last night i had that same old dream it rocked me in my sleep and left me the impression that the sandman plays for keeps i dreamed i was in concert in the middle of the clouds john wayne and billy graham were giving breath mints to the crowds i fell through a hole in heaven i left the stage for good and when i landed on the earth i was back in hollywood

 

the california earthquake it tore the land in half while san andreas cleared her throat i heard tsunami laugh the ground began to tremble the land began to sway and people in the other states they were glad they'd moved away but suddenly california just floated in the breeze while every state that wasn't sank down into the seas

 

and soon i saw atlantis rumble and rise high and the great egg of euphrates came down out of the sky and out stepped shirley temple with guy kippee who was dead and that communist bill robinson whom shirley called black red they have a marionette of harpo marx they said it was an inside joke but when i honked his horn he came alive and these were the words he spoke

 

"with the continents adrift and the sun about to shift will the ice caps drown us all or will we burn we've polluted what we own will we reap what we have sown? are we headed for the end or can we turn? we've paved the forest killed the streams burned the bridges to our dreams the earth is bursting at the seams and in pain of childbirth screams as it gives life to what seems to either be an age that gleams or simply lays there dying if this goes on will life survive how can it out of the grave oh who will save our planet?"

 

i said i'm pleased to meet you i always thought you were a scream he said "have you ever thought of having helen keller in your dreams i said errol flynn dropped by but he tried to steal my girl the she ran off with ronald colman said something about a new world now i'm stuck with my own cooking hey i'm lonely can't you see well he grabbed my leg and said exactly eighty nine words to me count them

 

"let the proud but dying nation kiss the last generation it's the year of the pill, age of the gland we have landed on the moon but we'll clutter that up soon our sense of freedom's gotten out of hand we kill our children swap our wives we've learned to greet a man with knives we swallow pills in fours and fives our cities look like crumbling hives man does not live he just survives we sleep till he arrives love is a corpse we sit and watch it harden we left it oh so long ago the garden"

 

the strings snapped briskly then went slack the marionette lay dead while hoover played with the motorcade the body slumped and bled the man who held the camera disappeared into the crowd i said the hope of youth, fictitious truth, lays covered in a shroud then up walked elmo lincoln and he said i beg you pardon but we left it oh so long ago, the garden