I Got A Letter Yesterday 12/?/92

I got a letter yesterday a letter from the dead
It wasn't short it wasn't long this is what it said
Someone called my name it seems out within the night
They didn't say it loud or soft they simply said it right
But then I'm a nameless wonder can't call me by my name
No matter how you change the rules I'll always play the game
I've stomped these grounds before you see this turf I made it mine
I took the river through my mind cleaned it til it shined
I fell off of a bridge that night fell in to rock and roll
And though I felt the mud and grime I fell into my soul
I surged up from the swamp I did a fecund warrior young
My bastard twin remained but had missed the ladder's rung
A box of secrets sat before me with a red-wax circle seal
Double locked with separate keys and so much to reveal
And you go, my friendly twin to unlock the starboard hold
And I remain the sinister the left is silver right is gold
Get away, get far away, grovel not to a past that's passed
High and mighty memory is a lizard not an asp
Girls names and locker numbers written on a notebook cover
Years go by yearbook signings hover former lovers
I'd sit starboard shotgun in the Newport boat we drove with love
Took one step into that hole just like a cult I was proud of
It'd seem sometimes somehow that amnesia might prevail
Til the day a man on crutches started dancing in the hail
And when the scarecrow caught my eye and chilled me to the bone
All the sacrifices of our peers were finally driven home
The town had cried and seen old women on fire for their sons
How come they survived? The ones who cried, rode in a car that weighed two tons?
These questions bounced off of the grass that was olive drab
(Come on let's go I've got to leave so I'll pick up the tab)
Tie a yellow ribbon round a very special tree
Don't fly in copters late at night 'coz legends never see
Those stars above your eyes that have taken such a shift
Look on the bright side of the tree and your mind will start to drift

Through the current through the pads to a place you know so well
To all your friends and your sins to people that you know
To where it is and what's inside a whistle not a bell
An earring marble penny pick a funeral to glow
A Karmann Ghia quote from stone a fighter's tomb and shell
A balloon a hollow nut all these things they move so slow
When skipping cross the screens that fill my head
And all this sealed with wax a brightly ribboned red

I got a letter yesterday a letter from the dead