THE HOLLOW MAN

Jun 28, 2005

THE HOLLOW MAN

THE HOLLOW MAN

(Words and Music by Terry Taylor, copyright 1983, Twitchen Vibes/Paragon Music Corp. ASCAP. Daniel Amos, "Doppelganger," Alarma Chronicles, Volume 2, Copyright 2000, Millenium Eight Records)

(Voice) (Echo)

We are the empty men

We are the masked men Resting, together

Cavity, stuffed with straw Figure, without shape

Shadow, without nuance Impotent power, the empty men Movement, without action All who have gone with true vision To death’s higher dwelling, may recall us here Not as ‘damned, destructive ghost But simply as the empty men Simply as the masked men This is the lost land This is the desert land Here the graven images are built Here is the place they will attain

Entreaty of a lost soul’s desire
Beneath the glimmer of a dying sun
Can it be so in death’s second domain?
No longer asleep

Lonely At the moment of our greatest compassion
Arms that would embrace
Raised in supplication to toppled altars
Where have the eyes gone?
One finds no eyes here
In this empire of dying suns
In this vacant kingdom
The scattered realm of fallen empires
In this final assembly
We stumble together and are silent
Collected on the shores
Of the river disturbance, the barren men

And for one moment the eyes reappear
As the eternal Son moving broken stone

In this land … this land of death’s shadow
The dying wish of a an empty man
The hollow man

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Ps 115:2-82 NRSV

Why should the nations say,"Where is their God?"
Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk;
they make no sound in their throats.
Those who make them are like them;
so are all who trust in them.