She stepped down from her carriage,
at Ten Vermillon Street.
I took off my roustabout,
and slung it at her feet.
We went into her parlor,
and she cooled me with her fan,
but said, “I’ll go no further,
with a fantasy-makin’ man.”I said, “I’d walk on Ponchartrain,
for what you have today.
Just a drink from your deep well,
and I’ll be on my way.”
She laughed and heaven filled the room.
Said, “This I give to you:
this body’s wisdom is the flesh,
but here’s a thing or two.“Death and hell are never full,
and neither are the eyes of men.
Cats can fly from nine stories high,
and pigs can see the wind.”She let me make my pallet
in the moonlight on the floor.
Just outside of paradise,
but right in hell’s back door.
The image of her nibbled
at the eye of my soul.
My dreams were a hurricane,
quite out of control.Then her voice came through the storm,
“It’s more than flesh I deal
and you will have to pay
for any wisdom that you steal.”
I woke to tinted windows
in lavender and red.
The first station of the cross
was just above my head.
I awoke to gargoyles
and a hard bench for my bed.
Jesus Christ and Pontias Pilate
were just above my head.“Death and hell are never full,
and neither are the eyes of men.
Cats can fly from nine stories high,
and pigs can see the wind.”
~Johnny Cash
