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Robert Shupe
09-18-2005, 08:18 PM
Well, with me spending some time with various Relayer threads, I began to wonder what you think of the poem on the gatefold cover.

The Poem (My Take):

Snakes are coiled upon the granite (do we see the enemy)
Horseman ride into the west (loved onw leave for duty and purpose)
Moons are rising on the planet (nature will move on without care)
where the worst must suffer like the rest. (Conflict affects us all from top to bottom)

Pears are ripe and peaches falling. (There is a time to...)
Suns are setting in the east. (Something is wrong and cries for correction)
Woman wail, and men are calling (every person has a story and purpose)
to the god's that's in them, and to the beast. (The conflict in all of us between what is right and what we want.)

Love is waiting for the lover. (It prevails and we are better.)
Generations kneel for peace. (Peace is possible. We must close the gap.)
What men lose, Man will recover (Live Learn Grow - Man prevails)
polishing the brains his bones release. (Knowledge goes forward.)

Truth conceals itself in error. (We must question.)
History revals its face (Do we learn?)
days of ecstasy and terror (Better does not mean without pain.)
invent the future that invents the race. (We go, we expand).
Donald Lehmkuhl


I had to search for information on Donald Lehmkuhl. I found that he is an auther. I found at least three books on the net. He seems to be friends wiith the Dean family and maybe that led his poem to being on the album.

Anyway, I have always seen his poem as a bookend to Gates Of Delirium.

What are your interpretations of the poem?
Do you like it?
Has anyone read anything by Donald Lehmkuhl or know anything more about him?

Look forward to your thoughts.

Robert Shupe

BrianD
09-19-2005, 08:10 AM
If you read Roger Dean's book Views, which Donald Lehmkuhl was involved with, there is a bit about this poem and Donald. I am currently in Stockholm without access to my copy, but I'm sure someone else can fill in the detail.

relayeire
09-19-2005, 08:43 AM
I haven't looked at my copy of Views in a while, but I'm wondering if the poem or the Relayer cover came first... the reference to snakes coiled upon granite, horsemen, moons, etc.

GoD57
09-19-2005, 08:48 AM
The book doesn't say which came first. It only mentions that Lehmkuhl wrote the poem and the text for the Topographic Oceans tour book. There is a drawing in the Views book that Roger did for the inside of Relayer but wasn't used. Lehmkuhl named it "Happy Birthday" and Roger has given him the original drawing.

Coincidently as I type this To Be Over just ended and Gates is starting on AOL radio the all Yes channel


Bill

relayeire
09-19-2005, 05:29 PM
Thanks for the info, GoD. Incidentally, that "Happy Birthday" art has been used in some of the remastered Relayer CDs. It's a dragonfly on granite, similar to the snakes.

BlueEagle
09-19-2005, 07:54 PM
Donald Lemkuhl also wrote poems for each segment of Roger Dean's other art book FLIGHTS OF ICARIS.