Dance With The Grateful Dead

Dance With The Grateful Dead
© Surazeus
2024 12 02

Floating into blue sky of broken clouds, 
high over endless maze of city streets, 
I see beneath nice clean suits of bank clerks 
the wild-eyed beatniks, hippies, and soul freaks 
who follow Moses to the Promised Land 
where he helps them dance with the grateful dead. 

Living safe in my suburban-zoo home 
after hitchhiking sea to shining sea, 
I feel the revolutionary beat of truth 
pulse in deep passion of my self-control, 
so I howl with wolves to the bloody moon 
while we keep dancing with the grateful dead. 

Young Malcolm, who exed out his slave last name, 
rolls utopian joints in Harlem jazz clubs 
where moon-eyed shamans of New Orleans swamps 
play wailing elegies on saxophones 
that lift our spirits over city towers 
so lost souls can dance with the grateful dead. 

Bearded dharma lion and Buddhist Jew 
meditates on the television screen, 
eyes flashing with visions of holy light 
that guide the best minds of our generation 
to climb the mountain of the fallen idol 
and teach us to dance with the grateful dead. 

Strolling with Eve on Desolation Row 
to translate wisdom blowing in the wind, 
the star-eyed tambourine man with six wings 
guides lost souls through the smoke rings of his mind 
to knock on the gates of Heaven for truth, 
then leaves us to dance with the grateful dead. 

Writing prophecies on the subway walls, 
the lonely prophet of the Neon God 
translates the sounds of silence to dream spells 
he sings in the cafe on Bleecker Street 
while beatniks snap their fingers with the groove 
and stoned hippies dance with the grateful dead. 

Driving Volkswagen buses with rainbows 
across the waste land from Manhattan maze, 
hippies head west for the Summer of Love 
to trip in glowing hills of San Francisco 
with flowers from tombs of gods in their hair 
while they dance on fire with the grateful dead. 

Beat down by the hard grind of daily life, 
assembling cars in chugging factories, 
the wingless angels of America 
fall from the flower-perfect hills of Heaven 
to build world empire of the holy bomb, 
then dance forever with the grateful dead.