The Chapel Of The Golden Bell

 

Demons twirl their silver robes and meadows burst into sheets of flame.         

An’ the dynasties destroyed by homicides stain the faces of angels with shame            

The flowering sweetness of human nights brushes your face with black damask

As the trumpets shatter the painted glass in the steel cathedral of the ancient Basque.

    

And Lady Jane looks down the stairs and listens for the sound of distant drums.

She paints her nails and she powders her face and she waits for somebody who never comes.

As the military prostitute she exploits all the new philosophies,

She declares herself to be the virgin queen and she glorifies all the wrong she sees.

    

And platforms along the boulevards support the weight of all our fallen sons

While generals mock the pain we feel and mothers weep and rivers run.

And pirates rule out on their seas of gold and they keel haul the bosun’s mate

For wanting something that they say belongs to them and if he dies, they call it fate.

    

And never once a head is turned to view the marchers moving by

And nobody hears the moaning sound of the wounded dove in a winter sky.

And the winding sheets and the towers of steel, they form my cage and they shape my cell

As the escalators carry the priests up to The Chapel Of The Golden Bell.

  

And can’t you see.  The walls gettin’ tighter now.  I think it’s time for me to go.

I’m not tryin’ to turn your head around.  I’m just tellin’ you a few of the few things that I know.

So so long evening rain cloud of mine.  It’s time for my boots to be movin’.

Farewell little miss lonely times.  There’s nothin’ left here for me to be provin’.

   

The one-eyed saints they approach the sage and they ask for permission to visit the spire

Then from their elevated chambers they hurl molten lead down on a naked choir.

And then they smile with passive grace as they envision scars on their useless palms

And all their pockets they line with coins of gold an’ then they solemnly recite the Psalms.

   

And no one’s guts turn upside down as they nourish their lives with poisoned rain.

An’ nobody visits Eden now and nobody rides on the magic train.

And the seething seas of soldiers they claw and they tear the sagging timbers down

That support the beliefs of foreign lands and they earn their three day pass to visit town.

   

An’ the gilded lady she turns her head.  She’s confused by the thoughts that fill her mind.

She says, “Ah, it’s a shame what some folks can’t see.”  And she doesn’t realize she’s blind.

And insurance men with masks of wood they take notes of where and why and when

And then they send their results, so profound and real, off to the companies that conquer men.

   

And the agents of the ruling class they investigate the changing times

They edit the thoughts of dying men.  They’ve changed the tone of freedom’s chimes.

And the wise men weep and the Sufis cry and they curse their paths through living Hell.

And nobody dreams about the angels now up in The Chapel Of The Golden Bell.

  

And can’t you see.  The walls getting’ tighter now.  I think it’s time for me to go.

An’ I’m not tryin’ to turn your head around.  I’m just tellin’ you a few of the few things that I know.

So so long evening rain cloud of mine.  It’s time for my boots to be movin’.

Farewell little miss lonely times.  There’s nothin’ left here for me to be provin’.

 

© 1979 & 2013 - RDT

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