The Ivory Gates of Dreams - Live

I. INNOCENCE
 (Instrumental)
 II. COLD DAZE
 The coldness of confusion
 hangs in the morning air as
 Brazen bells ring reality
 To announce the conqueror dawn
 Removed from nights fleeting trance
 Plunged headlong into cold days
 Where in a circle we wander
 The barren wastes of our pasts.
 III. DAYLIGHT DREAMERS
 Daylight dreamers awaken on
 Deserts of desperation
 Lonely lives learn to live on
 Islands of isolation.
 Surrounded by violent oceans
 of hate and hopeless sorrows
 Daylight dreamers envision
 tranquil seas in safe tomorrows.
 Dreaming through the darkened day
 Along tempest torn strands
 Desperately grasping the grains
 of hope that flit through our hands
 As they fall we tighten our hold
 While the waves claim the final few
 taken without ceremony
 They drift out of view.
 Washed away with the tides of time
 Slipped through our fingers as dreams do.
 IV. Quietus
 From sleeping visions
 Daily were torn
 In waking hours
 Hopes our forlorn.
 Is all we do and all we dream
 doomed to drown in a hopeless stream?
 Wishing life were made of lasting visions
 in eternal sleep
 And if that rest were filled with sorrow
 still we'd sleep.
 In the madness of a silent eternity
 We'd find solace in
 False visions that protect us
 from reality.
 Enter ivory gates through midnight skies
 Daylight dreamers in private parades
 Perform before perpetual dawn
 As dusk engulfs the gate of horn.
 Ivory towers appear beyond the gate
 Invisible fortresses of escape
 Traversed by ramparts made of hopes and fears
 Impervious to reality.
 V. Ivory Tower
 Behind sullen doors
 Untouched within
 Sale from summer storms
 and winter winds
 Relentless tempests
 Can weaken walls
 Towers falter when
 reality calls.
 Untouchable by all without
 Lost in the silken web youth may weave
 Tangled threads seem a stronghold
 But illusions can deceive
 A cold daze plagues the air
 Driven by aging winds
 The walls give way to the rush
 and let reality.
 VI. Whispers on the wind
 Misty morning on windswept plain
 Embers of a fortress all that remain.
 The seeds of life that burned within
 have flown like whispers on the wind.
 From the sleepers world
 I look toward darkening skies.
 Through the violet haze of summer storms
 The sun leaves tired eyes.
 VII. Acquiescence
 Betrayed by innocence
 Deceived by delusions
 Plagiarized promises
 Pale into empty hopes.
 Ivory towers bow down
 In reverence to daylight
 As dreamers awaken
 In sleepers somber shade.
 Ocean Waves shift leaving
 only memories.
 Final traces of hope
 are swallowed in the deep.
 Despair sends a certain calm
 A vague sense of relief
 released from all our longings
 Silently we'll sleep.
 Hope leads to quiet desperation
 When reality obscures the dream
 Makes the mind a grave of memories
 That wander like the lonely breeze
 Whose whispers echo through ruins rust
 of towers torn and dreams turned to dust.
 VIII. Retrospect
 (Instrumental)