Night Dream (Live) - Kurt Elling

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

nude 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."