking hold?
The Corporation cowards all deny
That copies of their customers are sold.
    I’ll find her, ask her: which of us is me?
    What happens when two copies disagree?