We are thrown back and forth between prison
and the heaven that lies darkly submerged within us
waiting for release where both worlds become one.
We needed to know it all from debauchery to sainthood.

Gregory on the streets of Greenwich Village and North Beach
George protected in his porous castle in England meditating.
No matter whether rich or poor their creations ascend
while death and ecstasy stalk every neuron
prodding the mind toward becoming that "perfect entity."
"Living through a million years of crying
until you've realized the Art of Dying."

Neither the fame of the Beatle nor the obscurity of the Poet
their drunkenness, addictions, sobriety or charity
could cloak them from the "wildbright joke"
that lives in the darkness and the light,
that inhabits every act, that drives us to love or hate,
that makes us selfish or sublime.

"I'm a dark horse running on a dark race course."
But we don't now how long the race
or where it will take us or when it will end.
Is the jockey our own will or an invisible hand
that created it all and pulls us onward
despite our kicking and striving?

Gregory with his puckish grin sings,
"Don't despair kind child of joy,
you'll get to God
and ease his dreadful tightrope."

While George in his surrender sings,
"Really want to know you
Really want to go with you
Really want to show you, lord
That it won't take long, my lord."

They both have left us here
swirling in the cyclone of history,
staring into the mirror of mind
wrestling with the absurd dilemma
dancing with suffering and ecstasy
alone and together leaping into the unknown.