Magenta Afternoon

Hourglass woman tilted sideways lying on her bed
Time is standing still it's standing right on its head
I'm fixated watching the shadows run up and down her thighs
Counting the grains of blue sand that slip from her eyes
She stirs and says, "I like those sad songs you sing
Won't you play, for me, another tune?"
So I pick up my guitar and play for her
"Magenta Afternoon"

Baby blue balloon tangled up in a tree
Bumps and bruises a scrape on my knee
No matter how high I climb that balloon is always out of reach of me
Back then it was all a song of innocence
And in a sense, it was always sunrise
Every day a chance to wipe the sadness and the dreams from my eyes
Bluebird out my window says it's Saturday morning
Race downstairs to be the first to watch cartoons
That was before I got swept up in magenta afternoons

I am old, living in a dirty smoker's house
The yellow wallpaper eroding all around
Listening to my train of thought wondering where it's bound
Outside the topaz sun is setting, silencing the golden tongues
Of the meadowlarks
I feel the hot air burning in my lungs but it's growing dark
Ozymandias beckons with his hand
He says, "Join me in my desert kingdom
Never again will you fear a handful of dust
And we'll watch the world turn to rust"
So I guess It's time for me to disappear with him behind a sand dune
And try to remember what life was like in a magenta afternoon

Hourglass woman now that the song is done
You're sitting straight up on your bed and the sand is moving in you again
I'm thinking, what good is another deflowered muse
To a poet whose life contains multitudes
So you see I've got to go, can't let the well run dry
Even if it means I'll make the same mistakes, I still have to try
I'm happily living in a Yeatsian gyre
Hoping it'll never expire
Chasing perfume and prose
Wrapping up the fire hose
Watching the flames grow higher
So I pack up my guitar and leave you in this darkening room
I'm off to find a new life in a magenta afternoon