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 soldiers 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 tatooed sails
  Heading for the Gates of Eden.
    With a time-rusted compass blade
  Alladin and his lamp
  Sits with Utopian hermit monks
  Side saddle on the Golden Calf
  And on their promises of paradise
  You will not hear a laugh
  All except inside the Gates of Eden.
    Relationships of ownership
  They whisper in the wings
  To those condemned to act accordingly
  And wait for succeeding kings
  And I will 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 lower 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.