Kurt Elling
Night Dream (Live)
Lonely the roses of Avondaire /
Sing as though somebody still may care
They live only for the dream of living /
So come follow where /
They will take you there

I once was apprenticed /
To a man who was living
In the eye if the hurricane /
To know despair

He knew all the dreams by heart /
Just like sailing in a boat of crystal silence /
Seeing visions /
Of the world / of life within a life

In a turning /
Like a burning /
Came turning /
Out of everything stirring /
And what had begun before

But all wrapped up /
In one great godly becoming -

Tumbling /
And fumbling /
And stumbling
Into bumbling /
And rumbling along -
Whirling it /
And swirling it /
And twirling it /
And hurling it /
And overturning it /
And burning it again

I shared a whirling dervish out on the side of a hill called metaphore vivace
Swinging en route to a nascent solar /
With the scissored visored blizzard
Wizard /
Gizzarding planets and secrets within /
Like an avatar

While meanwhile /
In turnstyling /
And spinning over him
Spells bespeaking kingdoms in the dark

Calling me to yield /
Knighting me in a field /
Covered with armies
And with princes. All were signing /
Cannons shining /
Pennants flying
And when he spoke to me he sang /
And his words really rang -
This child of the knowledge of the beauty of the night -

He sang to me of masters passing on /
Of father after father after father
Climbing up into the lotus bloom /
Upon the tortoise's back

And of grandfathers /
Who danced through their living a longer time ago
He showed me a palace in time /
In which all the talismans
From all the zeuses /
Swing upon a pendulum of secrets
In a circle that remembers /
And when asked a question will surrender

Every secret key to every hero's message /
Given to every heart in time
But only known to but a few /or so it seems

When I asked of them /
What shall I do /
To see the god?
They only said /
The goldenrod /
Which grows inside of
Every secret dream you dream /
While waiting for the god -
It-s a symbol from the man in the fire
Ling you the thing you desire
Is a garment that covers the riddle of everything secretly wished for
And of the world of which you are an inheritor
Suddenly the chamber was flooded with light /
Hurling me skyward like a meteorite/

When I fell to earth /
I saw everything in a blur
I saw that time was accelerating in a curve

And the palace in which I had stood /
It was flowing, like lava, on acres of
Woodland
Like a pompei-an mountain volcano /
Making archipelago
And destroying the planet / at fortissimo

Bulldozing everything down /
To make room for what
Was a byzantine /
A labarynthine /
Knotty mess of
Manifolding passageways /
A tangle of confusion /
Where the walls made /
An asylum of baroque

Like a joke / words were spoken
To provoke me / and to toss me
N*** and empty / to the sea

But I would have none of it
I simply turned my back and walked out/
Of the dreamscape/
Into landscape /
Like a bedroom / where I heard that

Lonely the roses of solitaire /
Sing as though somebody still may care
They live only for the dream of living /
So come follow where they will take
You there
Stay awake - no mistake - dance the dream awake - and awake."