Hoop Dancer

[Verse 1]
Tokyo jetlag evening walking
Out of my throat appears this chuckle
A true twentieth century sound
A little crazed and having no tonal centre

[Verse 2]
The echoes of this laugh fade for a long time
Snaking among those jumbled pedestrians
Following that struggling Cedric taxicab
Sliding over the seeming infinity of white light and neon

[Verse 3]
With no warning, mind's eye winks like a lifespan
And opens again on memory flash of prairie Indian Dancers
They're on a stage, all jigging motion
And flare of bright feathers
Surrounded by white faces
Floating on a sea of mind
Hoop dancer struts in front
Drum and voices blend with endless rain

[Verse 4]
There's a time line
Something like vertical, like perpendicular
Cutting through figures shuffling on horizontal plane
Cutting through the survival pride of the dancers
Through the guilty, sentimental warmth of the crowd
Through to some essence common to us, to original man
To perhaps descendants numberless... or few
Where it intersects the space at hand
This shaman with the hoops stands
Aligned like living magnetic needle
Between deep past and looming future
Butterfly pierced on each drum beat, wing beat
Thunderclap, storm front
Static spark, energy circle delineated by leaping limbs

[Chorus]
First man last man dancing man man dancing
Hoops in hand trampled grass circle spreading
Voices flame above crazy coyote heartbeat drum
I see sunrise on the plains big river at dusk
Perpetual pillar of dust on prairie rim
And always overhead those wings—circling, turning
He's the earth he's the egg
He's the eagle always circling
Always turning—always comes back to the centre

[Verse 5]
Hoops whirling, now transparent
Feet touch down on anaconda streets
And on the next leap dissolve slowly into the moving lights
Rainbow steps, jerking universe
Goodbye, man-in-time
And just beyond the clatter and cars
The last long notes of wild voices ring
Like Roland's horn