1. There are no answers in Peek-A-Boo Gulch.
Full of intel that it won’t divulge.
A lizard on a rock wouldn’t budge ‘til we nudged it,
Left a blood-smear, we shouldn’t’ve touched it.
Back when a wandering shaman was common,
This had to be the kind of place they came often.
You feel followed while you’re moving through.
Peek-A-Boo’s a little Spooky too.
Cool sand moves you to remove your shoes.
You feel compelled to loosen a few screws.
The heat presses its eye to the breach,
Tries to lick us but its tongue can’t reach.
Great spot for an ambush, keep your eyes peeled
For a sheltering nook or a shield to wield.
If you encounter other visitors you can’t be sure
If they’re from the present or the past or the future.

Chorus: The name’s no good, but the name can’t touch the place.
The place transcends the name.
The name’s no good but the name can’t harm the place.
The place transcends the name.
The name’s no good, but the name can’t be the place.
The place transcends the name.
Ancient names lost to the years.
Speak just one and the young gulch reappears.

2. Hard to be a star, nothing you can do to compensate
When the setting’s better, when the background dominates.
Your voice strains through the bottleneck, trimmed down.
Your brash barks bounce back as thin sounds.
Who can say which end is the entrance?
Who’s brazen enough to punctuate the sentence?
Red Navajo sandstone, ethereal.
We real human beings feeling almost immaterial.
Time flows past overhead across the gap.
Loose bits sprinkle down and land in my lap.
If I knew how to find a plant to make a dye I’d scrawl
Something really raw and primitive up on the wall.
A great place for a phantom to relax.
For restless spirits of the West to take naps.
Education, logic, etcetera notwithstanding,
I rule nothing out when I’m in a slot canyon.

Chorus: The name’s no good, but the name can’t touch the place.
The place transcends the name.
The name’s no good but the name can’t harm the place.
The place transcends the name.
The name’s no good, but the name can’t be the place.
The place transcends the name.
Ancient names lost to the years.
Speak just one and the young gulch reappears.

Bridge: Broad daylight can’t normalize it.
A juvenile name can’t trivialize it.
A map and a sign and a path can’t disguise it.
No straight lines. No straight lines.
It lets you in, but remains aloof.
Flatly refuses the burden of proof.
No surface is truly smooth.
No straight lines. No straight lines.

3. Drawn on through the rift torn between
Reality and outright fantasy. Convene
At the shallow pool of water at the South end, stagnant.
Peek-A-Boo speaks in fragments of fragments.
Are we beneath its notice or beyond?
Clamoring for its attention but it doesn’t respond.
It’s not amused, but it’s not not amused.
There’s no such thing as “a lot to lose.”
Geology everywhere, getting my nose
Rubbed in my own ignorance. Exposed
As something more akin to a neophyte mystic,
Half-recalled science facts come out cryptic.
Even the steps in the stone
Seem as if one day someone just found they’d grown.
The scalpel is gone, the incision is left.
Not surprised when I find something vital in the cleft.

Chorus: The name’s no good, but the name can’t touch the place.
The place transcends the name.
The name’s no good but the name can’t harm the place.
The place transcends the name.
The name’s no good, but the name can’t be the place.
The place transcends the name.
Ancient names lost to the years.
Speak just one and the young gulch reappears. (x2)