Of war and peace the truth just twists
Its curfew gull just glides

Upon four-legged forest clouds
The cowboy angel rides
With his candle lit into the sun

Though its glow is waxed in black
All except when 'neath the trees of Eden.


The lamppost stands with folded arms
Its iron claws attached
To curbs 'neath holes where babies wail

Though it shadows metal badge
All and all can only fall
With a crashing but meaningless blow

No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden.

The savage soldiers sticks his head in sand

And then complains
Unto the shoeless hunter who's gone deaf
But still remains

Upon the beach where hound dogs bay
At ships with tatooed sails
Heading for the Gates of Eden.


With a time-rusted compass blade
Alladin and his lamp

Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Side saddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise

You will not hear a laugh
All except inside the Gates of Eden.


Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly

And wait for succeeding kings
And I will try to harmonize with songs
The lonesome sparrow sings

There are no kings inside the Gates of Eden.

The motorcycle black madonna

Two-wheeled gypsy queen
And her silver-studded phantom cause
The gray flannel dwarf to scream

As he weeps to wicked birds of prey
Who pick up on his bread crumb sins
And there are no sins inside the Gates of Eden.


The kingdoms of Experience
In the precious wind they rot

While paupers change possessions
Each one wishing for what the other has got
And the princess and the prince

Discuss what's real and what is not
It doesn't matter inside the Gates of Eden.


The foreign sun, it squints upon
A bed that is never mine
As friends and other strangers

From their fates try to resign
Leaving men wholly totally free
To do anything they wish to do but die

And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden.

At dawn my lower comes to me

And tells me of her dreams
With no attempts to shovel the glimpse
Into the ditch of what each one means

At times I think there are no words
But these to tell what's true
And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden.