Wednesday, January 3, 2018

All About Almost Everything Not Within The Gates Of Eden

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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 soldier 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 tattooed sails
Heading for the Gates of Eden
 
With a time-rusted compass blade
Aladdin and his lamp
Sits with Utopian hermit monks
Side saddle on the Golden Calf
And on their promises of paradise
 

Relationships of ownership
They whisper in the wings
To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings
And I 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 lover 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

BOB DYLAN

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2 comments:

  1. Doesn't this statement...

    And there are no truths
    outside the Gates of Eden


    mean that TRUTH exists
    within the Gates of Eden?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No!
      It gives an appearance
      that Truth may exist
      within the Gates

      The only thing that
      specifically exists within
      the Gates of Eden is Laughter.

      That is why I highlighted that verse.

      Every other verse of Dylan's song
      states what is not there
      (other than trees).

      Delete