From Burning Man to the Big Bang
America: A Prophet Sees

PART ONE:
American Dream

I dreamed a dream - what can it mean?
Of a land restored and a desert greened.
A stream of conscious, scream of birth
Of dancing feet that drummed dry earth
To raise the dust, to wake The Devil
Wolf-angels bustin’ blazing revels
And elves that worked The Masters’ plan
Conceived before the race began
To weave a spell from sun and sand
To raise The Child and burn The Man.

Now from cities far and wide they came
To fuel that fire and fan those flames;
The dusty kings and dancing queens -
Strange satyrs spawned from drunken dreams.
Ecstatic fools and dirty dancers
Wildcat cruisers and changeling chancers
Walking naked at noon, unashamed, unafraid
Riding bareback at midnight on bikes built for pain.

Drinking cocktails at dawn and dropping acid for lunch
Getting weak at the knees from the sucker’s punch;
A mushroom-metropolis that springs up overnight
A hedonist’s playground, dust devil’s delight.
A birthplace for some and a graveyard for others
An erotic, chaotic collision of lovers
Razing Rome in a day - the American way!
Make your way to The Playa, folks
And if you can, get waylaid!

Now a pirate ship slips past a half-buried head
In an alien landscape on an ancient lake bed
As an Amazon princess in lace lingerie
Glides by in a limousine, leering at me.
In the distance a jet engine roars into life
Slashing open the sky like a neon-blue knife
As a flame-throwing wrecking ball swings through the air
And I remember the sign on the gates: “ Beware!”
‘Cause the American Dream is still kickin’ out there!

For a week all the freaks meet to strive for the peak
They get too crazy to care and too spangled to speak.
Making love, making music, finding new ways to lose it;
A spontaneous combustion of consumer culture
A rose-scented circus of vagrants and vultures
Living their dream of a Conscious Community:
Liberty! Laughter! Diversity! Unity!
Coming together to make Love through Art -
Getting out of our minds to get into our hearts.

PART TWO:
American Nightmare

But I wonder can you burn the man within
When the fire’s gone cold and the times grow thin?
When the oceans roar and the mountains shake
When the sidewalk shudders and the Twin Towers quake.

When the oil’s run dry and the president’s fled
When you’ve got both barrels pressed hard to your head
When your little girl’s dying for a glass of fresh water
But you’re still fighting with an enemy who offers no quarter.

When the police are on the street
And the state is in emergency
And failure to capitulate turns your protest to insurgency;
When your tax dollar’s paying for the bullet in the gun
And the wages of the kid paid to point it at your son.

When you’re wondering what happened
To your ‘Freedom and Democracy’
And how the planet got jacked by a corporate autocracy:
When Wall Street’s crashed and the bank’s gone bust
And it’s you who’s paying for your leader’s lost trust.

When the guy who planned the war
Takes the bids for reconstruction
And genocide’s a business plan
For boosting mass production.
When you’re wondering:
“What happened to those weapons of destruction?”
You’ll see the Dubya MD’s in the land of the free:
A mad dog barking up the wrong gun tree.

There’s Nazis in the White House
Condoleeza Rice House
Something here ain't right house!
Victory for ze Vice-Haus.


Working for the Cheney gang
Waiting for the big bang
Blame it on the black man
Then we’ll bomb Iraq, man!

Fascist fundamentalists, ruling with an iron fist
Stumbling through a red mist
Crossing off their shit lists.
Armchair general George Bush
Calling for The Big Push:
“Sacrifice your kids for me!
Vote away your liberty!”

One election robbed, next one rigged:
So how much longer till the fat-and-happy twig
That the whole world’s fallen
For the Dixie gypsy-switch?

And your ‘freedom and democracy’s a double-talk hypocrisy:
A criminal conspiracy, fighting for a fantasy.
Microchipped monkeys, Illuminati flunkies
Fossil fuel junkies, pimpin’ for ‘The Company’.

“Let’s rid the world of evildoers!
We’ll crawl with them into the sewers!
We’ll torture them to teach them
How civilised we are
And how we value human life -
Just not as much as motor cars!”

Safe within our SUVs
Armoured from reality
Working on our heart disease
And praying:
“Jesus, save us please!”

“Supersize us Santa Claus!
Supersize us, Mammon’s whores!
Supersize us with more sugar!
Bless us with a fuller figure!
Supersize us - watch us grow!
Supersize us - best in show!
Supersize us - make us great!”

A planet served, steaming
On a Styrofoam plate.

PART THREE
American Prayer

The best of worlds - and the worst of worlds -
Creators and destroyers of worlds.
From California dreaming
To New Orleans drowning
The stars and stripes are streaming -
That dream sure took a pounding!

Uncle Sam in Vietnam
Afghanistan, Iraq - Iran?
On the take in every land
Greenbacks clutched in bloody hands;
The Neo Con policeman
Is hatching out his pension plan.

It’s the ‘New World Order’ - same old crap! -
False-flag ops and honeytraps.
'War on terror’? - War on thought! -
Just buy the bullshit that you’re taught!

“Now, the world was made in just six days
And Jesus never died for gays.
See, God is love - but love’s a crime:
Bread is meat and blood is wine.”

“War brings peace and jails bring freedom;
All who disagree are heathens.
Sure, presidents lie - but patriots believe ‘em -
So toe the line, boy - don’t ask the reason!”

Wake up folks, it’s time to dance:
The human race has one more chance
To rip the needle from the vein -
Let’s ditch the oil and dream again!

So kick the habit and sack the priest:
The Truth alone brings true release!
Then make your pledge and take your stand:
Let’s stake our place in the Promised Land.

Sure, the Founding Fathers fought for independence
But now the sons of those fathers
Must teach transcendence:
This boat is afloat on an ocean of light
And there’s enough for us all -
With no need for a fight.

So petition the Prince with the peacock-eye
To banish the fear and be free of the lie;
Ours is not to do and die -
Ours must be to question: “Why?”

It seems Einstein was wrong; God does play dice
But faith without reason’s a fool’s paradise.
The power of Magick is the seed of all life
So feed what feeds you - and forget the hype.

Step out of the box and stare at the sky:
Let the light of the stars strip the scales from your eyes.
Then breathe into your heart and breathe out to Infinity:
Know that Heaven, on Earth, in that heart’s
The True Trinity.

Three into One, One into Three:
The raindrop returns to the Sea of Tranquillity.
Then recharged and renewed
Drifting down through the blue
It comes to rest on the ground
A diaphanous dew ...

And so I dream my dream
(And by now you know what I mean)
Of that land restored and that desert greened.
A stream of conscience, scream of birth
Of dancing feet that drum dry earth
To raise the dust, to wake The Devil;
Wolf-Angels busting blazing revels
And elves that work that master plan
Conceived before the wars began:
To weave a spell from sun and sand
To raise The Child
And burn The Man.