Don Juan's Reckless Daughter

I'm Don Juan's reckless daughter

I came out two days on your tail

Those two bald-headed days in November

Before the first snowflakes sail

Out on the vast and subtle plains of mystery

A split-tongue spirit talks

Noble as a nickel chief

Striking up an old jukebox

And he says, "snakes along the railroad tracks"

He says, "eagles in jet trails"

He says, "coils around feathers

And talons on scales"

Gravel under the belly plates

He says, "wind in the wings"

He says, "big bird dragging its tail in the dust

Snake kite flying on a string"

I come from open prairie

Given some wisdom and a lot of jive

Last night the ghosts of my old ideas

Reran on channel five

And it howled so spooky for its eagle soul

I nearly broke down and cried

But the split-tongue spirit laughed at me

He says, "Your serpent cannot be denied"

Our serpents love the whisky bars

They love the romance of the crime

But didn't I see a neon sign

Fester on your hotel blind?

And a country road come off the wall

And swoop down on the crowd at the bar

And put me at the top of your danger list

Just for being so much like you are

You're a coward against the altitude

You're a coward against the flesh

Coward caught between yes and no

Reckless this time on the line for yes, yes, yes

Reckless brazen in the play

Of your changing traffic lights

Coward slinking down the hall

To another restless night

As we center behind the eight ball

As we rock between the sheets

As we siphon the colored language

Off the farms and the streets

Here in Good-Old-God-Save-America

The home of the brave and the free

We are all hopelessly oppressed cowards

Of some duality, of restless multiplicity (Oh say can you see)

Restless for streets and honky-tonks

Restless for home and routine

Restless for country, safety, and her

Restless for the likes of reckless me

Restless sweeps like fire and rain

Over virgin wilderness

It prowls like hookers and thieves

Through bolt-locked tenements

Behind my bolt-locked door

The eagle and the serpent are at war in me

The serpent fighting for blind desire

The eagle for clarity

What strange prizes these battles bring

These hectic joys, these weary blues

Puffed up and strutting when I think I win

Down and shaken when I think I lose

There are rivets up here in this eagle

There are box cars down there on your snake

And we are twins of spirit

No matter which route home we take or what we forsake

We're going to come up to the eyes of clarity

And we'll go down to the beads of guile

There is danger and education

In living out such a reckless lifestyle

I touched you on the central plains

It was plane to train my twin

It was just plane shadow to train shadow

But to me it was skin to skin

The spirit talks in spectrums

He talks to mother earth to father sky

Self indulgence to self denial

Man to woman, scales to feathers, you and I

Eagles in the sky, you and I

Snakes in the grass, you and I

Crawl and fly, you and I

You and I, you and I, you and I (By the dawn's early light)