Dark star crashes
pouring its light
into ashes
Reason tatters
the forces tear loose
from the axis
Searchlight casting
for faults in the clouds
of delusion
Shall we go,
you and I
while we can?
Through
the transitive nightfall
of diamonds
Mirror shatters
in formless reflections
of matter
Glass hand dissolving
to ice-petal flowers
revolving |
Lady in velvet
recedes
in the nights of good-bye
Shall we go,
you and I
while we can?
Through
the transitive nightfall
of diamonds
spinning a set the stars through which the tattered tales
of axis roll
about the waxen wind of never set to motion in the
unbecoming
round about the reason hardly matters nor the wise
through which
the stars were set in spin
"Though they arranged 'Alligator', 'China Cat Sunflower',
and 'Saint Stephen' to lyrics I mailed Garcia from New Mexico, this is
the first lyric I wrote with the Grateful Dead." - Robert Hunter
|
Saint Stephen with a rose
In and out of the garden he goes
Country garland in the wind and the rain
Wherever he goes the people all complain
Stephen prospered in his time
Well he may and he may decline
Did it matter? Does it now?
Stephen would answer if he only knew how
Wishing well with a golden bell
Bucket hanging clear to Hell
Hell halfway 'twixt now and then
Stephen fill it up and lower down
and lower down again
Ladyfinger dipped in moonlight
Writing "What for?" across the morning sky
Sunlight splatters dawn with answers
Darkness shrugs and bids the day good-bye
Speeding arrow, sharp and narrow
What a lot of fleeting matters you have spurned
Several seasons with their treasons
Wrap the babe in scarlet covers, call it your own
Did he doubt or did he try?
Answers aplenty in the bye and bye
Talk about your plenty, talk about your ills
One man gathers what another man spills |
Saint Stephen will remain
All he's lost he shall regain
Seashore washed in the suds and the foam
Been here so long he's got to calling it home
Fortune comes acrawling, Calliope woman
Spinning that curious sense of your own
Can you answer? Yes I can
But what would be the answer to the answer man?
High green chilly winds and windy vines in loops around
the
twisted shafts of lavender, they're crawling to the
sun
Underfoot the ground is patched with climbing arms
of ivy
wrapped around the manzanita, stark and shiny in the
breeze
Wonder who will water all the children of the garden
when they
sigh about the barren lack of rain and droop so hungry
'neath the sky. . . .
William Tell has stretched his bow till it won't stretch
no
furthermore and/or it may require a change that hasn't
come before
|
No more time to tell how
This is the season of what
Now is the time of returning
With thought jewels polished and gleaming
Now is the time past believing
The child has relinquished the reign
Now is the test of the boomerang
Tossed in the night of redeeming |
Eight-sided whispering hallelujah hatrack
Seven-faced marble eyed transitory dream doll
Six proud walkers on jingle-bell rainbow
Five men writing in fingers of gold
Four men tracking the great white sperm whale
Three girls waiting in a foreign dominion
Ride in the whale belly
Fade away in moonlight
Sink beneath the waters
to the coral sands below
Now is the time of returning
|
