The Celebration of the Lizard

Lions in the street and roaming
Dogs in heat, rabid, foaming
A beast caged in the heart of a city
The body of his mother
Rotting in the summer ground.
He fled the town.

He went down South and crossed the border
Left the chaos and disorder
Back there over his shoulder.

One morning he awoke in a green hotel
With a strange creature groaning beside him.
Sweat oozed from its shiny skin.

Is everybody in?
The ceremony is about to begin.

Wake up!
You can't remember where it was.
Had this dream stopped?

The snake was pale gold
Glazed & shrunken.
We were afraid to touch it.
The sheets were hot dead prisons.

Now, run to the mirror in the bathroom,
Look!
I can't live thru each slow century of her moving.
I let my cheek slide down
The cool smooth tile
Feel the good cold stinging blood
The smooth hissing snakes of rain...

Once I had a little game
I liked to crawl back into my brain
I think you know the game I mean
I mean the game called 'go insane'

Now you should try this little game
Just close your eyes forget your name
Forget the world, forget the people
And we'll erect a different steeple.

This little game is fun to do.
Just close your eyes, no way to lose.
And I'm right there, I'm going too.
Release control, we're breaking through.

Way back deep into the brain
Back where there's never any pain.
And the rain falls gently on the town.
And in the labyrinth of streams
Beneath, the quiet unearthly presence of
Nervous hill dwellers in the gentle hill around,
Reptiles abounding
Fossils, caves, cool air heights.

Each house repeats a mold
Windows rolled
Beast car locked in against morning.
All now sleeping
Rugs silent, mirrors vacant,
Dust blind under the beds of lawful couples
Wound in sheets.
And couples, smug
With semen eyes in their nipples

Wait
There's been a slaughter here.

(Don't stop to speak or look around
Your gloves & fan are on the ground
We're getting out of town
We're going on the run
And you're the one I want to come)

Not to touch the earth
Not to see the sun
Nothing left to do, but
Run, run, run
Let's run

House upon the hill
Moon is lying still
Shadows of the trees
Witnessing the wild breeze
C'mon baby run with me
Let's run

Run with me
Run with me
Run with me
Let's run

The mansion is warm, at the top of the hill
Rich are the rooms and the comforts there
Red are the arms of luxuriant chairs
And you won't know a thing till you get inside

Dead president's corpse in the driver's car
The engine runs on glue and tar
C'mon along, we're not going very far
To the East to meet the Czar.

Some outlaws lived by the side of a lake
The minister's daughter's in love with the snake
Who lives in a well by the side of the road
Wake up, girl! We're almost home

Sun, sun, sun
Burn, burn, burn
Soon, soon, soon
Moon, moon, moon,
I will get you
Soon!
Soon!
Soon!

Let the carnival bells ring
Let the serpent sing
Let everything

We came down
The rivers & highways
We came down from
Forests & falls

We came down from
Carson & Springfield
We came down from
Phoenix enthralled
& I can tell you
The names of the Kingdom
I can tell you
The things that you know
Listening for a fistful of silence
Climbing valleys into the shade

'I am the Lizard King
I can do anything
I can make the earth stop in its tracks
I made the blue cars go away

For seven years I dwelt
In the loose palace of exile,
Playing strange games
With the girls of the island.

Now I have come again
To the land of the fair, & the strong, & the wise.

Brothers & sisters of the pale forest
O children of Night
Who among you will run with the hunt?

Now Night arrives with her purple legion.
Retire now to your tents & to your dreams.
Tomorrow we enter the town of my birth.
I want to be ready.