Analysis of Where Elephants Dance

The man in the five-piece DeLorean outfit
Stares out of his office window
Wears gabardine attitudes with silk style
Crushed velour clings loyally to his arm
“Call me Imitation Velvet” she quips
But her eyes are twice-removed from her smile

Herds trudge by on streets, dragging trunks
Briefcases full of heavy artillery
Baggage to burden a bear
They enter their yards on heavy flat feet
Home at last, drop themselves with their trunks
Closed eyes roll back into the easy chair

They say you may saddle a winged dream
But down here, even crows don’t fly
Here lies the corporate boneyard
The place where dreams go to die

It seems I’ve grown too large to fit within
The confines of your profit margin
I don’t pay no union blues
For tired, dirty, old grey walls
Or seven-foot ceilings I can’t reach
On my tiptoes in platform shoes

They say you may find success perchance
You should find the place where elephants dance
But fables are filled with that stuff
What you think is stardust poured from the horn
Of some magical, mystical unicorn
Might just be criminal dandruff

They say you may saddle a winged dream
But down here, even crows don’t fly
Here lies the corporate boneyard
The place where dreams go to die

Once, promises sparkled, the eyes of a whore
Candlelight dancing in crystal wine-glasses
Now the eyes of God shine clear through the day
Where once I clutched at feathered pillows
I leave down behind, where the skeletons
Like fallen white marble dominoes lay

I hover above the disarray
Gaze into where silk suits hang limp
Where people don’t look into each others’ lies
Elephants dance, pachyderms pretty in pink
They’ll not admit to each other they see them
Because visions are lies in a prostitute’s eyes

They say you may saddle a winged dream
But only in cartoons do elephants fly
Down there lies the corporate boneyard
The place where dreams go to die

© John Kennan, 1995