The garden of neweden and the key in stone
Out of the garden of the Pope
In shoes blazing martyr red.
Out of the Hans Christian Anderson
Red shoes to make you dead.
Oh beware a color
That takes your breath away
That blinds your eye to not see the lie
That promises to stay.
Beware a cracked mirror
For the truth be in the crack
And it’s truth be not for the seeing
And ain’t nothing coming back.
A man from the garden of Neweden,
A state of mind and place
Talked too long into that crack
And at much too fast a pace.
So that facts and wishes and lies and truths
Got smashed into a ball
And fairy tales and prophets’ gales
Couldn’t unwind them all.
And on a quest he went,
Specters showed the way
Cloaked in black and one bone finger
Pointing towards decay.
Near a river there be a key
Imprisoned in a stone
And the deed to remove that key
Falls on that man alone.
That man be of special
And the key an excalibur of kind
To slay ice cold blue dragons,
Every last one he could find.
It seemed it could not be
That fictions were there too
For the man knows there’s no such thing
As a tree kangaroo.
And in that fervent mixture
The holy words were bound
And with the stone key’s ken
These holy words were found.
And the man read all these words
And how could he ever guess
That his every previous no
Should have been a yes.
He raced to spread the word
Oblivious to absent pain
Oblivious to power and to wealth
That he knew would be his gain.
And now red bows in his hair
And red shoes on his feet
All there from the taking
And nowhere t’ be seen defeat.
And shout he did and shout he does
Forever more a shout.
But in night’s middle a whimper
When he can’t find the way out.
It’s the nightmare he can’t shake
Of Dorothy Gale’s red shoes
Of nothing more to gain
And everything to lose
Unwinding to their end
And busting through a curtain
For in his heart he knows
That nothing is more certain.
But in the morning from the east
Comes light softly creeping
That puts away those falsities
That came whilst he was sleeping.
But his ship of state is sailing
With it’s cargo of forget-me-nots
Bound for that river iceberg
Called the Lady of Shalott.
It had seemed transparent so apparent
And not through that glass darkly
To end with new best friends
On a hill in a city all shiny and sparkly.
So close, so close and no life boat
To bring life to his hope
How could he know where he’d go
It’d all end badly in a joke.