Don Juan's

It's a long, long way from canada
A long way from snow chains
Donkey vendors slicing coconut
No parkas to their name
Black babies covered in baking flour
The cook's got a carnival song
We're going to lay down someplace shady
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland

Walter raleigh and chris columbus
Come marching out of the waves
And claim the beach and all concessions
In the name of the suntan slave
I wrapped that flag around me
Like a dorothy lamour sarong
And i lay down thinking national
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland

Goodtime mary and a fortune hunter
All dressed up to follow the drums
Mary in a feather hula-hoop
Miss fortune with a rose on her big game gun
All saints, all sinners shining
Heed those trumpets all night long
Propped up on a samba beat
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland

Tar baby and the great white wonder
Talking over a glass of rum
Burning on the inside
With the knowledge of things to come
There's gambling out on the terrace
And midnight ramblin' on the lawn
As they lead toward temptation
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland

In a plane flying back to winter
In shoes full of tropic sand
A lady in a foreign flag
On the arm of her marlboro man
The hawk howls in new york city
Six foot drifts on myrtle's lawn
As they push the recline buttons down
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland

La, la ...
African sand on the trade winds
And the sun on the amazon
As they push the recline buttons down
With dreamland coming on
Dreamland, dreamland
Dreamland, dreamland

It fell from midnight skies
It drummed on the galvanized
In the washroom, women tracked the rain
Up to the make-up mirror
Liquid soap and grass
And jungle gardenia crash
On pine-sol and beer ...
It's stifling in here ...
I've got to get some air ...
I'm going outside to get some air

Back in my hometown
They would have cleared the floor
Just to watch the rain come down!
They're such sky oriented people--
Geared to changing weather ...
I'm floating off in time
I'm floating off
I'm floating off in time

When i was three feet tall
And wide eyed open to it all
With their tasseled teams they came
To mcgee's general store
All in their beaded leathers
I would tie on colored feathers
And i'd beat the drum like war ...
I would beat the drum like war
I'd beat the drum
I'd beat the drum like war

But when the church got through
They traded their beads for bottles
Smashed--on railway avenue
And they cut off their braids
And lost some link with nature
I'm floating into dreams
I'm floating off
I'm floating into my dreams

I dream paprika plains
Vast and bleak and god forsaken
Paprika plains
And a turquoise river snaking

(where crows gaze--vigilant on wires
Where cattle graze the grasses
Far from the digits of business hours
The moon clock wanes and waxes--
But here all time is stripped away
Nowhere on these plains
Is a sprout or an egg in evidence
To measure loss or gain ...
Only a little indian band
Come down from some windy mesa
No women to make them food and child
No expressions on their faces
I'm low in a helicopter
And the wind from whirling blades
Flaps their woven blankets
And flags their raven braids
How came they to this emptiness?
How came they to this dream?
How came i to this view
From a flying machine
Of earth and air and water
And a band of indian men
Without herds or flocks or crops
Or families or fires to tend?
Like a phoenix up from ashes now
A blanket figure springs
With a fist raised up to turquoise skies
Like liberty
And at the point of vanishing
Where the sky and the earth meet
A bomb blooms
Deadly mushroom
White
Gold
Heat
Like a phoenix up from ashes
Up from violent mysteries
And growing 'till the giant blast
Is to it like a golfer's tee
There comes a child's beach ball
And memory takes me back
To the beach to toss it up
To the garage to get it patched
A pink and yellow beach ball
Rolling
Grand
Detached
Turning the blues and greens of earth
From space probe photographs
I float out of the hovercraft
Naked as infancy
And weightless
And drifting
Horizontally
Like a filing to a magnet
Like the long descent of rain
I am drawn
I fall against the ball
And lose paprika plains
I suckle at my mother's breast
I embrace my mother earth
I remember perforated blinds
Over the crib of my birth
And just as eve succumbed
To reckless curiosity
I take my sharpest fingernail
And slash the globe to see
Below me--
Vast paprika plains
And the snake the river traces
And a little band of indian men
With no expressions on their faces.)

The rain retreats
Like troops to fall on other fields and streets
Meanwhile they're sweet talking and name calling
And brawling on the fringes of the floor
I spot you through the smoke
With your eyes on fire
From j&b and coke
As i'm coming through the door
I'm coming back
I'm coming back for more!
The band plugs in again
You see that mirrored ball begin to sputter lights
And spin
Dizzy on the dancers
Geared to changing rhythms
No matter what you do
I'm floating back
I'm floating back to you!

I'm don juan's reckless daughter
I came out two days on your tail
Those two bald-headed days in november
Before the first snowflakes sail
Out on the vast and subtle plains of mystery
A split tongue spirit talks
Noble as a nickel chief
Striking up an old juke box
And he says:
"snakes along the railroad tracks."
He says, "eagles in jet trails ..."
He says, "coils around feathers and talons on scales ...
Gravel under the belly plates ..."
He says, "wind in the wings ..."
He says, "big bird dragging its tail in the dust ...
Snake kite flying on a string."

I come from open prairie
Given some wisdom and a lot of jive!
Last night the ghosts of my old ideas
Reran on channel five
And it howled so spooky for its eagle soul
I nearly broke down and cried
But the split tongue spirit laughed at me
He says, "your serpent cannot be denied."
Our serpents love the whisky bars
They love the romance of the crime
But didn't i see a neon sign
Fester on your hotel blind
And a country road come off the wall
And swoop down at the crowd at the bar
And put me at the top of your danger list
Just for being so much like you are!

You're a coward against the altitude--
You're a coward against the flesh--
Coward--caught between yes and no
Reckless this time on the line for yes, yes, yes!
Reckless brazen in the play
Of your changing traffic lights
Coward--slinking down the hall
To another restless night
As we center behind the eight ball
As we rock between the sheets
As we siphon the colored language
Off the farms and the streets
Here in good-old-god-save-america
The home of the brave and the free
We are all hopelessly oppressed cowards
Of some duality
Of restless multiplicity
(oh say can you see)

Restless for streets and honky tonks
Restless for home and routine
Restless for country-safety-and her
Restless for the likes of reckless me
Restless sweeps like fire and rain
Over virgin wilderness
It prowls like hookers and thieves
Through bolt locked tenements
Behind my bolt locked door
The eagle and the serpent are at war in me
The serpent fighting for blind desire
The eagle for clarity
What strange prizes these battles bring
These hectic joys-these weary blues
Puffed up and strutting when i think i win
Down and shaken when i think i lose
There are rivets up here in this eagle
There are box cars down there on your snake
And we are twins of spirit
No matter which route home we take
Or what we forsake
We're going to come up to the eyes of clarity
And we'll go down to the beads of guile
There is danger and education
In living out such a reckless life style
I touched you on the central plains
It was plane to train my twin
It was just plane shadow to train shadow
But to me it was skin to skin
The spirit talks in spectrums
He talks to mother earth to father sky
Self indulgence to self denial
Man to woman
Scales to feathers
You and i
Eagles in the sky
You and i
Snakes in the grass
You and i
Crawl and fly
You and i