THE DYLAN TO ENGLISH DATA BASE

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Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie

When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb

When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb

When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace

In a slow - motion crawl or life's busy race

No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up

If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup

If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on

And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone

And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it

And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it

And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long

And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong

And lonesome comes up as down goes the day

And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away

And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin'

And yer rope is a - slidin' 'cause yer hands are a - drippin'

And yer sun - decked desert and evergreen valleys

Turn to broken down slums and trash - can alleys

And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a - pourin'

And the lightnin's a - flashing and the thunder's a - crashin'

And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a - shakin'

And yer whole world's a - slammin' and bangin'

And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm

And to yourself you sometimes say

"I never knew it was gonna be this way

Why didn't they tell me the day I was born"

And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat

And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet

And yer knee - deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air

And the whole world's a - watchin' with a window peek stare

And yer good gal leaves and she's long gone a - flying

And yer heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin'

And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet

And you need it badly but it lays on the street

And yer bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat

And you think yer ears might a been hurt

Or yer eyes've turned filthy from the sight - blindin' dirt

And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush

When you were faked out an' fooled while facing a four flush

And all the time you were holdin' three queens

And it's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean

Like in the middle of Life magazine

Bouncin' around a pinball machine

And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying

That somebody someplace oughta be hearin'

But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head

And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed

And no matter how you try you just can't say it

And yer scared to yer soul  you just might forget it

And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head

And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead

And the lion's mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth

And his jaws start closin with you underneath

And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind

And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign

And you say to yourself just what am I doin'

On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin'

On this curve I'm hanging

On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm talking

In this air I'm inhaling

Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard

Why am I walking, where am I running

What am  I saying, what am I knowing

On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin'

On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin'

In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin'

In the words that I'm thinkin'

In this ocean of hours I'm  all the time drinkin'

Who am I helping, what am I breaking

What am I giving, what am I taking

But you try with your whole soul best

Never to think these thoughts and never to let

Them kind of thoughts gain ground

Or make yer heart pound

But then again you know why they're around

Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down

"Cause sometimes you hear'em when the night times comes creeping

And you fear that they might catch you a - sleeping

And you jump from yer bed, from yer last chapter of dreamin'

And you can't remember for the best of yer thinking

If that was you in the dream that was screaming

And you know that it's something special you're needin'

And you know that there's no drug that'll do for the healin'

And no liquor in the land to stop yer brain from bleeding

And you need something special

Yeah, you need something special all right

You need a fast flyin' train on a tornado track

To shoot you someplace and shoot you back

You need a cyclone wind on a steam engine howler

That's been banging and booming and blowing forever

That knows yer troubles a hundred times over

You need a Greyhound bus that don't bar no race

That won't laugh at yer looks

Your voice or your face

And by any number of bets in the book

Will be rollin' long after the bubblegum craze

You need something to open up a new door

To show you something you seen before

But overlooked a hundred times or more

You need something to open your eyes

You need something to make it known

That it's you and no one else that owns

That spot that yer standing, that space that you're sitting

That the world ain't got you beat

That it ain't got you licked

It can't get you crazy no matter how many

Times you might get kicked

You need something special all right

You need something special to give you hope

But hope's just a word

That maybe you said or maybe you heard

On some windy corner 'round a wide - angled curve

But that's what you need man, and you need it bad

And yer trouble is you know it too good

"Cause you look an' you start getting the chills

"Cause you can't find it on a dollar bill

And it ain't on Macy's window sill

And it ain't on no rich kid's road map

And it ain't in no fat kid's fraternity house

And it ain't made in no Hollywood wheat germ

And it ain't on that dimlit stage

With that half - wit comedian on it

Ranting and raving and taking yer money

And you thinks it's funny

No you can't find it in no night club or no yacht club

And it ain't in the seats of a supper club

And sure as hell you're bound to tell

That no matter how hard you rub

You just ain't a - gonna find it on yer ticket stub

No, and it ain't in the rumors people're tellin' you

And it ain't in the pimple - lotion people are sellin' you

And it ain't in no cardboard - box house

Or down any movie star's blouse

And you can't find it on the golf course

And Uncle Remus can't tell you and neither can Santa Claus

And it ain't in the cream puff hair - do or cotton candy clothes

And it ain't in the dime store dummies or bubblegum goons

And it ain't in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices

That come knockin' and tappin' in Christmas wrappin'

Sayin' ain't I pretty and ain't I cute and look at my skin

Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow

Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry

When you can't even sense if they got any insides

These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows

No you'll not now or no other day

Find it on the doorsteps made out - a paper mache

And inside it the people made of molasses

That every other day buy a new pair of sunglasses

And it ain't in the fifty - star generals and flipped - out phonies

Who'd turn yuh in for a tenth of a penny

Who breathe and burp and bend and crack

And before you can count from one to ten

Do it all over again but this time behind yer back

My friend

The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl

And play games with each other in their sand - box world

And you can't find it either in the no - talent fools

That run around gallant

And make all rules for the ones that got talent

And it ain't in the ones that ain't got any talent but think they do

And think they're foolin' you

The ones who jump on the wagon

Just for a while 'cause they know it's in style

To get their kicks, get out of it quick

And make all kinds of money and chicks

And you yell to yourself and you throw down yer hat

Sayin', "Christ do I gotta be like that

Ain't there no one here that knows where I'm at

Ain't there no one here that knows how I feel

Good God Almighty
THAT STUFF AINT REAL"

No but that ain't yer game, it ain't even yer race

You can't hear yer name, you can't see yer face

You gotta look some other place

And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin'

Where do you look for this lamp that's a - burnin'

Where do you look for this oil well gushin'

Where do you look for this candle that's glowin'

Where do you look for this hope that you know is there

And out there somewhere

And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads

Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows

Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways

You can touch and twist

And turn two kinds of doorknobs

You can either go to the church of your choice

Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion

I may be right or wrong

You'll find them both

In the Grand Canyon

At sundown

Joan Baez in Concert, Part 2 (liner notes)

In my youngest years I used t' kneel

By my aunt's house on a railroad field

An' yank the grass outa the ground

An' rip savagely at its roots

An' pass the hours countin' strands

An' stains a green grew on my hands

As I waited till I heard the sound

A the iron ore cars rollin' down

The tracks'd hum an' I'd bite my lip

An' hold my grip as the whistle whined

Crouchin' low as the engine growled

I'd shyly wave t' the throttle man

An' count the cars as they rolled past

But when the echo faded in the day

An' I understood the train was gone

It's then that my eyes'd turn

Back t' my hands with stains a green

That lined my palms like blood that tells

I'd taken an' not given in return

But glancin' back t' the empty patch

Where the ground was turned upside down

An' the roots lay dead beside the tree

I'd say "how can this bother me"

Or "I'm sure the grass don' give a damn

Anyway it'll grow again an'

What's a patch a grass anyhow"

An' I'd wipe my hand t' wash the stain

An' fling a rock across the track

With the echo a the railroad train

Hangin' heavy like a thunder cloud

In the dawn a t'morrow's rain

An' I asked myself t' be my friend

An' I walked my road like a frightened fox

An' I sung my song like a demon child

With a kick an' a curse

From inside my mother's womb -

In later years although still young

My head swung heavy with windin' curves

An' a mixed - up path revolved an' stung

Within the boundaries a my youth

'Til at last I backed so far away

From the world's walls an' friendless games

That I did not have a word t' say

T' anyone who'd meet my eyes

An' I locked myself an' lost the key

An let the symbols take their shape

An' form a foe for me t' fight

T' lash my tongue an' rebel against

An' spit at strong with vomit words

But I learned t' choose my idols well

T' be my voice an' tell my tale

An' help me fight my phantom brawl

An' my first idol was Hank Williams

For he sang about the railroad lines

An' the iron bars an' rattlin' wheels

Left no doubt that they were real

An' my first symbol was the word "beautiful"

For the railroad lines were not beautiful

They were smoky black an' gutter - colored

An' filled with stink an' soot an' dust

An' I'd judge beauty with these rules

An' accept it only 'f it was ugly

An' 'f I could touch it with my hand

For it's only then I'd understand

An' say "yeah this's real"

An' I walked my road an' sung my song

Like a saddened clown

In the circus a my own world -  -

In later times my idols fell

For I learned that they were only men

An' had reasons for their deeds

'F which weren't mine not at all

An' no more on them could I depend

But what I learned from each forgotten god

Was that the battlefield was mine alone

An' only I could cast me stone

An' the symbols which by now had grown

Outa shape but strong in sight

Were seen by me in a sharper light

An' the symbol "beauty" still struck my guts

But now with more a shameful sound

An' I rebelled twice as hard an' ten times as proud

An' I walked my road an' sung my song

Like an arch criminal who'd done no wrong

An' committed no crime but was screamin' through the bars

A someone else's prison -  -

Later yet in New York town

On my own terms I said with age

"The only beauty's in the cracks an' curbs

Clothed in robes a dust an' grime"

An' I searched for it in every hole

An' jumped head - on t' meet its breast

An' whispered tunes into its ear

An' kissed its mouth an' held its waist

An' in its body swum around

An' on its belly passed out cold

An' like a blind lover bold in flight

I shouted from inside my wounds

"The voice t' speak for me an' mine

Is the hard filthy gutter sound

For it's only this that I can touch

An' the only beauty I can feel"

An' I dove back in by my own choice

T' feed my skin a hungry holes

An' rejected every other voice

An' I walked my road an' sung my song

Like a lonesome king

Standin' in the fury a the queen's garden

Starin' into

A shallow grave -  -

Time traveled an' faces passed

An' many times thoughts t' me were taught

By names an' heads too many t' count

That touched my path an' soon were gone

But some stayed on t' remain as friends

An' though each is first an' none is best

It is at this time I speak 'f one

Who proved t' me that boys still grow

A girl I met on common ground

Who like me strummed lonesome tunes

With a "lovely voice" so I first heard

"A thing a beauty" people said

"Wondrous sounds" writers wrote

"I hate that kind a sound" said I

"The only beauty's ugly, man

The crackin' shakin' breakin' sounds're

The only beauty I understand"

So between our tongues there was a bar

An' though we talked a the world's fears

An' at the same jokes loudly laughed

An' held our eyes at the same aim

When I saw she was set t' sing

A fence a deafness with a bullet's speed

Sprang up like a protectin' glass

Outside the linin' a my ears

An' I talked loud inside my head

As a double shield against the sounds

"Ain't no voice but an ugly voice

A the rest I don' give a damn

'F I can't feel it with my hand

Then don' wish me t' understand

But I'll wait though 'til yer song is done

'Cause there's something about yuh

But I don' know what"

An' I walked my road an' sung my song

Like a scared poet

Walkin' on the shore

Kickin' driftwood with my shadow

Afraid a the sea -  -

In a crusin' car I heard her tell

About the childhood hours she spent

As a little girl in an Arab land

An' she told me 'f the dogs she saw

Slaughtered wholly on the street

An' I learned 'f how the people'd laugh

As they beat the gentle dogs t' death

Through a child's eyes who tried an' failed

T' hide one dog inside her house

An' I turned my head without a word

An' coldly stared out t' the road

An' with the wind hittin' half my face

My memory creeped as they highway rolled

Back if not but for a flash

T' the empty patch a grass that died

About the same time a dog was hid

An' that guilty feelin' sprang again

Not over the roots I'd pulled

But over she who saw the dogs get killed

An' I said it softly underneath my breath

"Yuh oughta listen t' her voice ...

Maybe somethin's in the sound ...

Ah but what could she care anyway

Kill them thoughts yes">  they ain't no good

Only ugly's understood."

An' I stuck my head out in the wind

An' let the breeze blow the words

Outa my breath as a truck roared by

An' almost blew us off the road

An' at the time I had no song t' sing - -

In Woodstock at a painter's house

With friends scattered 'round the room

An' she talkin' from a chair

An' me crosslegged on the rug

I lit a cigarette an' laughed

An' gulped light red wine an' lost

Every shakin' vein that dwelled

Within the roots a my dancin' heart

An' the room it whirled an' twirled an' sailed

Without one fence standin' guard

When all at once the silent air

Split open from her soundin' voice

Without no warnin' from her lips

An' by instinct my blood reversed

An' I shook an' started reachin' for

That wall that was supposed t' fall

But my restin' nerves weren't restless now

An' this time they wouldn't jump

"Let her voice ring out," they cried

"We're too tired t' stop 'er sing"

Which shattered all the rules I owned

An' left me puzzled without no choice

'Cept t' listen t' her voice

An' when I leaned upon my elbows bare

That limply held my body up

I felt my face freeze t' the bone

An' my mouth like ice or solid stone

Could not've moved 'f called upon

An' the time like velvet floated by

Until with hunger pains it cried

"Don' stop singing ... sing again"

An' like others who have taught me well

Not about themselves but me

She laughed out loud as 'f t' know

That the bars between us busted down

An' I laughed almost an insane laugh

An' aimed it at the ceiling walls

When I realized the command I called

An' my elbows folded under me

An' my head lay back upon the floor

An' my shaky nerves went floatin' free

But I memorized the words t' write

For another time in t'morrow's dawn

An' held close unchallenged dreams

As I passed out somewheres in the night - -

I did not begin t' touch

'Til I finally felt what wasn't there

Oh how feebly foolish small an' sad

'F me t' think that beauty was

Only ugliness an' muck

When it's really jus' a magic wand

That waves an' teases at my mind

An' knows that only it can feel

An' knows that I ain't got a chance

An' fools me into thinking things

Like it's my hands that understand

Ha ha how it must laugh

At crippled ones like me who try

T' pick apart the sounds a streams

An' pluck apart the rage 'f waves

Ah but yuh won't fool me any more

For the breeze I heard in a young girl's breath

Proved true as sex an' womanhood

An' deep as the lowest depths a death

An' as strong as the weakest winds that blow

An' as long as fate an' fatherhood

An' like gypsy drums

An' Chinese gongs

An' cathedral bells

An' tones 'f chimes

It jus' held hymns 'f mystery

An' mystery's all too involved

It can't be understood or solved

By hands an' feet an' fingertips

An' it shouldn't be called by a shameful name

By those who look for answers plain

In every book 'cept themselves

Go ahead lightnin' laugh at me

Flash yer teeth

Slap yer knee

It's yer joke I agree

I'm even pointin' at myself

But it's a shame it's taken so much time

So, once more it's winter again

An' that means I'll wait 'til spring

T' ramble back t' where I kneeled

When I first heard the ore train sing

An' pulled the ground up by its roots

But this time I won't use my strength

T' pass the time yankin' grass

While I'm waitin' for the train t' sound

No next time'll be a different day

For the train might be there when I come

An' I might wait hours for the cars t' pass

An' then as the echo fades

I'll bend down an' count the strands a grass

But one thing that's bound t' be

Is that instead a pullin' at the earth

I'll jus' pet it as a friend

An' when that train engine comes near

I'll nod my head t' the big brass wheels

An' say "howdy" t' the engineer

An' yell that Joanie says hello

An' watch the train man scratch his head

An' wonder what I meant by that

An' I'll stand up an' remember when

A rock was flung by a devil child

An' I'll walk my road somewhere between

The unseen green an' the jet - black train

An' I'll sing my song like a rebel wild

For it's that I am an' can't deny

But at least I'll know not t' hurt

Not t' push

Not t' ache

An' God knows ... not t' try –

11 Outlined Epitaphs
By Bob Dylan

I end up then
in the early evenin'
blindly punchin' at the blind
breathin' heavy
stutterin'
an' blowin' up
where t' go?
what is it that's exactly wrong?
who t' picket?
who t' fight?
behind what windows
will I at least
hear someone from the supper table
get up t' ask
"did I hear someone outside just now?"
yesterday
an hour ago
it came t' me
in a second's flash
an' was all so clear
it still is now
yes it is
it's maybe hidin'
it must be hidin'
the shot has shook
me up . . . for I've never
heard that sound before
bringing wild thoughts at first
ragged wild
numb wild
now though they've leveled out
an' been wrung out
leavin' nothin' but the strangeness
the roots within a washed - out cloth
drippin' from the clothesline pole
strange thoughts
doubtin' thoughts
useless an' unnecessary
the blast it's true
startled me back but for a spell
content with
all pictures, posters an' the like
that're painted for me
ah but I turned
an' the nex' time I looked
the gloves of garbage
had clobbered the canvas
leavin' truckloads of trash
clutterin' the colors
with a blindin' sting
forcin' me t' once again
slam the shutters of my eyes
but also me to wonderin'
when they'll open
much much stronger
than anyone whose own eyes're
aimed over here at mine
"when will he open up his eyes?"
"who him? doncha know? he's a crazy man
he never opens up his eyes"
"but he'll surely miss the world go by"
"nah! he lives in his own world"
"my my then he really must be a crazy man"
"yeah he's a crazy man"

an' so on spangled streets
an' country roads
I hear sleigh bells
jingle jangle
virgin girls
far into the field
sing an' laugh
with flickerin' voices
softly fadin'
I stop an' smile
an' rest awhile
watchin' the candles
of sundown dim
unnoticed
unnoticed for my eyes're closed



The town I was born in holds no memories
but for the honkin' foghorns
the rainy mist
the rocky cliffs
I have carried no feelings
up past the Lake Superior hills
the town I grew up in is the one
that has left me with my legacy visions
it was not a rich town
my parents were not rich
it was not a poor town
an' my parents were not poor
it was a dyin' town
(it was a dyin' town)
a train line cuts the ground
showin' where the fathers an' mothers
of me an' my friends had picked
up an' moved from
north Hibbing
t' south Hibbing.
old north Hibbing . . .
deserted
already dead
with its old stone courthouse
decayin' in the wind
long abandoned
windows crashed out
the breath of its broken walls
being smothered in clingin' moss
the old school
where my mother went to
rottin' shiverin' but still livin'
standin' cold an' lonesome
arms cut off
with even the moon bypassin' its jagged body
pretendin' not t' see
an' givin' it its final dignity
dogs howled over the graveyard
where even the markin' stones were dead
an' there was no sound except for the wind
blowin' through the high grass
an' the bricks that fell back
t' the dirt from a slight stab
of the breeze . . . it was as though
the rains of wartime had
left the land bombed - out an' shattered

south Hibbing
is where everybody came t' start their
town again. but the winds of the
north came followin' an' grew fiercer
an' the years went by
but I was young
an' so I ran
an' kept runnin' . . .

I am still runnin' I guess
but my road has seen many changes
for I've served my time as a refugee
in mental terms an' in physical terms
an' many a fear has vanished
an' many an attitude has fallen
an' many a dream has faded
an' I know I shall meet the snowy North
again - but with changed eyes nex' time 'round
t' walk lazily down its streets
an' linger by the edge of town

find old friends if they're still around
talk t' the old people
an' the young people
runnin' yes . . .
but stoppin' for a while
embracin' what I left
an' lovin' it - for I learned by now
never t' expect
what it cannot give me

__________

In times behind, I too
wished I'd lived
in the hungry thirties
an' blew in Woody
t' New York City
an' sang for dimes
on subway trains
satisfied at a nickel fare
an' passin' the hat
an' hittin' the bars
on eighth avenue
an' makin' the rounds
t' the union halls
but when I came in
the fares were higher
up t' fifteen cents an' climbin'
an' those bars that Woody's guitar
rattled . . . they've changed
they've been remodeled
an' those union halls
like the cio
an' the nmu
come now! can you see'em
needin' me
for a song
or two

ah where are those forces of yesteryear?
why didn't they meet me here
an' greet me here?

the underground's gone deeper
says the old chimney sweeper
the underground's outa work
sing the bells of New York
the underground's more dangerous
ring the bells of Los Angeles
the underground's gone
cry the bells of San Juan
but where has it gone to
ring the bells of Toronto

strength now shines through my window
regainin' me an' rousin' me
day by day
from the weariness
of walkin' with ghosts
that rose an' had risen
from the ruins an' remains
of the model T past
even though I clutched t' its sheet
I was still refused
an' left confused
for there was nobody there
t' let me in
a wasteland wind whistled
from behind the billboard "there's nobody home
all has moved out"
flatly denied
I turned indeed
flinched at first
but said "ok
I get the message"
feelin' unwanted? no
unloved? no
I felt nothin'
for there was nobody there
I didn't see no one
t' want or unwant
to love or unlove
maybe they're there
but won't let me in
not takin' chances
on the ones the grittin' of my teeth
for only a second
would mean
my mind has just been
swallowed whole
an' so I step back t' the street
an' then turn further down the road
poundin' on doors
lost?
not really
just out lookin'
a stranger?
no not a stranger but rather someone
who just doesn't live here
never pretendin' t' be knowin'
what's worth seekin'
but at least
without ghosts by my side
t' betray my childishness
t' leadeth me down false trails
an' maketh me drink from muddy waters
yes it is I
who is poundin' at your door
if it is inside
who hears the noise


Jim Jim
where is our party?
where all member's held equal
an' vow t' infiltrate that thought
among the people it hopes t' serve
an' sets a respected road
for all of those like me
who cry
"I am ragin'ly against absolutely
everything that wants t' force nature
t' be unnatural (be it human or otherwise)
an' I am violently for absolutely
everything that will fight those
forces (be them human or otherwise)"
oh what is the name of this gallant group?
lead me t' the ballot box
what man do we run?
how many votes will it take
for a new set of teeth
in the congress mouths?
how many hands have t' be raised
before hair will grow back
on the white house head?
a Boston tea party don't mean the
same thing . . . as it did in the newborn
years before. even the
meanin' of the word
has changed. ha
ha . . . t' say the least
yes that party is truly gone
but where is the party t' dump the feelings
of the fiery cross burners
an' flamin' match carriers?
if there was such a party
they would've been dumped
long before this . . . who is supposed
t' dump 'em now?
when all can see their threads hang weak
but still hold strong
loyal but dyin'
fightin' for breath
who then will kill its misery?
what sea shall we pollute?

when told t' learn
what others know
in order for a soothin' life
an' t' conquer many a brainwashed dream
I was set forth the forces on records an' books
from the forces that were sold t' me
an' could be found in hung - up style
wanderin' through crowded valleys
searchin' for what others knew
with the eagles' shadows
silent
hungry
watchin' waitin'
from high mountains
an' me just walkin'
butterflies in my head
an' bitter by now
(here! take this kid an' learn it well
but why sir? my arms're so heavy
I said take it. it'll do yuh good
but I ain't learned last night's lesson yet.
am I gonna have t' get mad with you?
no no gimme gimme just stick it on top
a the rest a the stuff
here! if yuh learn it well yuh'll
get an A . . . an' don't do anything
I wouldn't do)
and with each new brightnin' phrase
more messy
till I found myself almost swallowed
deep in burden
spinnin'
walkin' slower
heavier heavier
glassy - eyed
but at last I heard
the eagle drool
as I zombie strolled
up past the foothills
thunderstruck
an' I stopped cold
an' bellowed
"I don't wanna learn no more
I had enough"
an' I took a deep breath
turned around
an' ran for my life
shoutin' shoutin'
back t' the highway
away from the mountain
not carin' no more
what people knew about things
but rather how they felt about things
runnin' down another road
through time an' dignity
an' I have never taken off my boots
no matter how the miles have burnt
my feet . . .
an' I'm still on that road, Jim
I'm still sleepin' at night by its side
an' eatin' where it'll lead me t' food
where state lines don't stand
an' knowledge don't count
when feelings are hurt
an' I am on the side a them hurt feelings
plunged on by unsensitive hammers
an' made t' bleed by rusty nails
an' I look t' you, Jim
where is the party for those kind of feelings?
how're the gamblers that wheel an' deal an'
shuffle 'em around gonna be got outa the game?
from here in
beyond this
an' from now on



Al's wife claimed I can't be happy
as the New Jersey night ran backwards
an' vanished behind our rollin' ear
"I dig the colors outside, an' I'm happy"
"but you sing such depressin' songs"
"but you say so on your terms"
"but my terms aren't so unreal"
"yes but they're still your terms"
"but what about others that think
in those terms"
"Lenny Bruce says there're no dirty
words . . . just dirty minds an' I say there're
no depressed words just depressed minds"
"but how're you happy an' when 're you happy"
"I'm happy enough now"
"why?"
"cause I'm calmly lookin' outside an' watchin'
the night unwind"
"what'd yuh mean unwind?"
"I mean somethin' like there's no end t' it
an' it's so big
that every time I see it it's like seein'
for the first time"
"so what?"
"so anything that ain't got no end's
just gotta be poetry in one
way or another"
"yeah, but . . . "
"an' poetry makes me feel good"
"but . . ."
"an' poetry makes me feel happy"
"ok but . . . "
"for the lack of a better word"
"but what about the songs you sing on stage?"
"they're nothin' but the unwindin' of
my happiness"

__________

Woody Guthrie was my last idol
he was the last idol
because he was the first idol
I'd ever met
face t' face
that men are men
shatterin' even himself
as an idol
an' that men have reasons
for what they do
an' what they say
an' every action can be questioned
leavin' no command
untouched an' took for granted
obeyed an' bowed down to
forgettin' your own natural instincts
(for there're a million reasons
in the world
an' a million instincts
runnin' wild
an' it's none too many times
the two shall meet)
the unseen idols create the fear
an' trample hope when busted
Woody never made me fear
and he didn't trample any hopes
for he just carried a book of Man
an' gave it t' me t' read awhile
an' from it I learned my greatest lesson

you ask "how does it feel t' be an idol?"
it'd be silly of me t' answer, wouldn't it . . .?

__________

A Russian has three an' a half red eyes
five flamin' antennas
drags a beet - colored ball an' chain
an' wants t' slip germs
into my Coke machine
"burn the tree stumps at the border"
about the sex - hungry lunatics
out warmongerin' in the early mornin'
"poison the sky so the planes won't come"
yell the birch colored knights with
patriotic shields
"an' murder all the un - Americans"
say the card - carryin' American
book burners
(yes we burned five books last week)
as my friend, Bobby Lee,
walks back an' forth
free now from his native Harlem
where his ma still sleeps at night
hearin' rats inside the sink
an' underneath her hardwood bed
an' walls of holes
where the cold comes in
scared
wrapped in blankets
an' she, God knows,
is kind
an' gentle
ain't there no closer villains
that the baby - eaten' Russians
rats eat babies too

I talked with one
of the sons of Germany
while walkin' once on foreign ground
an' I learned that
he regards
Adolf Hitler
as we here in the states
regard
Robert E. Lee

fasten up your holster
mr. gunslinger
an' buy new bolts
for your neck

there is no right wing

or left wing
there is only up wing
an' down wing

last night I dreamt
that while healin' ceiling
up in Harlem
I saw Canada ablaze
an' nobody knowin'
nothin' about it
except of course
who held the match



Yes, I am a thief of thoughts
not, I pray, a stealer of souls
I have built an' rebuilt
upon what is waitin'
for the sand on the beaches
carves many castles
on what has been opened
before my time
a word, a tune, a story, a line
keys in the wind t' unlock my mind
an' t' grant my closet thoughts backyard air
it is not of me t' sit an' ponder
wonderin' an' wastin' time
thinkin' of thoughts that haven't been thunk
thinkin' of dreams that haven't been dreamt
an' new ideas that haven't been wrote
an' new words t' fit into rhyme
(if it rhymes, it rhymes
if it don't, it don't
if it comes, it comes
if it won't, it won't)

no I must react an' spit fast
with weapons of words
wrapped in tunes
that've rolled through the simple years
teasin' me t' treat them right
t' reshape them an' restring them
t' protect my own world
from the mouths of all those
who'd eat it
an' hold it back from eatin' its own food
(influences?
hundreds thousands
perhaps millions
for all songs lead back t' the sea
an' at one time, there was
no singin' tongue t' imitate it)
t' make new sounds out of old sounds
an' new words out of old words
an' not t' worry about the new rules
for they ain't been made yet
an' t' shout my singin' mind
knowin' that it is me an' my kind
that will make those rules . . .
if the people of tomorrow
really need the rules of today
rally 'round all you prosecutin' attorneys
the world is but a courtroom
yes
but I now the defendants better 'n you
and while you're busy prosecutin'
we're busy whistlin'
cleanin' up the courthouse
sweepin' sweepin'
listenin' listenin'
winkin' t' one another
careful
careful
your spot is comin' up soon

__________

Oh where were these magazines
when I was bummin' up an' down
up an' down the street?
is it that they too just sleep
in their high thrones . . . openin'
their eyes when people pass
expectin' each t' bow as they go by
an' say "thank you Mr. Magazine.
did I answer all my questions right?"
ah but mine is of another story
for I do not care t' be made an oddball
bouncin' past reporters' pens
cooperatin' with questions
aimed at eyes that want t' see
"there's nothin' here
go back t' sleep
or look at the ads
on page 33"
I don't like t' be stuck in print
starin' out at cavity minds
who gobble chocolate candy bars
quite content an' satisfied
their day complete
at seein' what I eat for breakfast
the kinds of clothes I like t' wear
an' the hobbies that I like t do
I never eat
I run naked when I can
my hobby's collectin' airplane glue

"come come now Mr. Dylan our readers want
t' know the truth"
"that is the bare hungry sniffin' truth"
"Mr. Dylan, you're very funny, but really now"
"that's all I have t' say today"
"but you'd better answer"
"that sounds like some kind a threat"
"it just could be ha ha ha ha"
"what will my punishment"
"a rumor tale on you ha ha"
"a what kind of tale ha ha ha ha"
"yes well you'll see, Mr. Dylan, you'll see"

an' I seen
or rather I have saw
your questions're ridiculous
an' most of your magazines're also ridiculous
caterin' t' people
who want t' see
the boy nex' door
no I shall not cooporate with reporters' whims
there're other kinds of boys nex' door.
even though they've slanted me
they cannot take what I do away from me
they can disguise it
make it out t' be a joke
an' make me seem
the ridiculous one
in the eyes of their readers
they can build me up
accordin' t' their own terms
so that they are able
t' bust me down
an' "expose" me
in their own terms
givin' blind advice
t' unknown eyes
who have no way of knowin'
that I "expose" myself
every time I step out
on the stage

__________

The night passes fast for me now
an' after dancin' out its dance
undresses leavin' nothin' but its naked dawn
proudly standin'
smilin' smilin'
turnin' turnin'
gently gently
I have seen it sneak up countless
times . . . leavin' me conscious
with a thousand sleepy thoughts
untamed
an' tryin' t' run
I think at these times
of many things an' many people
I think of Sue most times
beautiful Sue
with the lines of a swan
frightened easy
as a fawn in the forest
by this time deep in dreams
with her long hair spread out
the color of the sun
soakin' the dark
an' scatterin' light
t' the dungeons of my constant night
I think love poems
as a poor lonesome invalid
knowin' of my power
t' destroy
the good souls of the road
that know no sickness
except that of kindness
(you ask of love?
there is no love
except in silence
an' silence doesn't say a word)
ah but Sue
she knows me well
perhaps too well
an' is above all
the true fortuneteller of my soul
I think perhaps the only one
(you ask of truth?
there is no truth
what fool can claim t' carry the truth
for it is but a drunken matter
romantic? yes
tragic? no I think not)
the door still knocks
an' the wind still blows
bringin' me my memories
of friends an' sounds an' colors
that can't escape
trapped in keyholes
Eric . . . bearded Eric
far in Boston
buried beneath my window
yes I feel t' dig the ground up
but I'm so tired
an' know not where t' look for tools
rap tap tap
the rattlin' wind
blows Geno in
tellin' me of philistines
that he'd run into durin' the night
he stomps across my floor
I laugh
an' drink cold coffee an' old wine
light of feelin'
as I listen t' one of my own tongues
take the reins
guide the path
an' drop me off . . . headin' back again
t' take care of his end of the night
slam an' Geno
then too is gone
outside a siren whines
leadin' me down another line
I jump but get sidetracked
by clunkin' footsteps
down the street
(it is as though my mind
ain't mine t' make up
any more)
I wonder if the cockroaches
still crawl in Dave an' Terri's
fifteenth street kitchen
I wonder if they're the same cockroaches
ah yes the times've changed
Dave still scorns me for not readin' books
an' Terri still laughs at my rakish ways
but fifteenth street has been abandoned
we have moved . . .
the cats across the roof
mad in love
scream into the drain pipes
bringing' in the sounds of music
the only music
an' it is I who is ready
ready t' listen
restin' restin'
a silver peace
reigns an'
becomes the nerves of mornin'
an' I stand up an' yawn
hot with jumpin' pulse
never tired
never sad
never guilty
for I am runnin' in a fair race
with no racetrack but the night
an' no competition but the dawn

__________

So at last at least
the sky for me
is a pleasant gray
meanin' rain
or meanin' snow
constantly meanin' change
but a change forewarned
either t' the clearin' of the clouds
or t' the pourin' of the storms
an' after it's desire
returnin'
returnin' with me underneath
returnin' with it
never fearful
finally faithful
it will guide me well
across all bridges inside all tunnels
never failin' . . .

with the sounds of Francois Villon
echoin' through my mad streets
as I stumble on lost cigars
of Bertolt Brecht
an' empty bottles
of Brendan Behan
the hypnotic words
of A. L. Lloyd
each one bendin' like its own song
an' the woven' spell of Paul Clayton
entrancin' me like China's plague
unescapeable
drownin' in the lungs of Edith Piaf
an' in the mystery of Marlene Dietrich
the dead poems of Eddie Freeman
love songs of Allen Ginsberg
an' jail songs of Ray Bremser
the narrow tunes of Modigliani
an' the singin' plains of Harry Jackson
the cries of Charles Aznavour
with melodies of Yevtushenko
through the quiet fire of Miles Davis
above the bells of William Blake
an' beat visions of Johnny Cash
an' the saintliness of Pete Seeger

strokin' my senses
down down
drownin' drownin'
when I need t' drown
for my road is blessed
with many flowers
an' the sounds of flowers
liftin' lost voices of the ground's people
up up
higher higher
all people
no matter what creed
no matter what color skin
no matter what language an' no matter what land
for all people laugh
in the same tongue
an' cry
in the same tongue
endless endless
it's all endless
an' it's all songs
it's just one big world of songs
an' they're all on loan
if they're only turned loose t' sing

lonely? ah yes
but it is the flowers an' the mirrors
of flowers that now meet my
loneliness
an' mine shall be a strong loneliness
dissolvin' deep
t' the depths of my freedom
an' that, then, shall
remain my song

there's a movie called
Shoot the Piano Player
the last line proclaimin'
"music, man, that's where it's at"
it is a religious line
outside, the chimes rung
an' they
are still ringin'

Some Other Kinds Of Songs . . .
Poems by Bob Dylan

baby black's
been had
ain't bad
smokestacked
chicken shacked
dressed in black
silver monkey
on her back
mammy ma
juiced pa
janitored
between the law
brothers ten
rat - faced
gravestoned
ditch dug
firescaped an' substroked
choked
baby black
hits back
robs, pawns
lives by trade
sits an' waits on fire plug
digs the heat
eyes meet
picket line
across the street
head rings
of bed springs
freedom's holler
you ask of order
she'd hock
the world
for a dollar an' a quarter


__________

for françoise hardy
at the seine's edge
a giant shadow
of notre dame
seeks t' grab my foot
sorbonne students
whirl by on thin bicycles
swirlin' lifelike colors of leather spin
the breeze yawns food
far from the bellies
or erhard meetin' johnson
piles of lovers
fishing
kissing
lay themselves on their books. boats.
old men
clothed in curly mustaches
float on the benches
blankets of tourist
in bright red nylon shirts
with straw hats of ambassadors
(cannot hear nixon's
dawg bark now)
will sail away
as the sun goes down
the doors of the river are open
i must remember that
i too play the guitar
it's easy t' stand here
more lovers pass
on motorcycles
roped together
from the walls of the water then
i look across t' what they call
the right bank
an' envy
your
trumpet
player


"i could make you crawl
if i was payin' attention"
he said munchin' a sandwich
in between chess moves
"what d' you wanna make
me crawl for?"
"i mean i just could"
"could make me crawl"
"yeah, make you crawl!"
"humm, funny guy you are"
"no, i just play t' win,
that's all"
"well if you can't win me,
then you're the worst player
i ever played"
"what d' you mean?"
"i mean i lose all the time"
his jaw tightened an' he took
a deep breath
"hummm, now i gotta beat you"

straight away an' into the ring
juno takes twenty pills an'
paints all day. life he says
is a head kinda thing. outside
of chicago, private come down
junkie nurse home heals countless
common housewives strung out
fully on drugstore dope, legally
sold t' help clean the kitchen.
lenny bruce shows his seventh
avenue handmade movies, while a
bunch of women sneak little white
tablets into shoes, stockings, hats
an' other hidin' places. newspapers
tell neither. irma goes t' israel
an' writes me that there, they
hate nazis much more 'n we over here
do. eichmann dies yes, an' west
germany sends eighty - year - old
pruned - out gestapo hermit off t'
the penitentiary. in east berlin
renata tells me that i must wear
tie t' get in t' this certain place
i wanna go. back here, literate
old man with rebel flag above
home sweet home sign says he won't
vote for goldwater. "talks too
much. should keep his mouth shut"

i walk between backyards an' see
little boy with feather in his hair
lyin' dead on the grass. he gets
up an' hands feather t' another
little boy who immediately falls
down. "it's my turn t' be the good
guy . . . take that, redskin" bang bang.

henry miller stands on other side
of ping pong table an' keeps
talkin' about me. "did you ask
the poet fellow if he wants
something t' drink" he says t'
someone gettin' all the drinks.
i drop my ping pong paddle
an' look at the pool. my worst
enemies don't even put me down
in such a mysterious way.
college student trails me with
microphone an' tape machine.
what d' you think a the communist
party? what communist party?
he rattles off names an' numbers.
he can't answer my question. he
tries harder. i say "you don't
have t' answer my question" he
gets all squishy. i say
there's no answer t' my question
any more 'n there's an answer t'
your question. ferris wheel runs
in california park an' the sky trembles.
turns red. above hiccups an' pointed
fingers. i tell reporter lady that yes
i'm monstrously against the house
unamerican activities committee
an' also the cia an' i beg her please
not t' ask me why for it would take
too long t' tell she asks me about
humanity an' i say i'm not sure
what that word means. she wants me
t' say what she wants me t' say. she
wants me t' say what she
can understand. a loose - tempered fat
man in borrowed stomach slams wife
in the face an' rushes off t' civil
rights meeting. while some strange
girl chases me up smoky mountain
tryin' t' find out what sign i am.
i take allen ginsberg t' meet fantastic
great beautiful artist an' no trespassin'

boards block up all there is t' see.
eviction. infection gangrene an'
atom bombs. both ends exist only
because there is someone who wants
profit. boy loses eyesight. becomes
airplane pilot. people pound their
chests an' other people's chests an'
interpret bibles t' suit their own
means. respect is just a misinterpreted word
an' if Jesus Christ himself came
down through these streets, Christianity
would start all over again. standin'
on the stage of all ground. insects
play in their own world. snakes
slide through the weeds. ants come an'
go through the grass. turtles an' lizards
make their way through the sand. everything
crawls. everything . . .
an' everything still crawls

__________

jack o'diamonds
jack o'diamonds
one - eyed knave
on the move
hits the street
sneaks. leaps
between pillars of chips
springs on them like samson
thumps thumps
strikes
is on the prowl
you'll only lose
shouldn't stay
jack o'diamonds
is a hard card t' play

jack o'diamonds
wrecked my hand
left me here t' stand
little tin men play
their drums now
upside my head
in the midst of cheers
flowers
four queens
with pawed out hearts
make believe
they're still good
but i should drop
fold
an' dean martin should apologize
t' the rolling stones
ho hum
weird tablestakes
young babies horseback ride
their fathers' necks
two dudes in hopped - up ford
for the tenth time
have rolled through town
it's your turn baby t'
cut the deck
on you're goin' under
stayed too long
chinese gong
down the way
says jack o'diamonds
(a high card)
jack o'diamonds
(but ain't high enough)

jack o'diamonds
is a hard card t' play

jack o'diamonds used t' laugh at me
now wants t' collect from me
used t' be ashamed of me
now wants t' walk 'long side of me
jack o'diamonds
one - armed prince
wears but a single glove
as he shoves
never loves
the moon's too bright
as he's fixed mirrors
'round the room at night
it's hard t' think
there's probably somethin'
in my drink
should pour it out
inside the sink
would throw it in his face
but it'd do no good
give no gain
just leave a stain
jack o'diamonds
an' all his crap
needs some acid
in his lap
what hour now
it feels late somehow
my hounddog bays
need more ashtrays
i can't even remember
the early days
please don't stay
gather your bells an' go
jack o'diamonds
(can open for riches)
jack o'diamonds
(but then it switches)
a colorful picture but
beats only the ten
jack o'diamonds
is a hard card t' play

jack o'diamonds stays indoors
wants me t' fight his wars
jack o'diamonds is a hard card t' play
never certain. in the middle
commentin' on the songs of birds
chucklin' at screamin' mothers
jack o'diamonds drains
fish brains
raffles what's left over
across the table
t' little boy card sharks
who just sat down
t' get off their feet
bad luck run's all in fun
it's your choice. your voice
you choose
you lose
run for cover
hallaluyah
you choose t' lose
take yourself
disappear
jack o'diamonds
(a king's death)
jack o'diamonds
(at the ace's breath)
jack o'diamonds
is a hard card t' play

__________

run go get out of here
quick
leave joshua
split
go fit your battle
do your thing
i lost my glasses
can't see jericho
the wind is tyin' knots
in my hair
nothin' seems
t' be straight
out there
no i shan't go with you
i can't go with you

on the brooklyn bridge
he was cockeyed
an' stood on the edge
there was a priest talkin' to him
i was shiftin' myself around
so i could see from all sides
in an' out of stretched necks
an' things
cops held people back
the lady in back of me
burst into my groin
"sick sick some are so sick"
like a circus trapeze act
"oh i hope he don't do it"
he was on the other side of the railin'
both eyes fiery wide
wet with sweat
the mouth of a shark
rolled up soiled sleeves
his arms were thick an' tattooed
an' he wore a silver watch
i could tell at a glance
he was uselessly lonely
i couldn't stay an' look at him
i couldn't stay an' look at him
because i suddenly realized that
deep in my heart
i really wanted
t' see him jump

(a mob. each member knowin'
that they all know an' see the same thing
they have the same thing in common.
can stare at each other in total blankness
they do not have t' speak an' not feel guilty
about havin' nothing t' say. everyday boredom
soaked by the temporary happiness
of that their search is finally over
for findin' a way t' communicate a leech cookout
giant cop out. all mobs i would think.
an' i was in it an' caught by the excitement of it)

an' i walked away
i wanted t' see him jump so bad
that i had t' walk away an' hide
uptown uptown
orchard street
through all those people on
orchard street
pants legs in my face
"comere! comere!"
i don't need no clothes
an' cross the street
skull caps climb
by themselves out of manholes
an' shoeboxes ride
the cracks of the sidewalk
fishermen  - - 
i've suddenly been turned into
a fish
but does anybody
wanna be a fisherman
any more 'n i
don't wanna be a fish

swingin' wanda's
down in new orleans
rumbles across
brick written
swear word
vulgar wall
in new york city)

no they can't make it
off the banks of their river
i am in their river
(i wonder if he jumped
i really wonder if he jumped)
i turn corner
t' get off river
an' get off river
still goin' up
i about face
an' discover
that i'm on another river

(this time. king rex
blesses me with plastic beads
an' toot toot whistles
paper rings an' things.
royal street.
bourbon street
st. claude an' esplanade
pass an' pull
everything out of shape
joe b. stuart
white southern poet
holds me up
we charge through casa
blazin' jukebox
gumbo overflowin'
get kicked out of colored bar
streets jammed
hypnotic stars explode
in louisiana murder night
everything's wedged
arm in arm
stoned galore
must see you in mobile then
down governor nichel
an' gone)

ok i can get off this river too
on bleeker street
i meet many friends
who look back at me
as if they know something
i don't know
rocco an' his brothers
say that some people
are worse hung up than me
i don't wanna hear it
a basketball drops through
the hoop
an' i recall that the
living theater's been busted

(has the guy jumped yet?)
intellectual spiders
weave down sixth avenue
with colt forty - fives
stickin' out of their
belly buttons
an' for the first time
in my life
i'm proud that
i haven't read into
any masterpiece books
(an' why did i wanna see that
poor soul so dead?)

first of all two people get
together an' they want their doors
enlarged. second of all, more
people see what's happenin' an'
come t' help with the door
enlargement. the ones that arrive
however have nothin' more than
"let's get these doors enlarged"
t' say t' the ones who were
there in the first place. it follows then that
the whole thing revolves around
nothing but this door enlargement idea.
third of all, there's a group now existin'
an' the only thing that keeps them friends
is that they all want the doors enlarged.
obviously, the doors're then enlarged
fourth of all,
after this enlargement
the group has t' find
something else t' keep
them together or
else the door enlargement
will prove t' be
embarrassing

on fourteenth street
i meet someone
who i know in front
wants t' put me
uptight
wants me t' be on
his level
in all honesty
he wants t' drag
me down there
i realize gravity
is my only enemy
loneliness has clutched
hands an' squeezes you
into wrongin' others
everybody has t' do things
keep themselves occupied
the workin' ones
have their minds on
the weekends
victims of the system
pack movie theaters
an' who an' of what
sadistic company is he
from that has the right
t' condemn others as trivial
whose fault
an' who really is t' blame
for one man carryin' a gun
it is impossible that
it's him
slaves are of no special color
an' the links of chains
fall into no special order
how good an actor do you have to be
and play God
(in greece, a little old lady
a worker lady
looks at me
rubs her chin
an' by sign language asks
how come i'm so unshaven
"the sea is very beautiful here"

i reply
pointin' t' my chin.
an' she believes me
needs no other answer
i strum the guitar
she dances
laughs
her bandana flies
i too realize that
she will die here
one the side of this sea
her death is certain here
my death is unknown
an' i come t' think that
i love her)

i talk t' people every day
involved in some scene
good an' evil are but words
invented by those
that are trapped in scenes

on what grounds are the
grounds for judgment
an i think also
that there is not
one thing anyplace
anywhere that makes any
sense. there are only tears
an' there is only sorrow
there are no problems

i have seen what i've loved
slip away an' vanish. i still
love what i've lost but t' run
an' try t' catch it'd
be very greedy
for the rest of my life
i will never chase a livin' soul
into the prison grasp
of my own self - love

i can't believe that i have
t' hate anybody
an' when i do
it will only be out of fear
an' i'll know it

i know no answers an' no truth
for absolutely no soul alive
i will listen t' no one
who tells me morals
there are no morals
an' i dream a lot

so go joshua
go fit your battle
i have t' go t' the woods
for a while
i hope you understand
but if you don't
it doesn't matter
i will be with you
nex' time around
don't think about me
i'll be ok
just go ahead out there
right out there
do what you say
you're gonna do
an' who knows
someday
someone might even
write
a song
about you

__________

i used t' hate enzo
i used t' hate him
so much that i could've killed him
he was rotten an' ruthless
an' after what he could get
i was sure of that
my beloved one met him
in a far - off land
an' she stayed longer there
because of him
i croaked with exhaustion
that he was actually makin' her happy
i never knew him
sometimes i would see him
on my ceilin'
i could've shot him
the rovin' phony
the romantic idiot
i know about guys for
i myself am a guy
poison swings its pendulums

with a seasick sensation
an' i used t' want t' trample on him
i used t' want t' massacre him
i used t' want t' murder him
i wanted t' be like him so much
that i ached
i used t' hate enzo



michelangelo would've wept
if he saw but once where charlie slept
(whoa, charlie, i'm afraid you've stepped
beyond the borders of being kept)
what price what price what price disgrace
for sleepin' on a cherub's face?



an amazon chick
with an amazin' pancho villa face
thumb out on highway
stands in the boilin' sun
countin' cars go by
zoom
catch that
u - turn
watch truck
yes i knew zapata well
some of my friends
my very best
have even looked
like the japanese
at certain times
i myself think they're
grand . . . make great radios
do you ever see liz taylor
down there
pack is heavy
there is ink
runnin' down its dusty straps
amarillo
ain't far
am going there too
won't need floor scrubbed
voice dubbed
or anything
won't need anything
a plane fumbles in the sky
must make it t' trinidad
tonight
a flyin' saucer texan
covered in cuff links
ate his steak for breakfast
an' now his car radiator
has blown up down the road
back here, a sixty - three
mercury convertible
crashes into girl
an' ten birds
just crossed
the colorado border



johnny (little johnny)
with his father's hammer
nailed five flies
t' the kitchen window
trapped baby bumblebees
in orange juice bottles
rib whipped his
younger brother
an' stuck his sister's hand
in the garbage disposal
pleasin' johnny
dad's football star
named all the girls
that did it
he did
an' never knew a
one that didn't
bruiser johnny
sore loser johnny
bad in math
but his parents fixed it
got too drunk in bars
an' his parents fixed
that too
lovin' johnny
crew - cut johnny
well molded
clean lived in
something his parents
could be proud of
no matter what the
cost to him
a structure of a manly duckling
but his parents
couldn't buy him
into the college
where he wanted t' go
genius johnny
poutin' johnny
punchin' johnny
crashed his
here son have a car good boy
cadillac into
a couldn't care less
railroad bridge
his parents supported him still
they bought new hankies
an' johnny got lots of flowers

an' so as spoked prongs
pierce from perilous heights
plungin'
through soft pillows,
there IS a sound
that rings
no praise
no praise
but you must be
aware of poor johnny
t' hear it

__________

you tell me about politics
this that
you speak of rats.
geese. a world of peace
you stumble stammer
pound your fist
an' i tell you there are no politics
you swear
tell me how much you care
you cheat the lunch counter man
out of a pack of cigarettes
an' i tell you there are no politics
you tell me of goons'
graves. ginks an' finks
an' of what you've read
an' how things should be
an' what you'd do if . . .
an i say someone's been
tamperin' with your head
you jump
raise your voice
an' gyrate yourself
t' the tone of principles
your arm is raised
an' i tell you there are no politics
in the afternoon you run
t' keep appointments
with false lovers
an' this leaves you
drained by nightfall
you ask me questions
an' i say that every question
if it's a truthful question

can be answered by askin' it
you stomp
get mad
i say it's got nothin' t' do with
gertrude stein
you turn your eyes
t' the radio
an' tell me what a
wasteland exists in television
you rant an' rave
of poverty
your fingers crawl the walls
the screen door leaves black marks
across your nose
your breath remains on
window glass
bullfight posters hang crooked above your head
an' the phone rings constantly
you tell me how much i've changed
as if that is all there is t' say
out of the side of your mouth
while talkin' on the wires
in a completely different
tone of voice
than you had a minute ago
when speakin' t' me about something else
i say what's this about changes?
you say "let's go get drunk"
light a cigarette
"an' throw up on the world"
you go t' your closet
mumblin' about the phoniness of churches
an' spastic national leaders
i say groovy but
also holy hollowness too
yes hollow holiness
an' that some of my best friends
know people that go t' church
you blow up
slam doors
say "can't no one say nothin' t' you"
s say "what do You think?"
your face laughs
you say "oh yeeeeeaah?"
i'm gonna break up i say
an' reach for your coat
'neath piles of paper slogans
i say your house is dirty
you say you should talk
your hallway stinks as
we walk through it
your stairs tilt drastically
your railing's rotted
an' there's blood at the
bottom of your steps
you say t' meet bricks with bricks
i say t' meet bricks with chalk
you tell me monster floor plans
an' i tell you about a bookie shop
in boston givin' odds on the presidential
race
i'm not gonna bet for a while i say
little children
shoot craps
in the alley garbage pot
you say "nothin's perfect"
an' i tell you again
there are no
politics

__________

high treachery sails
unveils
its last wedding song
bang sing the bells
the low pauper's prayer
rice rags in blossom
blow in a fleet
ribbons in the street
white as a sheet
(a Mexican cigarette)
the people've been set
t' try t' forget
that their
whole life's a honeymoon
over soon
i'm not gettin' caught
by all this rot
as i vanish down the road
with a starving actress
on each arm
(for better or best
in sickness an' madness)
i do take thee
i'm already married
so i'll continue as one
faithful done
ah fair blondy
ye lead me blindly
I am in the gravel
an' down on the gamut
for our anniversary
you can make me nervous
clink sings the tower
clang sang the preacher
inside of the altar
outside of the theater
mystery fails
when treachery prevails
the forgotten rosary
nails
itself t' a cross
of sand
an' rich men
stare t' their
private own - ed murals
all is lost Cinderella
all is lost

JOHN WESLEY HARDING LINER NOTES

There were three kings and a jolly three too. The first one had a broken nose, the second, a broken arm and the third was broke. "Faith is the key!" said the first king. "No, froth is the key!" said the second. "You're both wrong," said the third, "the key is Frank!"

It was late in the evening and Frank was sweeping up, preparing the meat and dishing himself out when there came a knock upon the door. "Who is it?" he mused. "It's us, Frank," said the three kings in unison, "and we'd like to have a word with you!" Frank opened the door and the three kings crawled in.

Terry Shute was in the midst of prying open a hairdresser when Frank's wife came in and caught him. "They're here!" she gasped. Terry dropped his drawer and rubbed the eye. "What do they appear to be like?" "One's got a broken vessel and that's the truth, the other two I'm not so sure about." "Fine, thank you, that'll be all." "Good" she turned and puffed. Terry tightened his belt and in an afterthought, stated: "Wait!" "Yes?" "How many of them would you say there were?" Vera smiled, she tapped her toe three times. Terry watched her foot closely. "Three?" he asked, hesitating. Vera nodded.

"Get up off my floor!" shouted Frank. The second king, who was first to rise, mumbled, "Where's the better half, Frank?" Frank, who was in no mood for jokes, took it lightly, replied, "She's in the back of the house, flaming it up with an arrogant man, now come on, out with it, what's on our minds today?" Nobody answered.

Terry Shute then entered the room with a bang, looking the three kings over and fondling his mop. Getting down to the source of things, he proudly boasted: "There is a creeping consumption in the land. It begins with these three fellas and it travels outward. Never in my life have I seen such a motley crew. They ask nothing and they receive nothing. Forgiveness is not in them. The wilderness is rotten all over their foreheads. They scorn the widow and abuse the child but I am afraid that they shall not prevail over the young man's destiny, not even them!" Frank turned with a blast, "Get out of here, you ragged man! Come ye no more!" Terry left the room willingly.

"What seems to be the problem?" Frank turned back to the three kings who were astonished. The first king cleared his throat. His shoes were too big and his crown was wet and lopsided but nevertheless, he began to speak in the most meaningful way, "Frank," he began, "Mr. Dylan has come out with a new record. This record of course features none but his own songs and we understand that you're the key." "That's right," said Frank, "I am." "Well then," said the king in a bit of excitement, "could you please open it up for us?" Frank, who all this time had been reclining with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them both up as wide as a tiger. "And just how far would you like to go in?" he asked and the three kings all looked at each other. "Not too far but just far enough so's we can say that we've been there," said the first chief. "All right," said Frank, "I'll see what I can do," and he commenced to doing it. First of all, he sat down and crossed his legs, then he sprung up, ripped off his shirt and began waving it in the air. A lightbulb fell from one of his pockets and he stamped it out with his foot. Then he took a deep breath, moaned and punched his fist through the plate-glass window. Settling back in his chair, he pulled out a knife, "Far enough?" he asked. "Yeah, sure, Frank," said the second king. The third king just shook his head and said he didn't know. The first king remained silent. The door opened and Vera stepped in. "Terry Shute will be leaving us soon and he desires to know if you kings got any gifts you wanna lay on him." Nobody answered.

It was just before the break of day and the three kings were tumbling along the road. The first one's nose had been mysteriously fixed, the second one's arm had healed and the third one was rich. All three of them were blowing horns. "I've never been so happy in all my life!" sang the one with all the money.

"Oh mighty thing!" said Vera to Frank, "Why didn't you just tell them you were a moderate man and leave it at that instead of goosing yourself all over the room?" "Patience, Vera," said Frank. Terry Shute, who was sitting over by the curtain cleaning an ax, climbed to his feet, walked over to Vera's husband and placed his hand on his shoulder. "Yuh didn't hurt yer hand, didja Frank?" Frank just sat there watching the workmen replace the window. "I don't believe so," he said.

On the slow train time does not interfere & at the Arabian crossing waits White Heap, the man from the newspaper & behind him the hundred Inevitables made of solid rock & stone - -  the Cream Judge & the Clown  - -  the doll house where Savage Rose & Fixable live simply in their wild animal luxury . . . . Autumn, with two zeros above her nose arguing over the sun being dark or Bach is as famous as its commotion & that she herself -  - not Orpheus yes">  is the logical poet "I am the logical poet" she screams "Spring?

Spring is only the beginning!" she attempts to make Cream Judge jealous by telling him of down - to - earth people & while the universe is erupting, she points to the slow train & prays for rain and for time to interfere  - - she is not extremely fat but rather progressively unhappy . . . . the hundred Inevitables hide their predictions & go to bars & drink & get drunk in their very special conscious way & when tom dooley, the kind of person you think you've seen before, comes strolling in with White Heap, the hundred Inevitables all say "who's that man who looks so white?" & the bartender, a good boy & one who keeps the buffalo in his mind, says, "I don't know, but I'm sure I've seen the other fellow someplace" & when Paul Sargent, a plainclothes man from 4th street, comes in at three in the morning & busts everybody for being incredible, nobody really gets angry  - - just a little illiterate most people get & Rome, one of the hundred Inevitables whispers "I told you so" to Madam John . . . Savage Rose & Fixable are bravely blowing kisses to the Jade Hexagram Carnaby Street & to all the mysterious juveniles & the Cream Judge is writing a book on the true meaning of a pear  - - last year. he wrote one on famous dogs of the civil war & now he has false teeth & no children . . . . when the Cream met Savage Rose & Fixable, he was introduced to them by none other than Lifelessness - -  Lifelessness is the Great Enemy & always wears a hip guard yes">  he is very hipguard . . . . Lifelessness said when introducing everybody "go save the world" & "involvement! that's the issue" & things like that & Savage Rose winked at Fixable & the Cream went off with his arm in a sling singing "summertime & the livin is easy" . . . . the Clown appears yes">  puts a gag over Autumn's mouth and says "there are two kinds of people  - -  simple people & normal people" this usually gets a big laugh from the sandpit & White Heap sneezes  - - passes out & rips open Autumn's gag & says "What do you mean you're Autumn and without you there'd be no spring! you fool! without spring, there'd be no you! what do you think of that???." then Savage Rose & Fixable come by & kick him in the brains & color him pink for being a phony philosopher  - - then the Clown comes by and screams "You phony philosopher!" & jumps on his head  - - Paul Sargent comes by again in an umpire's suit & some college kid who's read all about Nietzsche comes by & says "Neitzsche never wore an umpire's suit" & Paul says "You wanna buy some cloths, kid?" & then Rome & John come out of the bar & they're going up to Harlem . . . . we are singing today of the WIPE - OUT GANG - -  the WIPE - OUT GANG buys, owns & operates the Insanity Factory yes">  if you do not know where the Insanity Factory is located, you should hereby take two steps to the right, paint your teeth & go to sleep . . . . the songs on this specific record are not so much songs but rather exercises in tonal breath control. . . . the subject matter - -  though meaningless as it is  - -  has something to do with the beautiful strangers . . . . the beautiful strangers, Vivaldi's green jacket & the holy slow train

you are right john cohen  - - quazimodo was right  - - mozart was right. . . . I cannot say the word eye any more . . . . when I speak this word eye, it is as if I am speaking of somebody's eye that I faintly remember . . . . there is no eye yes">  there is only a series of mouths yes">  long live the mouths yes">  your roof top  - - if you don't already know  - - has been demolished . . . . eye is plasma & you are right about that too  - -  you are lucky - -  you don't have to think about such things as eye & roof tops & quazimodo.

i'm standing there watching the parade/
feeling combination of sleepy john estes.
jayne mansfield. humphry bogart/morti -
mer snerd. murph the surf and so forth/
erotic hitchhiker wearing japanese
blanket. gets my attention by asking didn't
he see me at this hootenanny down in
puerto vallarta, mexico/i say no you must
be mistaken. i happen to be one of the
Supremes/then he rips off his blanket
an' suddenly becomes a middle - aged druggist.
up for district attorney. he starts scream -
ing at me you're the one. you're the one
that's been causing all them riots over in
vietnam. immediately turns t' a bunch of
people an' says if elected, he'll have me
electrocuted publicly on the next fourth
of july. i look around an' all these people
he's talking to are carrying blowtorches/
needless t' say, i split fast go back t' the
nice quiet country. am standing there writing
WHAAT? on my favorite wall when who should
pass by in a jet plane but my recording
engineer "i'm here t' pick up you and your
lastest works of art. do you need any help
with anything?''

(pause)

my songs're written with the kettledrum
in mind/a touch of any anxious color. un -
mentionable. obvious. an' people perhaps
like a soft brazilian singer . . . i have
given up at making any attempt at perfection/
the fact that the white house is filled with
leaders that've never been t' the appollo

theather amazes me. why allen ginsberg was
not chosen t' read poetry at the inauguration
boggles my mind/if someone thinks norman
mailer is more important than hank williams
that's fine. i have no arguments an' i
never drink milk. i would rather model har -
monica holders than discuss aztec anthropology/
english literature. or history of the united
nations. i accept chaos. I am not sure whether
it accepts me. i know there're some people terrified
of the bomb. but there are other people terrified
t' be seen carrying a modern screen magazine.
experience teaches that silence terrifies people
the most . . . i am convinced that all souls have
some superior t' deal with / l ike the school
system, an invisible circle of which no one
can think without consulting someone/ in the
face of this, responsibility / security, success
mean absolutely nothing. . . i would not want
t' be bach. mozart. tolstoy. joe hill. gertrude
stein or james dean / they are all dead. the
Great books've been written. the Great sayings
have all been said/ I am about t' sketch You
a picture of what goes on around here some -
times. though I don't understand too well
myself what's really happening. i do know
that we're all gonna die someday an' that no
death has ever stopped the world. my poems
are written in a rhythm of unpoetic distortion/
divided by pierced ears. false eyelashes / sub -
tracted by people constantly torturing each
other. with a melodic purring line of descriptive
hollowness  - -  seen at times through dark sunglasses
an' other forms of psychic explosion. a song is
anything that can walk by itself/i am called
a songwriter. a poem is a naked person . . . some
people say that i am a poet

(end of pause)

an' so i answer my recording engineer
"yes. well i could use some help in getting
this wall in the plane"

DESIRE LINER NOTES

Where do I begin...on the heels of Rimbaud moving like a dancing bullet thru the secret streets of a hot New Jersey night filled with venom and wonder. Meeting the Queen Angel in the reeds of Babylon and then to the fountain of sorrow to drift away in the hot mass of the deluge... To sing praise to the King of those dead streets, to grasp and let go in a heavenly way - -  streaming into the lost belly of civilization at a standstill. Romance is taking over. Tolstoy was right. These notes are being written in a bathtub in Maine under ideal conditions, in every Curio Lounge from Brooklyn to Guam, from Lowell to Durango oh sister, when I fall into your spacy arms, can not ya feel the weight of oblivion and the songs of redemption on your backside we surface alongside miles standish and take the rock. We have relations in Mozambique. I have a brother or two and a whole lot of karma to burn... Isis and the moon shine on me. When Rubin gets out of jail, we celebrate in the historical parking lot in sunburned California...

ALTERNATIVES TO COLLEGE

retreat by dawn but love this bed -  - this cult yes">  this wolf & cell of smelling mouth -  - tongue in hand & faint little lord, the bounty hunter playing flute & you, the younger, playing the tramp...one pale virgin with a plastic hammer FLASH & the cardboard bird & thousand teachers looking for Tibet & mathematics -  - they, constipated, moving slowly, bulky across the constipation ... this virgin eats her hammer & holy mackerel she's a college girl yes">  the pokypine attacking Down with Breath & she's killed by a flying tooth  - - bounty hunter now reincarnated into a fire hydrant - -  he sleeps on your dog - -  neath your window - - Phoenix rising -  - he say, "God'll save the moon" & using this dawn for a blanket you part with sleep & accept this tomb  - -  this want of Recollection & reward & the star gazer making petty fun of the farmer, the angel, the generous cowboy & your father who is just another person... welcome this notorious moment wearing the robe & blindfold - - smile & let mad doctor sell his technicolor wigs to Maid Marian & you passing to dream with voices down the window but say farewell to health, fake laws, maturity & the visible imbecile becoming randolph ... enter with your sponge & friends & wave good - bye to gramma Lover, she moves like the seasons - -  she doesn't fight the clock   - -  her strength is in her weakness & that is why she is my lover... Penrod Cain yes">  they offend themselves & take responsibility they have no right to take & leading others' lives, they lose their own & break their thumbs &  dwell in madness & define this madness as success & they follow BLASPHEMY & touch of goodness exit  - - cutting out the eyes of lambs & hanging in the evil hallway - -  the dead shepherd in the closet ... the only floor, a floor of sound BLASPHEMY it leads them ... Lover, she knows better & doesn't fall for MATRON GIFTS disguised as book & proper hitchhiking with the gas mask on & thumbing the queens, the paul reveres & meet Nick the Nail for he exists & he's real like Sing Sing &  snowplows in the sewer ... Sunday comes & the old maid  - - but are you joking  - - she's just twenty - two & her name is Nancy or Peggy or Brunella & she squats in a cornfield & weaving brooms from roses, she reeks of heroes & paints her face the color of Custer's last massacre - -  she peeks from tanks & repeats herself  - - she stays away from the merry - go – round & you must love her too / she lives in armor & prejudice ... she is frightened of the clowns & may God have mercy on her soul  - - may her pupils grow trees from their ears & shout about the eclipse, whimpers from the farm girls & the counter revolutionary crucifixion & damn the saints & make a profit the vandal from his gamut & baby cupid, the roustabout forcing you to store away velvet bonnet of barbarian funnel & drinking & drinking until pay day & graduation & Sunday coming & going just like Monday & some other people ... throbbing & to the pendulum strapped 'til Christmas may these teachers of the shade be rot for committing the problems of past & future & omitting the weather, the drunken eagle & the holy present ... Sunday being prisoner of the castle sleeping on & Nancy or Peggy or Brunella -  - she turning into twenty - three & you concluding that even gas masks can be worn in freedom, but who are you really talking & thinking about when you discuss your destiny? your problem? your freedom? ... Sphinx & the tango partner, her professor busy writing a book about the bums, sit like wallflowers & you being taught by Felix the Cat & how dare you have the

nerve to pass! how dare you search for pain! for self pity! for decisions!

Aunt Fang from the witch - hunt, her left jab weakened - -  the flame in her arm & poor potbrain Shakespeare, a wire for his halo ... hand in hand, they whisper of cannibals & the poet & I WISH I WAS JAYNE MANSFIELD/STANDING ON THE MOON / I'D ORDER ME A LEPRECHAUN / & SHOOT YOU WITH MY SPOON / while White Stoveman with earrings that jingle from his toes & who sings of Hiroshima & Tokyo & Hollywood happenings pulls out his leaflets, his plum & I WISH I WAS A DIPLOMAT / NOT A DOORMAT OR A MOVIE / I'D BURN MY OFFICE OFF THE EARTH / & MAKE THE WORLD MORE GROOVY / & ho ho ho amazing & get two corsets free with each butter sandwich & Plato with his flask of verbs building his buildings on ground where there is no ground at all & his mother in the tower wringing her head & moaning & oh great screech of help! & crippled mermaid singing & listen that's her singing now & she meows too ... (1) get yourself a harness. be avant garde. eat lots of mushrooms & end up as a country music expert (2) get yourself a torn calendar, some leftover birthday cake. buy a flagpole & you will indeed wind up as a good librarian (3) steal a pink rake. carry a burnt balloon. wash your neck with egg yolk & if you don't find yourself a successful plantation owner within a matter of time, then something is wrong ... on & on & on sweet mermaid she sings of ideals, different formulas & wild cookbooks / dark Scary, the weeper at the drop of anybody's hat but his, sentimental yes">  sentimental like the shock patient who recalls his refrigerator with a slight tear & Right Lie, himself being whipped to death by a pigtail  - -  both of them

right now being pasteurized in a quart of milk & Gimmick hailing the armies of intelligence, Jerry Lewis & used french fries ... all right then, if you must go, go with the jack of spades, the honky tonk lady & take care of the woman at the well yes">  for kicks, see with your third eye & dream of being mr. deserted fox but dont depend on him. dont use him. dont count on him yonder at your funeral, you will see this pauper yes">  dressed like your face, he will have a wedding present for you - -  it will be a mirror & in it, you will see the world as it sees you ... behind this mirror there will be a common worker looking like Little Lulu. he'll be teaching a boy scout the Ten Commandments & if you run from the mirror, they will both seize you & take you with them to the desert. they will stick a fishing pole in your hand & immediately tell you of backaches, Buicks, senate seats & ant poison  - -  forks & knives - - Stork, the magic gladiator will appear from a trunk locker & say he brought you here & now he wants to collect & you saying "no no i'm a student! i'm a student of life!" & him saying "i'll give you a student of life! yuh just better pay up yuh dig, i'm the stork, yuh dig?" SHAZAAAAM & the might mirror cracking & you seeing yourself oh you can't believe it & you're vanishing - -  the boy scout saying "fish! fish!" & you saying "help me, common worker!" & the common worker saying "call me C. W. yuh dig?" & you saying "owee strange & tell me what's happening!" - -  Bull Flipt, the way out method actor who sleeps in peanuts to get the feel of being a hog & Sabu Jones

coming out of the subway & he say "now what's so important about being a hog & gimme some of those peanuts -  - I gotta go hunt me some tiger today Baby!" & the geese charging yes">  thinking they're scarecrows & you seeking goats in the midst of novelists who eat shot glasses yes">  write books about other people's masters - -  each one in a mustache & wishing he was Frank Buck & you getting rather salty & everything begins & is forming into one Great big strangle - shape & the corpse, the voice  - -  the struggle & you saying "is it true that children who die at birth really have committed suicide?" but there's nobody to ask ... forget these delusions find your opposite  - -  be like Jonah - -  go deep & there will be no pauper at your ceremony ... be him civilian yes">  disciple or bellydancer ... long live catastrophy Josie & the hermit, King of the Blues  - - ragged at the motel  - - a wheel being invented in the barn & here come the innkeeper with bars from the window ... Lady Chance & Superstition, the cleaning woman - -  she holler fresh quarters f' sale & Ritz Deaf paying all he has to get into this dungeon & he cant even hear ... blank stares, caves & the in – crowd grinning & banners with little bo peep - -  simple simon & her come Standing Room Only ... he's wearing a sucker & conning for better or worse  - -  he's blowing the toot toot  - -  Gigantic Push & the gingerbread sergeant growls & dies & the low rank gobble up the pieces & then they die from poison groin - - malnutrition & thinking they're too smart & you with the dice & forever uniform ... receiving some degree & while giving it to your wall, somebody steals your enemy - - your pride  - - your existence  - - your chum, Slop, leaving you to the dogs & defenders of mankind - -  ghost of Einstein like the raven & Miss Prune the Terror. trying to convince you that there was no edgar allan poe & then you straightening the tie that either Eileen or Punk Roger gave you for pennies on the brain & saying "take me to your leader for change! i'm sick of these vincent price people!" ... Homer on the gallows  - -  his feet swollen & you wondering why there is no eternity & that you make your own eternity & why there is no music & that you make your own music & where there are no alternatives & that you make your own alternatives

OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD

     All right, then  - -  next on the pole was Horseman and his friend

Photochick. Photochick is wearing a Hoover button in her mouth and

this keeps her lips together.

     Horseman was first up the pole and he's shouting back, "Hurry up,

Photochick. Get up here." But then his pants fall down. Photochick,

blinded reaches for her banjo and Horseman screams, "What are you doing? Get rid of that thing. Hurry. God, the cops are coming!"

     Photochick snarls. "Don't call me no God," and she stars in a'singing, "Coming through the rye, coming through the rye, oh yeah, baby - o, we all just coming through the rye." Horseman gives her a kick in the mouth and her lips pry open and she stops her singing. "Now get the hell up this pole" Horseman sighs, vomits and looks out toward the slums ... "Good God, there's a thousand angry plumbers all in chrome suits. They've smashed the gates." Photochick, she squints. Horseman looks down. His face is dirty. "Didja hear me? Stop squinting! Didja hear me?"

     "The sun's hot. I'm getting down off this pole" says Photochick.

Meanwhile, back at the kazoo factory, Prez is walking back and forth

dictating a letter. "Yes, I want the holes much bigger in these kazoos. I also want them cut sharper and to kind of pinch the tongue a little. I

want a higher pitch, perhaps like a girl screaming. Also in the ads, I

want to see a young hunchback. Perhaps with his nose broken. I want to see him sitting. Oh, I'd say, in front of a swamp with lots of mosquitoes. I want to see more of a poverty - type mood in the displays, also."

     SCREAM from the closet. "Who's in there?" says the Prez. "Could you check on that, please, Miss Flunk." Miss Flunk opens the closet. Tattler, the errand boy, falls out. His arm tied behind is back. His shoes gone. "What's the matter there boy! Speak up! I'll have you demolished!" says Prez. "Sorry sir. The dikes have broken down. They're beating everybody up and putting them in the closets! Oh my Gawaud" says the Prez. "When? When has all this happened? Where are they finding all the closets? There aren't enough closets! Oh my Gawaud! What'll my wife say? Miss Flunk! Cancel my appointments for today. Order me my lunch?"

     Miss Flunk slowly puts down her pen. Shuffles up to the Prez. Punches him in the gut and heaves him into the encyclopedias. "What! What's happening here! What, dear Gawaud, is happening here?" Prez, in a gust of anguish. "Get your hands behind your back, you fat fiend!" says Miss Flunk. "You're going into the closet." 

     BAP and the Prez lands in the closet. Tattler escapes out an air - vent. Miss Flunk take a bottle of ink and stars to polish her muscles. It begins to rain...

     Meanwhile, back at the pole, Horseman is shouting, "Don't get down Photochick! I want you! I need you! I love you!" Photochick shouting back, "The sun's in my eyes! I can't do a thing with it! I fear my banjo is missing." The plumbers arrive. They take off their chrome suits. "What you guys want?" says Horseman. "We want you to ask each one of us for our autographs." says the chief plumber, who used to be one helluva banjo player himself and now spends his free time propositioning old ladies down on Highway 90. "That's what we want you to do."

     "Nonsense!" says Horseman. "Just a minute." says Photochick. "Hold it just a minute. I'm game. I'll do it. Who do I ask first?" "What do you mean YOU will!" growls Horseman. "I'll do it. I'll ask 'm. I wanna do it. I'll do it."

     "Good" says the chief plumber. "Now that we got that straightened out, we can chop down this pole without feeling too guilty and we won't have to join any lumberjack's union besides. " Good. Everything's looking good today and WHAM down comes the pole and they all walk back through the gates and go to the movies. Horseman and Photochick. They all sprawled out on the ground clutching the grass. A giant billboard sign faces them. It, being a musical instrument advertisement. Showing a picture of two women racing car drivers. Holding hands and each smoking a kazoo.

     The sign smiles handsomely and just squats there like the moon.

"Notice anything strange?" says Horseman to Photochick. "About what?" says Photochick. "About the pole being chopped down" says Horseman. "No. Nothing strange about that. Just that the sun's still in my eyes and that sign over there looks like it wasn't here before." "You mean that racing - car advertisement?" "I thought it was a government report  warning against cigars." "Oh, yeah" says Horseman. "Yeah, it is." "Yeah, it is. I know it is." says Photochick, who begins now to look for her  Hoover button ... Meanwhile, back at the Newport Folk Festival...

BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

(Hootenanny Magazine, December 1963)

It aint no use in talkin about folk music -

It aint no use in takin stands an sides an gettin all sweat about it  -

It don make sense really t learn names an shout labels an get yer -

self all confused -

It aint got no meanin at all t discuss an defend it -

An it dont mean nothin t offend it -

Of all the corners a the question there aint no answers noplace worth

lookin at seriously cause the question jus aint that almighty big

What folk music an what aint's got nothin t do with the world  -

It just aint healthy t let the music run yer life like that -

Yer life's gotta run the music -

You can't afford t let yer guitar own yer mind -

Yer mind's gotta own that guitar -

So what if other folks try an makes rules for it -

So what if other folks try an boundary it all up -

So what if other folks try an chain it down and tell yuh what's it all about  -

It don make no difference at all if yer own life is running things  -

But if the music's runnin you then yuh get swallowed up by all blabber talk  -

You don have t worry about that's folk music an what aint  -

Man, it's just a wide circle a silly tongues ant it aint important at all  -

Don let nobody block your head off -

Don let no one weave a wall in front of yer eyes -

Don let no one teach yuh what t call things -

Just get up in the mornin an go -

Just open your eyes an walk -

Forget the silly talk -

There's a million paths t take -

There's a million miles t make -

There's a million border lines t break -

The shadow a the mountain sure moving an shiftin -

Raindrops an snowflakes're free fallin an forever driftin

Tree top're wavin an shakin an the fog is liftin

The white line on the highway's reflectin -

Behind the ditch broken down empty shack're still standin

Above the road an the cove caves're still hiden -

In back a the fence the dogs're still barkin -

The pacific Ocean is soundin and poundin

An the Monterrey sands're waitin

For yer bare feet t be walkin -

There's train lines rattlin an there's whistle's screamin  -

The wind's jauntin an there's hitchhikers thumbin an bummin  -

The color a the sky's changin

An the color a the clouds're turnin

An the color a the ground's fadin

Fathers an mothers laughing an babies're cryin

Young girls're sighin

An ol men're dyin -

The dark nite's foldin an people're fightin an frightened

Ships're sailin an trucks're haulin

An New York City's crawlin

With hungry voices callin

An ol buildings fallin

An clothes lines're stretched an strung out

With all different colors a pants an shirts hangin -

An the dirt in the alley's risin

An jackhammer dust's flyin -

An the Hudsin river're restin

An kid's voices're ringin

The hobo poet's whisperin and the bartender's not listenin  -

The East Side is sweatin an steamin

an fightin' t be breathin -

Forty 2nd Street's flyin an floatin and jumpin an twistin an explodin  -

Subways're loadin

Folks 'f all colors an creed're settlin an sittin on park benches an street corners an curbs an roof tops an bus stops -

The back a the bar rooms're lined steady an standin full with road walkers an road workers an road poets an road painters with lonesome thoughts an hungry feelings  -

Junkies an flunkies line the wind along side ban - the - bomb demonstrators

Girls're hustlin for dollars on one side a the street an

Girls're sittin down for their rights on the other side a the street  -

The new Premise's playin

an Moondog's beatin his drum an sayin his lines -

Lenny Bruce's talkin

an Lord Buckley's memory still movin

An Doc Watson's walkin

Ray Charles's shoutin an speakin

Bertrand Russell's yellin from across the ocean

an Julian Beck's tellin the same on this side a the sea -

Jim Forman is livin an Ross Barnett's losin -

Harry Jackson's paintin -

Maybelle Carter's really standin an really strummin

an Mike Seeger's really real -

An Pete Seeger's really Pete Seeger -

An Joan Baez is still unshattered

An Marlon Brando's on the good side -

An the time's a rollin down every single street -

There's a girl waitin on every single corner -

An men're still breathin

An men're still breathin

An it's all music -

Every space a human life

It's all music -

An it don have t have no stamp 'f approval from nobody -

It don have to be ok ed by no one -

There aint no scholar that's smart enuff t invent the rules  -

There aint no lawmaker high enuff t chain it down with boundaries  -

There aint no guard that's good enuff t hold a gun on it  -

An there aint no gun that's got enuff bullets an shells t shoot it –

An it's yer life

Do it  - don talk it -

Forget about the talkers -

They'll always be around

You won't ......

MY LIFE IN A STOLEN MOMENT

Duluth's an iron ore shipping town in Minnesota

It's built up on a rocky cliff that runs into Lake Superior

I was born there -  my father was born there -

My mother's from the Iron Range Country up north

The Iron Range is a long line a mining towns

that begin at Grand Rapids and end at Eveleth

We moved up there to live with my mother's folks

in Hibbing when I was young -

Hibbing's got the biggest open pit ore mine in the world

Hibbing's got schools, churches, grocery stores an' a jail

It's got high school football games an' a movie house

Hibbing's got souped - up cars runnin' full blast on a Friday night

Hibbing's got corner bars with polka bands

You can stand at one end of Hibbing's main drag an' see clear past the city limits on the other end

Hibbing's a good ol' town

I ran away from it when I was 10, 12, 13, 15, 151/2, 17 an' 18

I been caught an' brought back all but once

I wrote my first song to my mother an' titled it "To Mother"

I wrote that in 5th grade an' the teacher gave me a B+

I started smoking at 11 years old an' only stopped once to catch my breath

I don't remember my parents singing too much

At least I don't remember swapping any songs with them

Later I sat in college at the University of Minnesota on a phony scholarship that I never had

I sat in science class an' flunked out for refusin' to watch a rabbit die

I got expelled from English class for using four - letter words in a paper describing the English teacher

I also failed out of communication class for callin' up every day and sayin' I couldn't come

I did OK in Spanish though but I knew it beforehand

I's kept around for kicks at a fraternity house

They let me live there an' I did until they wanted me to join

I moved in with two girls from South Dakota

in a two - room apartment for two nights

I crossed the bridge to 14th Street an' moved in above a bookstore that also sold bad hamburgers basketball sweatshirts an' bulldog statues

I fell hard for an actress girl who kneed me in the guts

an' I ended up on the East Side a the Mississippi River with about ten friends in a condemned house underneath the Washington Avenue Bridge just south a Seven Corners

That's pretty well my college life

After that I thumbed my way to Galveston, in four days

tryin' to find an ol' friend whose ma met me

at the screen door and said he's in the Army -

By the time the kitchen door closed

I was passin' California -  almost to Oregon -

I met a waitress in the woods who picked me up

an' dropped me off in Washington someplace

I danced my way from the Indian festivals in Gallup, New Mexico

To the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana

With my thumb out, my eyes asleep, my hat turned up an' my head turned on

I's driftin' an' learnin' new lessons

I was making my own depression

I rode freight trains for kicks

An' got beat up for laughs

Cut grass for quarters

An' sang for dimes

Hitchhiked on 61 -  51 -  75 - 169  - 37  - 66 -  22

Gopher Road  - Route 40 an' Howard Johnson Turnpike

Got jailed for suspicion of armed robbery

Got held for four hours on a murder rap

Got busted for looking like I do

An' I never done none a them things

Somewheres back I took time to start plain' the guitar

Somewheres back I took the time to start singin'

Somewheres back I took the time to start writin'

But I never did take the time to find out why

I took the time to do those things -  when they ask

Me why an' where I got started, I gotta shake my head

an' weave my eyes an' walk away dumfounded

From Shreveport I landed in Madison, Wisconsin

From Madison we filled up a four - door Pontiac with five people

An' shot straight south an' sharp to the East an' in 24 hours was still hanging on through the Hudson Tunnel - 

Gettin' out in a snowstorm an' wavin' goodbye to the three others, we swept on to MacDougal Street

with five dollars between us -  but we weren't poor

I had my guitar an' harmonica to play

An' he had his brother's clothes to pawn

In a week, he went back to Madison while I stayed behind an'

Walked a winter's line from the Lower East Side to Gerde's Folk City

In May, I thumbed west an' took the wrong highway to Florida

Mad as hell an' tired as well, I scrambled my way back to

South Dakota by keepin' a truck driver up all day an' singin'

One night in Cincinnati

I looked up a long time friend in Sioux Falls an' was let down,

worried blind, and hit hard by seein' how little we had to say

I rolled back to Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, lookin' up ol' time pals an' first - run gals an' I was beginnin' to find out that my road an' their road is two different kinds a roads I found myself back in New York City in the middle part a summer staying on 28th Street with kind, honest hard - working people who were good to me

I got wrote up in the Times after playin' in the fall at Gerde's Folk City

I got recorded at Columbia after being wrote up in the Times

An' I still can't find the time to go back an' see why an' where

I started doing what I'm doing

I can't tell you the influences 'cause there's too many to mention an' I might leave one out

An' that wouldn't be fair

Woody Guthrie, sure

Big Joe Williams, yeah

It's easy to remember those names

But what about the faces you can't find again

What about the curbs an' corners an' cut - offs

     that drop out a sight an' fall behind

What about the records you hear but one time

What about the coyote's call an' the bulldog's bark

What about the tomcat's meow an' milk cow's moo

An' the train whistle's moan

Open up yer eyes an' ears an' yer influenced

     an' there's nothing you can do about it

Hibbing's a good ol' town

I ran away from it when I was 10, 12, 13, 15, 151/2, 17 an' 18

I been caught an' brought back all but once

life

Do it  - don talk it -

Forget about the talkers -

They'll always be around

You won't ......

Advice for Geraldine on her Miscellaneous Birthday

stay in line. stay in step. people

are afraid of someone who is not

in step with them. it makes them

look foolish t' themselves for

being in step. it might even

cross their minds that they themselves

are in the wrong step. do not run

nor cross the red line. if you go

too far out in any direction, they

will lose sight of you. they'll feel

threatened. thinking that they are

not a part of something that they

saw go past them, they'll feel

something's going on up there that

they don't know about. revenge

will set in. they will start thinking

of how t' get rid of you. act

mannerly towards them. if you don't,

they will take it personal. as you

come directly in contact face t' face

do not make it a secret of how

much you need them. if they sense

that you have no need for them,

the first thing they will do is

try t' make you need them. if

this doesn't work, they will tell

you of how much they don't need

you. if you do not show any sadness

at a remark such as this, they

will immediately tell other people

of how much they don't need you.

your name will begin t' come up

in circles where people gather

to tell about all the people they

don't need. you will begin t' get

famous this way. this, though, will

only get the people who you don't need

in the first place

all the more madder.

you will become

a whole topic of conversation.

needless t' say, these people

who don't need you will start

hating themselves for needing t' talk

about you. then you yourself will

start hating yourself for causing so

much hate. as you can see, it will

all end in one great gunburst.

never trust a cop in a raincoat.

when asked t' define yourself exactly,

say you are an exact mathematician.

do not say or do anything that

he who standing in front of you

watching cannot understand, he will

feel you know something he

doesn't. he will react with blinding

speed and write your name down.

talk on his terms. if his terms

are old - fashioned an' you've

passed that stage all the more easier

t' get back there. say what he

can understand clearly. say it simple

t' keep your tongue out of your

cheek. after he hears you, he can

label you good or bad. anyone will

do. t' some people, there is only

good an' bad. in any case, it will

make him feel somewhat important.

it is better t' stay away from

these people. be careful of

enthusiasm...it is all temporary

an' don't let it sway you. when asked

if you go t' church, always answer

yes, never look at your shoes. when

asked you you think of gene autrey

singing of hard rains gonna fall say

that nobody can sing it as good as

peter, paul and mary. at the mention

of the president's name, eat a pint of

yogurt an' go t' sleep early...when

asked if you're a communist, sing

america the beautiful in an

italian accent. beat up nearest

street cleaner. if by any

chance you're caught naked in a

parked car, quick turn the radio on

full blast an' pretend

that you're driving. never leave

the house without a jar of peanut

butter. do not wear

matched socks. when asked to do 100

pushups always smoke a pound

of deodorant beforehand.

when asked if you're a capitalist, rip

open your shirt, sing buddy can

you spare a dime with your

right foot forward an' proceed t'

chew up a dollar bill.

do not sign any dotted line. do not

fall in trap of criticizing people

who do nothing else but criticize.

do Not create anything. it will be

misinterpreted. it will not change.

it will follow you the

rest of your life. when asked what you

do for a living say you laugh for

a living. be suspicious of people

who say that if you are not nice

t' them, they will commit suicide.

when asked if you care about

the world's problems, look deeply

into the eyes of he that asks

you, he will not ask you again. when

asked if you've spent time in jail,

announce proudly that some of your

best friends've asked you that.

beware of bathroom walls that've not

been written on. when told t' look at

yourself...never look. when asked

t' give your real name...never give it.

PLANET WAVES (LINER NOTES)

Back to the Starting Point!

Back to the Starting

Point! The kickoff, Hebrew

letters on the wall, Victor Hugo's

house in Paris, NYC in early

autumn, leaves flying in the park, the

clock strikes Eight, Bong -  I dropped a

double brandy & tried to recall the events ...

beer halls & pin balls, polka bands, barbwire

& thrashing clowns, objects, headwinds, &

snowstorms, family outings with strangers -

Furious gals with garters & smeared lips

on bar stools that stank from sweating

pussy  - doing the Hula -  perfect,

priests in overhauls, glassy eyed,

Insomnia! Space guys off duty with

big dicks & duck tails, all wired up &

voting for Eisenhower, waving flags &

jumping off of fire engines, getting

killed on motorcycles whatever -

We sensed each other beneath

the mask, pitched a tent in the

street & joined the traveling circus,

love at first sight! History

became a lie! the sideshow took

over  - what a sight ... the tresh -

hold of the Modern Bomb,

temples of the Pawnee, the

cowboy saint, the Arapshop,

snapshots of  - Apache poets

searching thru the ruins for a

glimpse of Buddah -  I let out

for parts unknown, found Jacob's

ladder up against an adobe wall &

bought a serpent from a passing angel -

Yeah the ole days are gone

forever and the new ones aint far behind, the

laughter is fading away, echoes of a star

of energy Vampires in the gone world going

Wild! Drinking the blood of innocent people,

Innocent lambs! The wretched of the Earth,

my brothers of the flood, cities of the flesh -

Milwaukee, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Bismarck, South

Dakota, Duluth! Duluth -  where Baudelaire lived

& Goya cashed in his chips, where Joshua brought

the house down! From there it was straight up - a little

jolt of Mexico and some good LUCK, a

little power over the Grave, some

more brandy & the teeth of

a lion & a compass

FOR DAVE GLOVER

(From the Newport Folk Festival program 1963)

We used t drink cough medicine bottles a vodka t'gether

We used t stay up all nite laughin and singin

And we did that when there weren't too many people doin it

Hey man  - I'm sorry -  // I mean I'm really sorry

I wrote many lines in the past few years but there ain't no letters in

none a the words t spell out how sorry I am

It's a complicated day

I keep rememberin the songs we used t sing an play

The songs written thirty fifty years ago

The dirt farm songs -  the dust bowl songs

The depression songs -  the down and out songs

The ol blues and ballads

I think a Woody's songs

I think a Woody's day

"This land I'll defend with my life if it be"

An I say t myself "Yeah that's right"

"Hitler's on the march"

"I don't wan''m takin my ground"

"I don't wan''m livin on my land"

An I see two sides man

I see two roads to pick yer route

The American way or the Fascist way

When there was a strike there's only two kind of views

An two kinds of tales t tell the news

Thru the unions eyes or thru the bosses eyes

An yuh could stand on a line an look at yer friends

An stand on that same line an see yer foes

It was that easy

"Which Side're You On" ain't phony words

An they ain't from a phony song

An that was Woody's day man

Two sides

I don know what happened cause I wasn't aroun but somewhere along the line a that used t be day things got messed up

More kinds a sides come int' the story

Folks I guess started switchin sides an makin up their own sides

There got t be so many sides that no eyes could could see the eyes facin'm

There got t be so many sides that all of'm started lookin' like each other I don pretend to know what happened man, but somehow all sides lost their purpose an folks forgot about other folks

I mean they must a all started goin against each other not for the good a their side but for the good a jes their own selves

An them two simple sides that was so easy t tell apart bashed an

boomed an exploded so hard an heavy that t'day all'ts left and

made for us is the one big rockin rollin

COMPLICATED CIRCLE

Nowadays folk's brains're bamboozled an bowled over by categories

labels an slogans an advertisements that could send anybody's

head in a spin

It's hard t believe anybody's tellin the truth for what that is

I swear it's true that in some parts a the country folks believe the

finger - pointers more'n the President

It's the time a the flag wavin shotgun carryin John Birchers

It's the time a the killer dogs an killer sprays

It's the time a the billbord sign super flyin highways

It's the time a the pushbutton foods an five minute fads

It's the time a the white collar shirt an the white sheeted hood and the

white man's sun tan lotion

It's time a guns and grenades an bombs bigger'n any time's ever seen

It's the time a Liz Taylor fans -  sports fans and electric fans

It's the time when a twenty year ol colored boy with his head bloody

don get too much thought from the seventy year ol senator who

wants t bomb Cuba

I don't know who the people were man that let it get this way but they

got what they wanted out a their lives an left me an you facin a scared raped world

They drained the free thinkin air an left us with a mental institution

circle

They rotted the poor wind and left us mixed up mislead puny breeze

They stole Abraham Lincoln's road an sold us Bill Moore's highway

They shot down trees -  buried the leaves an nailed "Profess" t the

gravestone

They damned up the clear runnin river of "Love thy neighbor said by Jesus Christ a Bethlehem an poluted us with "I'll guard"  "the school with my body" said by governor Wallace of Alabama

They robbed the Constitution of the land an snuck in the censors of

         the mind

They bought up everythin at the auction an left us with a garbage

         market a fools an fears an frustratin phoniness

Yuh ask how I'm doin Dave

I'm still singin -  I'm still writin

I'm still doin all a things I used to do I guess

But the difference is probably that now I really ain't thinkin

         about what I'm doing no more

I don worry no more bout the covered up lies and twisted truth in front

         a my eyes

I don worry no more bout the no - talent criticizers an know - nothin

         philosophizers

I don worry no more bout the cross - legged corner sitters who try an

         make rules for the ones travelin in the middle a the room

I'm singin an writin what's on my own mind now

What's in my own head and what's in my own heart

I'm singin for me an a million other me's that've been forced t'gether

         by the same feelin

Not by no kind a side

Not by no kind a category

People hung up and strung out

People frustrated an corked in an bottled up

People on no special form or field -  age limit or class

I can't sing "Red Apple juice" no more

I gotta sing "masters a War"

I can't sing "Little Maggie" with a clear head

I gotta sing "Seven Curses" instead

I can't sing "John Henry"

I gotta sing "Hollis Brown"

I can't Sing "John Johannah" cause it's his story an his people's story

I gotta sing "With God On My Side" cause it's my story an my

         people's

I can't sing "The Girl I Left Behind" cause I know what it's like

         to do it

I gotta sing "Boots a Spanish Leather" cause I know what's like

         to live it

But don't get me wrong now

Don think I go way out a my way not t sing no folk songs

That ain't it at all

The folk songs showed me the way

They showed me that songs can say somethin human

Without "Barbara Allen" there'd be no "Girl From The North Country"

Without no "Lone Green Valley" there'd be no "Don't Think Twice"

Without no "Jesse James" there'd be no "Davy Moore"

Without no "Twenty one Years" there'd be no "Walls a Red Wing"

Hell no

Them ol songs're the only kinda picture left t show the new born how it used t be in them times

Them ol songs tell us what they had t run thru or walk thru or dance thru

The ol songs tell how they loved an how they kissed

They tell us what they rejected and objected to

They laid it down an made the path

They were simple an tol the story straight

They said who they fought an what they fought for an with what they fought with

An who they fought against

Now's a complicated day

An all I'm sayin' is'at I gotta make my own statement bout this day

I gotta write my own feelins down the same way they did it before me in that used t be day

An I got nothin but homage an holy thinkin for the ol songs and stories

But now there's me an you

An I'm doin what I'm doin for me

An I'm doin what I'm doin for you

I'm writin an singin for me

An I'm writin an singin for you

I'm writin an singin for me cause I'm human an I'm breathin

In a world that was made for me

I'm writin an singin for you cause yer a part a me an everythin I stand for

I don know why I aint written t yuh

maybe cause I never write letters t'myself

yeah maybe that's why

                See yuh when I get there

yer friend

TARANTULA

Part One

GUNS, THE FALCON'S MOUTHBOOK & GASHCAT UNPUNISHED

aretha/ crystal jukebox queen of hymn & him diffused in drunk transfusion wound would heed sweet soundwave crippled & cry salute to oh great particular el dorado reel & ye battered personal god but she cannot she the leader of whom when ye follow, she cannot she has no back she cannot . . . beneath black flowery railroad fans & fig leaf shades & dogs of all nite joes, grow like arches & cures the harmonica battalions of bitter cowards, bones & bygones while what steadier louder the moans & arms of funeral landlord with one passionate kiss rehearse from dusk & climbing into the bushes with some favorite enemy ripping the postage stamps & crazy mailmen &

waving all rank & familiar ambition than that itself, is needed to know that mother is not a lady . . . aretha with no goals, eternally single & one step soft of heaven/ let it beunderstood that she owns this melody along with her emotional diplomats & her earth & her musical secrets

the censor in a twelve wheel drive semi stopping in for donuts & pinching the waitress/ he likes his women raw & with syrup/ he has his mind set on becoming a famous soldier

manuscript nitemare of cut throat high & low & behold the

prophesying blind allegiance to law fox, monthly cupid & the intoxicating ghosts of dogma ... nay & may the boatmen in bathrobes be banished forever & anointed into the shelves of alive hell, the unimaginative sleep, repetition without change & fat sheriffs who watch for doom in the mattress . . . hallaluyah & bossman of the hobos cometh &  ordaining the spiritual gypsy davy camp now being infiltrated by foreign dictator, the pink FBI & the interrogating unknown failures of peacetime as holy & silver & blessed with the texture of kaleidoscope & the sandal girl . . . to dream of dancing pinhead virgins & wandering apollo at the pipe organ/ unscientific ramblers & the pretty things lucky & lifting their lips & handing down looks & regards from the shoulders of adam & eve's minstrel peekaboo ... passing on the chance to bludgeon the tough spirits & the deed holders into fishlike buffoons & yanking ye erratic purpose . . . surrendering to persuasion, the crime against people, that be ranked alongside murder & while doctors, teachers, bankers & sewer cleaners fight for their rights, they must now be horribly generous ... & into the march now where tab hunter leads with his thunderbird/ pearl bailey stomps him against a buick & where poverty, a perfection of neptune's unused clients plays hide & seek & escaping into the who goes there? & now's not the time to act silly, so wear your big boots & jump on the garbage clowns, the hourly rate & the enema men & where junior senators & goblins rip off tops of question marks & their wives make pies & go now & throw some pies in the face & ride the blinds & into aretha's religious thighs & movement find ye your nymph of no conscience & bombing out your young sensitive dignity just to see once & for all if there are holes & music in the universe & watch her tame the sea horse/ aretha, pegged by choir boys & other pearls of mamas as too gloomy a much of witchy & don't you know, no happy songs

the lawyer leading a pig on a leash stopping in for tea & eating the censor's donut by mistake/ he likes to lie about his age & takes his paranoia seriously, the hospitable grave being advertised & given away in whims & journals the housewife sits on. finding herself I financed, ruptured but never censored in & also never flushing herself/ she denies her corpse the courage to crawl - his own door, the ability to die of bank robbery & catches the heels of old stars making scary movies on her dirt & her face & not everybody can dig her now. she is private property ... bazookas in the nest & weapons of ice & of weatherproof flinch & they twitter, make scars & kill babies among lady shame good looks & her constant foe tom sawyer of the breakfast cereal causing all females paying no attention to this toilet massacre to be hereafter called LONZO &walk the streets of life forever with lazy people having nothing to do but fight over women . . . everybody knows by now that wars are caused by money & greed & charity organizations/ the housewife is not here. she is running for congress the senator dressed like an Austrian sheep. stopping in for coffee & insulting the lawyer/ he is on a prune diet & secretly wishes he was bing crosby but would settle for being a close relative of edgar bergen

passing the sugar to iron man of the bottles who arrives with the grin & a heatlamp & he's pushing "who dunnit" buttons this year & he is a love monger at first sight you have seen him sprout up from a dumb hill bully into a bunch of backslap & he's wise & he speaks to everyone as if they 'just answered the door/ he don't like people that say he comes from the monkeys but nevertheless he is dull & he is destroyingly boring . . .

while Allah the cook scrapes hunger from his floor & pounding it into the floating dishes with roaring & the rest of the meatheads praising each other's power & argue over acne & recite calendars & pointing to each other's garments & liquid & disperse into segments & die crazy deaths & bellowing farce mortal farm vomit & why for Jesus Christ be Just another meathead? when all the tontos & heyboy lose their legs trying to frug while kemosabe & mr palladin spend their off hours remaining separate but equal & anyway why not wait for laughter to straighten the works out meantime & WOWEE smash & the rage of it all when former lover cowboy hanging upside down & Suzy Q. the angel putting new dime into this adoption machine as out squirts a symbol squawking & freezing & crashing into the bowels of some hideous soap box & it's a rumble & iron man picking up his "who dunnit" buttons & giving them away free & trying to make friends & even tho you're belonging to no political party, you're now prepared, prepared to remember something about something

the chief of police holding a bazooka with his name engraved on it. coming in drunk & putting the barrel into the face of the lawyer's pig. once a wife beater, he became a professional boxer & received a club foot/ he would literally like to become an executioner. what he doesn't know is that the lawyer's pig has made friends with the

senator

gambler's passion & his slave, the sparrow & he's ranting is from a box of black platform & mesmerizing th' ball of daredevils to stay in the morning & don't bust from the factories/ everyone expecting to be born with whom they love & they're not & they've been let down, they've been lied to & now the organizers must bring the oxen in & dragging leaflets & gangrene enthusiasm, ratfinks & suicide tanks from the pay phones to the housing developments & it usually starts to rain for a while . . . little boys cannot go out & play & new men in bulldozers come in every hour delivering groceries & care packages being sent from las vegas ... & nephews of the coffee bean expert & other favorite sons graduating with a pompadour & cum laude praise be & a wailing farewell to releasing the hermit & beautifully ugly & fingering eternity come down & save your lambs & butchers & strike the roses with its rightful patsy odor ... & grampa scarecrow's got the tiny little wren & see for yourself while saving him too/ look down oh great Romantic. you who can predict from every position, you who know that everybody's not a Job or a Nero nor a J.C. Penney ... look down & seize your gambler's passion, make high wire experts into heroes, presidents into con men. turn the eventual... but the hermits being not talking & lower class or insane or in prison . . . & they don't work in the factories anyway the good Samaritan coming in with the words "round & round we go" tattooed on his cheek / he tells the senator to stop insulting the lawyer / he would like to be an entertainer & brags that he is one of the best strangers around, the pig jumps on him & starts eating his face illiterate coins of two head wrestling with window washer who's been reincarnated from a garden hoe & after once being pushed around happily & casually hitting a rock once in a while is now bitter hung up on finding some inferior. he bites into the window ledge & by singing "what'll we do with the babyo" to thirsty peasant girls wanting a drink from his pall, he is thinking he is some kind of success but he's getting his kicks telling one of the two headed coins that tom Jefferson used to use him around the house when the bad stuff was growing ... the lawrence welk people. 'de the window, they're running the city planning division & they hibernate & feeding their summers by conversing with poor people's shadows & other ambulance drivers, & they don't even notice this window washer while the families who tell of the boogey men & they're precious & there's pictures of them playing golf & getting blacker & they wear oil in the window washer's union hall & these people consider themselves gourmets for not attending charlie starkweather's funeral ye gads the champagne being appropriate pagan & the buffalo, tho the restaurant owners are vague about it, is fast disappearing into violence/ soon there will be but one side of the coin & mohammed wherever he comes from, cursing & window washers falling & then no one will have any money . . . broad save the clean, the minorities & liberace's countryside.

the truck driver coming in with a carpet sweeper under his eyes/ everybody says "hi joe" & he says "joe the fellow that owns this place. i'm just a scientist. I aint got no name" the truck driver hates anybody that carries a tennis racket/ he drinks all the senator's coffee & proceeds to put him in a headlock

first you snap your hair down & try to tie up the kicking voices on a table & then the sales department people with names like Gus & Peg & Judy the Wrench & Nadine with worms in her fruit & Bernice Bearface blowing her brains on Butch & they're all enthused over locker rooms & vegetables & Muggs he goes to sleep on your neck talking shop & divorces & headline causes & if you cant say get off my neck, you just answer him & wink & wait for some morbid reply & the liberty bell ringing when you don't dare ask yourself how do you feel for God's sake & what's one more face? & the difference between a lifetime of goons & holes, company pigs & beggars & cancer critics learning yoga with raving petty gangsters in one act plays with V - eight engines all being tossed in the river & combined in a stolen mirror . . . compared to the big day when you discover lord byron shooting craps in the morgue with his pants off & he's eating a picture of jean paul belmondo & he offers you a piece of green lightbulb & you realize that nobody's told you about This & that life is not so simple after all . . . in fact that it's no more than something to read & light cigarettes with . . . Lem the Clam tho, he really gives a damn if dale really does get nailed slamming down the scotch & then going outside with Maurice, who aint the Peoria Kid & don't look the same as they do in De Moines, Iowa & good old debbie, she comes along & both her & dale, they start shacking up in the newspapers & jesus who can blame 'em? & Amen & oh lordy, & how the parade don't need your money baby . . . it's the confetti & on george Washington & Nadine who comes running & say where's Gus? & she's salty about the bread he's been makin off her worms while dollars becoming pieces of paper ... but people kill for paper & anyway you cant buy a thrill with a dollar as long as pricetags, the end of the means & only as big as your fist & they dangle from a pot of golden rainbow ... which attacks & which covers the saddles of noseless poets & wonder blazing & somewhere over the rainbow & blinding my married lover into the ovation maniacs / cremating innocent child into scrapheap for vicious controversy & screwball & who's to tell charlie to stop & not come back for garbage men aren't serious & they gonna get murdered tomorrow & next march 7th by the same kids & their fathers & their uncles & all the rest of these people that would make leadbelly a pet ... they will always kill garbage men & wiping the smells but this rainbow, she goes off behind a pillar & sometimes a tornado destroys the drugstores & floods bring polio & leaving Gus & Peg twisted in the volleyball net & Butch hiding in madison square garden ... Bearface dead from a flying piece of grass! I.Q. - somewhere in the sixties & twentieth century & so sing aretha . . .sing mainstream into orbit! sing the cowbells home! sing misty . . . sing for the barber & when you're found guilty of not owning a cavalry & not helping the dancer with laryngitis . . misleading valentino's pirates to the indians or perhaps not lending a hand to the deaf pacifist in his sailor jail..... it then must be time for you to rest & learn new songs..... forgiving nothing for you have done nothing & make love to the noble scrubwoman

what a drag it gets to be. writing for this chosen few. writing for anyone cpt you. you, daisy mae, who are not even of the masses ... funny thing, tho, is that you're not even dead yet ... i will nail my words to this paper, an fly them on to you. an forget about them ... thank you for the time. you're kind love an kisses your double

Silly Eyes (in airplane trouble)

HAVING A WEIRD DRINK WITH THE LONG TALL STRANGER

back betty, black bready blam de lam! bloody had a baby blam de lam! hire the handicapped blam de lam! put him on the wheel blam de lam! burn him in the coffee blam de lam! cut him with a fish knife blam de lam! send him off to college & pet him with a drumstick blam de lam! boil him in the cookbook blam de lam! fix him up an elephant blam de lam! sell him to the doctors blam de lam ... back betty, big bready blam de lam! betty had a milkman, blam de lam! sent him to the chain gang blam de lam! fixed him up a navel, blam de lam (hold that tit while i git it. Hold it right there while I hit it blam!) fed him lotza girdles, raised him in pneumonia black bloody, itty bitty, blam de lam! said he had a lambchop, blam de lam! had him in a stocking, stuck artichokes in his ears, planted him in green beans & stuck him on a compass blam de lam! last time i seed him, blam de lam! he was standing in a window, blam de lam! hundred floors up, blam de lam! with his prayers & his pigfoot, blam de lam! black betty, black betty blam de lam! betty had a loser blam de lam, i spied him on the ocean with a long string of muslims - blam de lam! all going quack quack ... blam de lam! all going quack quack. blam!

sorry to say, but i'm going to have to return your ring. it's nothing personal, except that I cant do a thing with my finger & it's already beginning to smell like an eyeball! you know, like i like to look weird, but nevertheless, when i play my banjo on stage, i have to wear a glove. needless to say, it has started to affect my playing. please believe me. it has nothing whatsoever to do with my love for you ... in fact, sending the ring back should make my love for you grow all the more profound ... say hi to your doctor love, Toby

Celery

(POINTLESS LIKE A WITCH)

trip into the light here abraham ... what about this boy of yours? & don't tell me that you just do what you're told i might not be hip to your sign language but i come in peace i seek knowledge. in exchange for some information, i will give you my fats domino records, some his an hers towel & your own private press secretary . . .come on. fall down here. my mind is blank. i've no hostility. my eyes are two used car lots. i will offer you a cup of urn cleaner - we can learn from each other/ just don't try & touch my kid

got too drunk last nite. musta drunk too much. woke up this morning with my mind on freedom & my head feeling like the inside of a prune ... am planning to lecture today on police brutality. come if you can get away. see you when you arrive. write me when

you're coming

your friend, homer the slut

BALLAD IN PLAIN BE FLAT

the feet were stuck between the petticoat & tom dick & harry rode by & they all screamed . . . her lips was so small & she had trenchmouth & when i saw what i had done, i guard my face / the time is handled by some crazy cheerleader snob & sticking her tongue out, dropping a purple tostle cap, she mingles with a bus, caresses a bloody crucifix & is praying for her purse to be stolen up gunpowder alley!

her name, Delia, she envies the block of chain & kingdom where the khaki thermometer kid, obviously a front man & getting a commission growling "she'll drown you! split your eyes! put your mind where your mouth is! see it explode! just 65 & she don't mind dying!" is bending over for scraps of food, fighting an epileptic fit & trying to keep dry in a typical Cincinnati weather . . . Claudette, the sandman's pupil, wounded in her fifth year in the business & she's only 15 & go ahead ask her what she thinks of married men & governors & shriner conventions go ahead ask her & Delia, who's called Debra when she walks around in her nurse uniform, she casts off pure light in the cellar & has principles/ ask her for a paper favor & she gives you a geranium poem . . . chicago? the hogbutcher! meatpacker! whatever! who cares? it's also like Cleveland! like Cincinnati! i gave my love a cherry. sure you did. did she tell you how it tasted? what? you also gave her a chicken? fool! no wonder you want to start a revolution

look. i don't care what your daddy says. j. edgar hoover is just not that good a guy. like he must have information on every person inside the white house that if the public knew about, could destroy those people/ if any of the knowledge that he's got ever got out, are you kidding, the whole country would probably quit their jobs & revolt. he aint never gonna lose his job. he will resign with honor. you just wait & see ... cant you figure out all this commie business for yourself? you know, like how long can car thieves terrify the nation? gotta go. there's a fire engine chasing me. see you when i get my degree. i'm going crazy without you. cant see enough movies your crippled lover, benjamin turtle

ON BUSTING THE SOUND BARRIER

the neon dobro's F hole twang & climax from disappointing lyrics of upstreet outlaw mattress while pawing visiting trophies & prop up drifter with the bag on head in bed with next of kin to the naked shade - a tattletale heart & wolf of silver drizzle inevitable threatening a womb with the opening of rusty puddle, bottomless, a rude awakening & gone frozen with dreams of birthday fog/ in a boxspring of sadly without candle sitting & depending on a blemished guide, you do not feel so gross important/ success, her nostrils whimper. the elder fables & slain kings & inhale manners of furious proportion, exhale them against a glassy mud . . . to dread misery of watery bandwagons, grotesque & vomiting into the flowers of additional help to future treason & telling horrid stories of yesterday's influence/ may these voices join with agony & the bells & melt their thousand sonnets now . . . while the moth ball woman, white, so sweet, shrinks on her radiator, far away & watches in with her telescope/ you will sit sick with coldness & in an unenchanted closet . . . being relieved only by your dark jamaican friend - you will draw a mouth on the lightbulb so it can laugh more freely forget about where you're bound. you're bound for a three octave fantastic hexagram. you'll see it. don't worry. you are Not bound to pick wildwood flowers... like i said, you're bound for a three octave titanic tantagram

your little squirrel,

Pety, the Wheatstraw

THERMOMETER DROPPING

the original under taker, Jane, with bangs, & her hysterics I bodyguard, Coo, who comes from Jersey & always carries his lunch/ they screech around the corner & tie the old Buick into a lamppost/ along came three bachelors sprinkling the sidewalk with fish/ they spot the mess. first bachelor, Constantine, he winks at second bachelor, Luther, who immediately takes off his shoes & hangs them around his neck. George Custer IV, third bachelor, weary from trying to chew up a stork, takes out his harmonica & hands it to first bachelor, Constantine, who after twisting it into form of a fork, reaches into shoulder holster of the bodyguard, removes a sickle, & replaces it with this out of shape musical instrument . . . Luther begins to whistle "Comin thru the Rye" George IV gives out with a wee chuckle . . . all three continue down the avenue & dump the leftover fish into the unemployment office. all except of course for a few trout, which they give to the lady at the lost & found / accident is reported at 3 PM. it is ten below zero

do people tell you to your face you've changed? do you feel offended? are you seeking companionship? are you plump? 4 ft - 5? if you fit & are a full blooded alcoholic catholic, please call UH2 - 6969 ask for Oompa

PRELUDE TO THE FLATPICK

mama/ tho i make no attempt to disqualify the somber moody you. mama with the woeful shepherd on your shoulder. the twenty cent diamond on your finger. i play no more with my soul like a tinker toy/ i now have the eyes of a camel & sleep on a hook...to glorify your trials would be most easy but you are not the queen - the sound is queen/ you are the princess..... & i have been your honeyed ground. you have been my guest & i shall not smite you

"Are there any questions?" the instructor asks. a blond haired little boy in the first row raises his hands an asks"how far to medico? "are there any questions?" the poor optical muse known as uncle & carrying a chunk of wind & trees from the meadow & the kind of uncle that says "holy moly" in a mild whisper meeting the farmer who say "here. have some hunger for you." & lay some good fine work in his nauseous lap/ chamber of commerce tries to tell poor muse that Minnesota fats was from Kansas & not so fat, just notoriously heavy but they're putting up super - market across the meadow & that should take care of the farmer "does anybody wanna be anything out of the ordinary?" asks the instructor. the smartest kid in class, who comes to school drunk, raises his hand & says 'yes, sir. i'd like to be a dollar sir"

the dada weatherman comes out of the library after being beaten up by a bunch of hoods inside/ he opens up the mailbox, climbs in & goes to sleep/ the hoods come out/ tho they don't know it, they've been infiltrated by a bunch of religious fanatics..... the whole group looks around for some easy prey... & settle for some out of work movie usher, who is wearing a blanket & a pilot's cap/ it is one second to fourth of july & he does not fight back/ the dada weatherman gets mailed to Monaco. grace kelly has another kid & all the hoods turn into drunken business men who can tell me the name of the third president of the united states?" a girl with her back full of ink raises her hand & says "ernest tubb"

more blue pills father & gobble the little quaint pills/ these gushing swans, rituals & chickens in your sleep - they've been given the ok & the mad search warrant yes & you, the famous Viking, snatching the time bomb from Sophia's filter tip, down some jack daniels & get out there to meet James Cagney . . . a swinging armadillo for your friend, your faithful mob & mona lisa behind you . . . God ma, the swains are baking him & how i wish i could ease him & honor him with peace thru his veins. make him calm. almighty& slay the horrible hippopotamus of his nitemare. . .but i can take no martyr's name nor sleep myself in any gust of dungeon & am sick with cavity ... ludicrous, the dead angel, monopolizing my vocal cords, gather in her parent sheep onward & homeward into obituary. she's hostile. she's ancient . . . aretha - golden sweet/ whos nakedness is a piercing thing - she's like a vine/ your luck tongue shall not decay me

"is there anyone in class who can tell me the exact hour his or her father isn't home?" asks the instructor. everybody suddenly drops their pencils & runs out the door – all except of course the boy in the last row wearing glasses & who's carrying an apple

juicy roses to coughing hands assembling & pluck national anthems! all hail! the football field ablaze with doves & alleyways where hitchhikers wandering & setting fire to their pockets resounding with the nuns & tramps & discarding the weedy Syrian, surfs of half reason, the jack & jills & wax Michael from the church acre, who cry in their prime & gag of their twins . . . empty ships on the desert & traffic cops on the broomstick & weeping & hanging onto a goofy sledgehammer & all the trombones coming apart, the xylophones cracking & flute players losing their intimates ... as the whole band groaning throwing away measures & heartbeats while it pays to know who your friends are but it also pays to know you aint got any friends ... like it pays to know what your friends aint got - it's friendlier to got what you pay for

down with you sam. down with your answers too. Hitler did not change history. Hitler WAS history/ sure you can teach people to be beautiful but don't you know that there's a greater force that teaches them to be gullible - yeah it's called the problem force/ they assign everybody problems/ Your problem is that you wanna better word for world . . you cannot kill what lives an expect nobody to take notice. history is alive/ it breathes/ now cut out that jive/ go count your fish. gotta go. Someone's coming to tame my shrew.. hope they removed your lung successfully say hi to your sister love,

Wimp your

friendly Pirate

MARIA ON A FLOATING BARGE

in a sunburned land winter sleeps with a snowy head at the west of the bed/Madonna. Mary of the Temple. Jane Russell. Angelina the Whore. all these women, their tears could make oceans/ in a deserted refrigerator carton, little boys on ash Wednesday make ready for war & for genius..... whereas the weary archaic gypsy - yawning – warbles a belch & tracking the cats & withstanding a ratsized cockroach she hardly appears & looks down upon her sensual arena

dear fang, how goes it old buddy? long time. no see. guess what? was gonna vote for goldwater cause you know, he was the underdog but then i found out about this Jenkins thing, & i figger it aint much, but it's the only thing he does have going for him so i'm changing my vote to johnson. did you get the clothes i sent you? the shirt used to belong to sammy snead so better take good care of it

see you Mouse

PART TWO

SAND IN THE MOUTH OF THE MOVIE STAR

a strange man we're calling Simply That wakes up to find "what" scribbled in his

garden. he washes himself with scrambled egg, puts his glasses in his pants & pulls up his trousers. there's a census taker knocking on his door & his orders for the day are nailed up on his mailbox reading that the route on junky monday is therefore as follows: two pints of soft liberty. a book of zulu sayings. citizen kane translated into dirty french. an orange t.v. studio. three bibles each autographed by the hillbilly singer who can sing salty dog the fastest. the back page of a 1941 daily worker. a salty dog. any daughter of any district judge. a tablespoon of coke & sugar heated to 300 degrees. jack london's left ear. seven pieces of deadly passport. a corn on the cob. five wooden pillows. one boy scout resembling charlie chan & a stolen titerope walker / "what" is in my garden, he says over the phone to his friend, wally the fireman / wally replies "i dont know. i really couldn't say. i'm not there" the man says "what do you mean, you dont know! what is written in my garden" wally says "what?" the man says "that's right" . . . wally replies that he is on his way down a pole & asks the man if he sees any relationship between doris day & Tarzan? the man says "no, but i have some james baldwin & hemingway books" "not good enough" says wally, who again asks "what about a shrimp & an american flag? do you see any relationship between those two things?" the man says, "no, but I see bergman movies & i like Stravinsky quite a lot" wally tries again & says "could you tell me in a million words what the bill of rights has to do with a feather? " the man thinks for a minute & says "no i cant do that but i'm a great fan of henry miller" wally slams the phone & the man, Simply That, he gets back into bed & begins reading "The Meaning of an Orange" in german ... but by nitefall, he is bored. puts the book down & goes to shave while looking into a picture of thomas edison/ he decided over a bowl of milk to go out & have a good time & he opens the door & who's standing there but the census taker "i'm just a friend of the person who lives here" he says & goes back in the house & out the back door & down the street & into a bar with a moose head . . . the bartender gives him a double brandy, punches him in the groin & pushes him into a phone booth - obviously the man's crime is that he sees nothing resembling anything - he wipes the blood away from his groin with a hankle & decides to wait for a call / "what" is still written in his garden. the clinics are integrated. the sun is still yellow. some people would say it's chicken ... wally's going down a pole, the census taker arrives to make a phone call & phone booths dont have back doors/ junky monday driving, going down a one way street & turning into a friday the 13th ... Ah Wilderness! darkness! & Simply That we went five hours without a drink of water. figger i'm ready for the desert. wanna come? I'll take along my dog. he's always good for a laugh.

pick yuh up at seven

faithfully, pig

ROPING OFF THE MADMAN'S CORNER

green maggie of profanity slapstick & her cast of seven coats I shining & fighting the milkmaids & high whining barn door slam - heavens! & righteous 38 - 20 slightly built on the ball & chain & leashing the lawyer s pigeon while the rock n roll lead guitar player does his mother's violets & his thing in the middle of the bailiff's workbench & green maggie pushing you into hotrod driver's eyes & he's lisping & he has no money to pay for his language & maggie’s not green & not funny & life gets unbearable but the orator is not the reporter & hanging around at the press room & shelling out to the day crew & merchants of venice & why be bothered with other people's set ups? it only leads to torture/ why it's incredible! the world is mad with justice

dear mayor wagner. has anybody ever told you, you look like james arness? i am writing to say that you are my son's idol. could you please send your schedule & repertoire to him, with an autographed picture, at your earliest convenience. he would appreciate it kindly as that's all he does is play your records & defend you to his friends. i do hope it's you that's reading this & not some secretary thank you wishfully

Willy

Purple

SAYING HELLO TO UNPUBLISHED MARIA

you taste like candy TUS HUESOS VIBRAN yowee i'm here because i'm starving & swallowing your tricks into my stomach ERES COMO MAGIA like the greasy hotel owner & it's not your father i'm hungry for! but i will bring a box for him to play with. i am not a cannibal! dig your self! i am not a sky diver/ i carry no sticks of dynamite . . you say NO SERE TU NOVIA & i am not a pilgrim neither TU CAMPESINA & you dont see ME crying over that i cant be sad & wonderful & yippee TU FORMA EX TRANA your horseness amazes me/ i will stand - oh honor able - on the window of your countess even tho i am not window shade & bang SOLO SOY UN GUITARRIS all i do is drink & eat. all i have is yours

i'm telling you, the next time you threaten to commit suicide in front of me, i'm just gonna haul off an blow your brains out y' hear! y' read me? i'm so sick of having you bring me down that i'd just as soon tie you up & ship you off to red china. another thing! you better take good care of my mother. if i. hear that you're taking out your misery on her, i'm coming to see what i can do about things once & for all... why dont you learn to dance instead of looking for new friends? dont you know that all the friends have been taken

yours, Hector Schmector

FORTY LINKS OF CHAIN (A POEM)

fox eyes from abilene - garbage poet from the greyhound circuit & who has a feeling for the most lost pieces of frost & boast of glass jaw & grampa playing tiddlywinks & finks in the sinks & the barf & gook in the book of his cook, the ma & he's back in town screwing around with his hairlip down... he needs a dime & writing rhyme You dont have to guess ... you know the rest/ watch his nose! you can see where he goes by offering to pay his dues - fox eyes, he's got lotza blues - Tiny the chick with the wet newspaper, she used to bring french fries to the mechanics & whose right arm once went deaf & dumb (it can happen to some) she sees fox eyes come climbing out of the stop sign & he's got a hangover on top of it & she say "oh great grooby fox eyes. lead me to the garbage" & he take her by the lily white cottonpickin hand & she say "yeah man i be a yellow monkey oowee! "& he say "'us you folly me baby snooks! just you folly me & you feel fine! & she say "giddy up & hi ho silver &i feel irish! & both go off & get a bus schedule & she saying all the time "steady big fella! steady!" while on the other side of the street this mailman who looks like shirley temple & who's carrying a lollypop stops & looks at a cloud & just then the sky, he gets kinda pissed & decides to throw his weight around a little & bloop a tulip falls dead - the mailman starts talking to a parking meter & fox eyes, he say "it sure wasn't like this in abilene" & it's a hurricane & a bus reading baltimore leaves them in a total mess - she falls on her knees & she say "i'm filthy" & fox eyes he say "go back to florida baby there aint nothing here a city grill like you can do" & the chick she does a handstand & she say "i'm canadian! & he say "get outa here & go to florida! "& she starts reciting fox eyes poems about salvation & the loony bin, strikes in the coloring book factory & Christmas when they wrapped him in a shirt & he say "WHOA! GET OUTA HERE! I STEAL YO MONEY OWEE JESUS GRILL I YOU SOME SLUMP!" & she moans & groans & she say "oh i really do love life & love love & love living & he say "grooby! wail! wail! & she say "dont you understand" & she starts making this terrible scene right there in the middle of the street ...Tiny - i met Tiny later at an outrageous party - she was sitting under a clock & i say you need an umbrella, friend" & she say "oh no! no another one! "she's got a new boyfriend now & he looks like machine gun kelly ...fox eyes - he lost all his money in a furnace - when last heard from was riding fast freight out of salinas in a pile of lettuce, still trying to collect unemployment ... me? i made a special trip downtown to get some graveyard figures - but it wasn't raining & there were no buses going to baltimore/ just a broken jawed parking meter, a water logged pen & a bunch of old shirley temple pictures with her neck in a noose was all that i could find. look. I dont care if you are a merchant marine. the next time you start telling me i dont walk right, "I in gonna get some surfer to slap your face. i think you're being very paranoid about the whole thing ... see you at the wedding stompingly yours Lazy Henry

MOUTHFUL OF LOVING CHOKE

crow jane from the wedding into the beast nest where wild man peter the greek & ambassador frenchy do primitive worship with hustling john from coney striking a pose & dancing the pink velvet - all dramatics & curiously belonging to the armenian hunchback resembling arthur murray who's very turned off & gets syphilis & crow jane, she gets the chilly blues watching but she speaks like a champion & she dont kid around "what you gonna do? i mean besides now is time for the good men promenade a party?" some plaintive woos in the twilight & throats ripping & laughing & fool's terror snapping like a tail & taking it in the ribs & bop music where south walls quivering & colliding bosoms & weigh the likes of maid marian's bandits & i repeat: two face minny, the army derelict/ christine, who's hung up on your forehead / steve canyon Jones who looks like mae west in a closet / screwy herman x, who looks like a closet / jake the brown, who look like a forehead . . . dino, the limping bartender, who steps in between Man Mountain Sinatra who looks like the boy next door & Gorging George, who has no last name ... all these & their agents & "how come you so smart crow jane?" & she say back "how come you wanna talk so colored? & dont call me no crow jane!" & superfreak pushing & shoving amazing totally amazing - "& i think i'm gonna do april or so is a cruel month & how you like your blue eyed boy NOW mr octopus?" when the four star colonels come in & every body says yankee doodle & plastered & some western union boy rides thru on a unicycle yelling "God save the secrets!' but is just coming on - he's mad & he's a horseshoe wizard- nobody cares tho & he's looking for the action & nobody cares about that either & he yells "help! " & two face minny screaming, swinging from a chandelier & goes to bless him you cant make nobody understand you too smart to think you know anything! not even john henry did that" crow jane jingle girl & she's a phantom & mouth like an oven she dances on a cake of islam & "dont tell someone what you know they already know. that makes them think that you just like them & you aint! " . . . but then you take gwendeline, the different story & rides with lawrence o arabia & plays with her mercury - mumbling crummy world & "oh, the sadness! " . . . she gets some horny foreigners' attention but mainly all the cool people continue drawin noses on robert frost books "why be crazy on purpose? say two face minny who's now on top the western union boy & steve canyon jones going off in the corner & crying "we aint never gonna get no messages that way! " . . . crow jane, she got this talent for robbing hardware stores always being someplace at the wrong time but saying the right things "dont do your ideas - everybody's got those let the ideas do you & talk with melody & money tempt ideas & it cant get close to melody & take all the money you can get but dont hurt nobody" crow jane, she got class " above all else, be all else!" film - homely & absurd with rhythm & it gets to you after a while . . . a glass sidewalk meeting the cracker boy's soul & trees like fire hydrants standing in the path of the wooden horse & help mama! help those that cannot understand not to understand ... the cracker boy wears spiked shoes but his hands are bare/ peter & frenchy still dancing the cocktail tango - the hunchback being carried out . . . honeymoon locked into footsteps of the riderless stallion/ rome falling with driving wishy washy half note – crawl with the blues feeling. . . & the going daylight. crow jane say come, hang out her limelight ... there are green bullets in my throat/ i walk sloppily on the sun feeling them turn into yellow keys - i touch jane on the inside & i swallow

dear tom have i ever told you that i think your name ought to be bill. it doesn't really matter of course, but you know, i like to be comfortable around people. how is margy? or martha? or whatever the hell her name is? listen: when you arrive & you hear somebody yelling "willy" it'll be me that's who... so c'mon. there will be a car & a party waiting. it'll be very easy to single me out, so dont say you didn't know i was there gratefully truman peyote

The Horse Race "always trying, always gaining" - lyndon johnson

yes & so anyway on the seventh day, He created pogo, batmasterson, & a rose colored diving board for His cronies the sky already strung up shivered like the top of a tent what's all this commotion" he said to his main man, Gonzalas, who without batting an eyelash picked up a rake began flogging a cloud..... seeing that Gonzalas had the wrong idea, He told him to lay down the rake & go build an ark/ when Gonzalas reaches twenty - five he starts wondering when his parents will kick off. it's nothing personal, it's just that he needs some money & is beginning to resent the fact that he hasn't been laid yet/ "why did you not create an eighth day?" ask Gonzalas' chauffeur to his Sausage Maker on the steps of the boom boom parlor/ while handing in his perfume/ the sky, changing into a sexy spaghetti odor, continues to tremble - Gonzalas, meanwhile, sports a cane & tries to hide his korean accent/ edgar allan poe steps out from behind a burning bush . . . He sees edgar. He looks down & says 'it's not your time yet" & strikes him dead . . . Gonzalas enters/ places fifth in the second

how come you're so afraid of things that dont make any sense to you? do people pass you up on the street all the time? do cars pass you up on the highway? how come you're so afraid of things that dont make any sense to you? do you water your raisins daily? do you have any raisins? is there anything that does make sense to you? are you afraid of twelve button suits? how come you're so afraid to stop talking?

your valve cleaner

Tubba

POCKETFUL OF SCOUNDREL

in a hilarious grave of fruit hides the wee gunfighter warm bottle of roominghouse juice in the rim of his sheep skin/ lord thomas of the nightingales, bird of youth, rasputin the clod, galileo the regular guy & max, the novice chess player/ the battles inside their souls & gloves being a dead as their legends but only more work for the living jesters - victims of assassination & dying comes easy . . on the other side of the tombstone, the amateur villain sleeps with his tongue out & his head inside the pillow case nothing makes him seem different/ he goes unnoticed any way.

dear Sabu it's my chick! she tells me that she takes long walks in the woods. the funny thing about it is that i followed her one nite, & she's telling me the truth. i try to get her interested in things like guns an football, but all she does is close her eyes & say "i don’t believe this is happening" last nite she tried to hang herself ... i immediately thought of having her committed, but goddamn she's my chick, & everybody'd just look at me funny for living with a crazy woman. perhaps if i bought her her own car, it would help/ can you fix it?

thanx for listening All Petered Out

MR. USELESS SAYS GOOD - BYE TO LABOR & CUTS A RECORD

Phombus Pucker. with his big fat grin. his hole in the head. his matter of fact knowledge of zen firecrackers. his little white lies. his visions of sugar plums. his dishwater hands/ Phombus Tucker. with his bulldog wit. his theories on atomic nipples. his beard & his backache / Bombus Thucker. with his soft boiled stovepipe. his aloneness & aloofness. hatred for crap/ Longus Bucker. with his numbers & decimals. with his own special originality . . . spent hours & hours carving his name in the sand. when all of a sudden, a wave's commotion washed him & his name right into the ocean (ho ho ho)

look, you know i dont wanna come on ungrateful, but that warren report, you know as well as me, just didn't make it. you know. like they might as well have asked some banana salesman from des moines, who was up in toronto on the big day, if he saw anyone around looking suspicious/ or better yet, they just coulda come & asked me what i saw/ the doctors say i gotta tumor coming up tho, so i got more important things to do than to be bothered with straightening out this whole mess ... while you're down there, see if you can get me murph the surf's autograph

bye for now your lightingman

Sledge

ADVICE TO TIGERS BROTHER

you are in the rainstorm now where your cousins seek raw glory near the bridge & the lumberjacks tell you of exploring the red sea you fill your hat with rum & heave it into the face of hailstone & not expect anything new to be born dogs wag their tails good - bye to you & robin hood watches you from a stained glass window the opera singers will sing of YOUR forest & YOUR cities & you shall stand alone but not make ceremony..... and a wrinkled prospector will appear & he will NOT say to you "dont be possessive! don’t wish to be remembered! "he will just be looking for his geiger counter & his name wont be Moses & dont count yourself lucky for not interfering is petty... do not count yourself lucky

hi. just a note to say that ever since the robbery, things've kinda quiet down. altho theo's kidnappers haven't returned him yet, dad got promoted to den mother, so things are not all going downhill/ mom joined the future fathers of alaska. really likes it/ you oughta see little dumbbell. he's nearly two now. talks like a fish & is already starting to look like a cigar/ see you on your birthday big brother Dunk p.s. adolph got you a trick piece of puke which you put on the table & just watch the girls throw up

ON WATCHING THE RIOT FROM A FILTHY CELL OR (THE JAILHOUSE HAS NO KITCHEN)

standing on a bullet holed Volkswagen, a bearded leprechaun & he's wearing a topless mafia cape - holding up some burning green stamps & he speaks out to the automobile graveyard "four score & seven beers ago" & then he say "etcetera" but his voice is drowned out by mickey mantle hitting a grand slam ... the mayor of the city, with alka seltzer, climbs down from a limousine & asks "who the hell is that leppo?" when a thousand angry tourists trample over him all donning baseball gloves & here comes the squad / "just who the hell are you?" speaks a garbage disposal "i'm cole younger. gave my horse to the pony express. other 'n that, i'm just like you" a rousing cheer & the ball crashes thru the fire box "i work for the city. before i swat you, you'd best tell me your occupation" "i'm an actor. tomorrow & tomorrow & tomorrow lights this petty grace from blow to blow like a poor stagehand pounding fury signifying nothing. oh romeo, romeo, wherefor fart thou? pretty good huh?" "i work for the city, i'll trample you with my horse" "wanna hear some oedipus?" but beneath the underground, Blind Andy Lemon & his friend, Lip, sing rabbit foot blues in spurs & light pullover design by Chung of paris – there standing in a fish bowl & every body's throwing marbles at them . . . outside, however after the tear gas disappears, we find that the leprechaun's got his hand in a bandage & his beard's gone & the mayor, we find out, is home making urgent phone calls to cardinal spellman/ it has been a long time nite & everybody has had lots of contact ... I am ready for the cradle. the desert is full of cattle sorry for not writing sooner. had to have some teeth pulled. finally read the great glaspy. helluva book just a helluva one. that cat sure tells it like it is. not much happening around here. Chucky tried to get the donkey to jump a fence. you can guess what happened there. sis got married to a real dog. i punched him out right away. that's all for now see yuh on thanxgiving Corky

HOPELESS & MARIA NOWHERE

raggity ann daughter of brazos & teeth in the necklace ornery in the flesh & the border with the big laugh of bullfight ghost & LIBERACION & she, with the leather mother thief & peeking DOS PASOS MAS ee & crazy ALLA LUEGO UN RAYO & insane DE SOL & taking the brothers to bed & to boredom - heat in every corner like the silent parrot by SALA UN DIA & mad like a hatter & the pig barker - maria ESTAS DESNUDA she digs holes on my eyes the size of the moon while her father, he keeps the hill warm - & uncritical from deacons & the youngster missionaries - maria sleep lightly PERO TE QUITARAS cursing blond dynamite & TUS ROPAS ... there is a hatchet in maria's makeup & the spike driver moans, they sound on her sink like the fornicating rattlesnake - friendly on her nature & MARIA PORQUE LLORAS? & i give you my twelve midnights & kick you with leapyear & protect you from the crooked words & loyalty to the power works & these little frogs with notebooks . . . maria PORQUE TU RIES? freedom! she's the yardbird, the constant & the old lady is made of marias & dogs yelping & RECUERDOS oh how the furious yesterday, pyria SON HECHOS laying bang DE ARCAICOS with simple simon NADAS is still right now the poison nothing & maria, me & you, we make up three TE QUIERO do not churchize my nakedness - i am naked for you..... maria, she says i'm a foreigner. she picks me. she pours salt on my love ok. so i shoot dope once in a while. big deal. what's it got to do with you? i'm telling you mervin, if you dont lay off me, i'm gonna rip you off some more where that scar is, y'hear? like i'm getting mad. next time you call me that name in a public cafeteria, i'm just gonna haul off & kick you so you'll feel it. like i aint even gonna get angry. i'm just gonna let one fly. fix you good

better watch it The Law

PART THREE

A CONFEDERATE POKE INTO KING ARTHUR'S OAKIE

". . . later i left the Casino with one hundred & seventy gulden in my pocket. it's the

absolute truth!" - fyodor dostoevsky

son of the vampire with his arm around betsy ross - he & his society friends: Rain Man. Burt the Medicine. President Plump. the Flower Lady & Baboon Boy . . . they all said "happy new year, elmer & how's your wife, cecile?" & that got them into the party free . .once into the party, Burt just stood around with a toothpick in the back of his neck watching for the doctor & tho the card game was something else in itself, Flower Lady lost her shirt & went to the bushes - who should come by but the little old wine maker trying to be helpful - "get out of the picture" said Flower Lady "you werent at the party! " the little old wine maker immediately took off his head & his belt & who do you think it turned out to be but fabian - "i dont care how many tricks you can do, just get outa here!" -  - just then, this cable car on its way to Washington came rumbling down the hill carrying crossword puzzles for everybody - Rain Man yelled "watch out Flower Lady there's an elephant coming!" but by this time she was singing auld lang syne with Baboon Boy, who'd snuck up, stuck a lead weight life jacket around fabian & threw him in the swimming pool - the Plump himself tried to give a warning but he was so drunk that he fell in a barrel & a tractor being driven by some dogs ran him over & dumped him into garage . . . the world didn't stop for a second - it just blew up/ alfred hitchcock made the whole thing into a mystery & huntley & brinkley never slept for a week ... the americans flag turned green & andy clyde kept pestering about a back paycheck – every gymnasium in the world was picketed . . . son of the vampire, who got a divorce from betsy ross & now is with little red riding hood made it into january first carrying some empty stomachs - he & red, they got a job hiding door knobs & got paid good wages & like all people who decide not to go to any more parties, they put their money where their mouth is . . . & begin to eat it translate this fact for me, dr. blorgus: the fact is this: we must be willing to die for freedom (end of fact) now what I wanna know about the fact is this: could Hitler have said it? de gaulle? pinocchio? lincoln? agnes Moorehead? goldwater? bluebeard? the pirate? robert e. lee? eisenhower? groucho smith? teddy kennedy? general franco? custer? is it possible that jose melis could have said it? perhaps donald o'connor? i happen to be a library janitor, so could you please clarify things a little for me. thank you . . . by the way, if you do not have a reply to me by this coming tuesday, i will take it for granted that all these forementioned people are all really the same person . . . see you later. have to take down a picture of lady godiva as the mental students are touring here in an hour . . . considerately yours, Popeye Squirm

GUITARS KISSING & THE CONTEMPORARY FIX

along black winds & white fridays, they wash out water and shriek of Jungle & lenny immune to the mathematics, he the greasy quack - the vagabond god . . . he plants flowers in their saddle bags & speaks

of Jesus brave & graduating - tragedy, the broken pride, shallow & no deeper than comedy bites his path, his noise, his shadow . . . resign from mine the heart of light & approve the doom, the bending & the farce of happy ending . . . those that would gas the memory & shut out the might of right, the sight of those defending & offending the blossom girls of the dark, pregnant permanent & pale outlaw . . . fair gloria the bowlegged singer, the sign painter's bastard - joanne, raped by the town historian & silver dolly, devirginated at 12, by her father, miner - maybelle with a chopped up arm from an uncle double jointed barbara, who grinds a compact into the face of a druggist & maureen, the jealous lover none of them raking leaves - ratting on friends who are telephone operators or paying for the like of an e.e. cummings . . . none of them falling for the "purr lost soul" talk of the hillbilly brawny gospel singer & lenny as the pilgrim angel - the crime but that he reigns in highway christ clothes, boots & a swagger . . the lone shark wolf in a world where piemen castrate the dogs & cities for Du Pont, cat magazines & hiding in machines they chew gum, their seeds, their portraits . . . lenny leaves the woodchuck, the veteran of foreign war to his plymouth 6, his murder page - the Arms Bros chair & to his kidnapper & the radio siren/ the communists would call him lazy & the veteran calls him a bum & yo ho ho & a bottle of rum but he's nice to priests & dont tangle with the mayor's daughter 'n law . . . he wears silk & bows to yoyos, barbells & the strangers - he steals bow ties & heading for the north & waves to soldiers with amputated hands who picked up broken ashtray pieces & staying clear of muffled & exploding roosters, he pets ornaments & twin pipes/ there is a rhapsody to his toughness & he sure is warm & worthlessly wild

the deer thru the woods quite out of it all shall never be the slave but the target for military & freedom's legs having no substitute for death when sunday professor & the children come out, say "watch it, you bound to stumble now! " & the lady in waiting just collapsing & asked if that's a threat or perhaps a friendly warming & the innocent coon being scraped on the table - liberty, an orphan sonnet, unwritten & having no eyes & needs, no defense & getting some glass in the veins - the conspiracy to kill the free & romantic to custom operating regularly on schedule & attacking now the once that run with no sidecar..... go ahead, shoot! all you need is a license & a weak heart thru the braided hair & loafing beer can beach of wood brains of the roadhouse & panel trucks filled with cucumber funk, jim beam sweating & lords & ladies in the rear view mirror - humanity in the gang bang mood & yodeling swimmers - the kinks from strike

town & itty bitty pretty o lapping up the crankcase rotgut & lenny laughing in a fake sombrero & the jugglers trying to smother the queers & the girls from big city & panoramic way, you found lenny the dog catcher killer & motorcycle saint - you either love him or hate him - attracting the filthy mamas, Tom the Wretched, Mike the Bull & Hazel, the pornographic back slapper . . . lenny can take the bad out of you & leave yo all good & he can take the good out of you & leave you all bad/ if you think you're smart & know things, lenny plays with your head & he contradicts everything you've been taught about people/ he is not in the history books & he either makes you glad to be you or he makes you hate to be you . . . you know he's some kind of robber yet you trust him & you cannot ignore him

the lion's den then, & anchors away & you remember the table - the hopped up table of worldly wiggies & unpatriotics & the slut madonna with her squatter's rights & everybody sexy & picking on the car thieves & some bumbling sacred cow telling how he marched right in & trimmed this chicken just like that but when peter pan of the throttle bums gets up to go someplace, it's growling & wondering & sentimental because you know he never does while gloria talks of the fish in her finger with her hair dyed pink & speaking of tomorrow, calling it sunday & the engine slams & really slams into first gear - & it sounds like john lee hooker coming & oh Lordy louder like a train . . . the punchdrunk sailor with a scar below his nose suddenly slaps & kicks little sally & makes her let go of the bottoms of his dungarees & you Know he knows something's happening & it aint the ordinary kind of sound that you can see so clearly & carrrrrashhhhh & a technicolor passion of berserk & napoleonic & suicide & lenny vanishes in the daytime & a bridge girder all lonesome & gone & the trumpets play what they've always been taught to play in time of emergency - Babylon's sweetheart & the redblooded boy oozing all over & shock, the defunct rockabilly in a blindfold - dissolve into the motherland for touch & kneeling to instinct, gypsies & into the most northernmost forest he can find

. . . a roaring free for all is witnessed later between as follows: rabbit seller, who, because he lives in a room where the rain continues to fall thru the chimney, always has a chronic cough & is constantly in an al capone type mood - call him White Man/ the ex faggot g.i., who now transports dummies from macy's to yankee stadium & whose ears always bleed in heavy weather - call him Black Man the hatcheck girl with a glass eye, whose father taught him how to walk exactly like P.T. Barnum & now she discovers it means nothing - call her Audience/ the candle stick maker, with a mouthful of plastic & his pockets full of useless matches - call him Reward/ the bathing beauty who wears a turban full of meatballs - call her Success/ the tug of war rope & a holy bell - boom & the pumphouse guardian stepping out of his coocoo & saying "words are objects! sigh is ego! did any of you freaks ever know a lenny? i can remember his last name . . ." & then some vigilante, he say "get back in your clock! you ever heard of lions one Christians nothing?" & after sending Hitler out to murder the poor guardian, he jumps back into the Christians clocks & all types of mink, milk & vitamin C - grannies in titepants & barechested undertakers goosing preacher wearing egg cartons & U.N. generals in bathrobes & their feet stuck in bongo drums & three million jealous teacher in used roy acuff strings all flunking little de gaulles prison choruses bursting & singing hallaluyah . every body even Good St. Doc & the bird scientist suckin scruples & nipples & trying to hide their shit ... everybody saying "disaster!" & pointing & examining hanging clowns making reports & going "gah gah" at dead pontiacs & babie in Lorca graves . . the tax collector stealing everybody' useless sacrifice & H.G. Wells unheeded..... Lulu the Smith having a heart attack at the birth of a black angel & john brown, Luke the snob & Achilles all reaching for the Flying Saucer . . . one day, the day of the Tambourines, the astronaut, Micky McMicky, will remove a thumb from his mouth - say "go to hell" while lenny i'm sure is already in a resentful heaven

dear dropout magazine, gentlemen: i understand that you are currently putting a book together about blacklisted or blackheaded artists or something. if it is the former, then I shall have to recommend that you place Jerry lee lewis first an foremost. if it is the latter, then i shall have to recommend that you contact the american medical society to discover the exact worth of such an undertaking in all respects, i remain a rabble rouser from the mountains

Zeke the Cork

ADVICE TO HOBO'S MODEL

paint your shoes delilah - ye walk on white snow where nosebleed would disturb the universe. down these narrow alleys of owls an flamenco guitar players, jack paar an other sex symbols are your prizes - check into the bathrooms where bird lives for when he comes flying out with a saber in his wing - a country music singer by his side

digesting a carrier pigeon . . . ye just might change your style of fornicating, sword swallowing - ye just might change your way of sleeping on nails - paint your shoes the color of the ghost mule - the paper tiger's teeth are made of aluminum - you've a long time to Babylon - paint your shoes, delilah - paint them with a sponge

look! like i told you before, it doesn't matter where it's at! there's no such thing. it's where it's not at that you gotta know. so what if tony married his mother! what's it got to do with your life? i really have no idea why you're so unhappy. perhaps you ought to change your line of work. you know. like how long can someone of your caliber continue to paint pencil sharpeners..... see you next summer, good to know you're off the wagon.

prematurely yours, Funka

A BLAST OF LOSER TAKE NOTHING

jack of spades - vivaldi of the coin laundry - wearing a hipster's dictionary - we see him brownnosing around the blackbelts & horny racing car drivers - dashing to & fro like a frightened uncle remus . . . on days that he gets no mail, he rises early, sticks paper up the pay phones & cons the bubble gum machines . . . "the world owes me a living" he says to his half - hawaiian cousin, the half - wit, joe the head who is also planning to marry a folksinger next month - "round & round, old joe clark" is being recited from the steps of the water & light building as jack ambles by with a case full of plastic bubbles – things look well for him: he can imitate cary grant pretty good. he knows all the facts why mabel from utah walked out on horace, the lightingman from theater Altitude. he has even stumble onto a few hairy secrets of mrs. Cunk, who sells fake blisters at the world's fair - plus being able to play a few foreign legion songs on the yoyo & always managing to look like a grapefruit in case of emergency . . . he brags about his collection of bruises & corks & the fact that he pays no attention to the business world. he would rather show his fear of the bomb & say what have you done for freedom than to praise an escaped mental patient who pissed on the floor of junior's delicatessen - jack of spades, with his axe, the record player. with his companion, the menu & his destination, a piece of kleenex - never touches the cracks on the sidewalk - "jack" says his other cousin, Bodyguard, half danish & half surfer, "how come you always act like Crazy, jackie gleason's friend? i mean wow! aint there enough sadness in the world?" jack walks by in a flash - he wears ear plugs - from the steps of the water & light building, the band, after knocking all the juice out of their horns, begin to play oh my papa . . . jack, shocked, takes a second look, raises his hand in a nazi salute. a woodsman, walking by with an axe, drops it. a D.A.R. woman flies off the handle. looks at jack. says "in some places, you'd be arrested for obscenity" she doesn't even hear the band . . . she falls down a sidewalk crack/ the band leader, paying no attention, does a slight curtsy, sneezes. points his wand at the classical guitar . . . a street cleaner bumps into jack & says & i quote "o.k. so i bumped into you. i dont even care. i got me a little woman at home. i know a good radiator down the block. man, i aint never gonna starve. would you like to buy a pail?" jack, amazed, rearranges his collar & heads off to the bell telephone hour. which is located beyond the next cop car . . . he passes a hot dog stand. a sauerkraut hits him in the face ... the band is playing malaguena salerosa - the D.A.R. woman pops out of the sidewalk, hears the band, screams, starts doing the jerk. the street cleaner steps on her . . . jack hasnt eaten all day. his mouth tastes funny - he has his unpublished novel in his hand - he wants to be a star - but he gets arrested anyway

hi y'all. not much new happening. sang at the vegetarian convention my new song against meat. everybody dug it except for the plumbers neath the stage. this one little girl, fresh out of college & i believe president of the Dont Stamp Out the Cows division of the society. she tried to push me into one of the plumbers. starts a little chaos going, but you know me, i didn't go for that not one little bit. i say "look baby, i'll sing for you & all that, but just you dont go pushing me, y'hear? " i understand that there not gonna invite me back cause they didn't like the way i came on to the master of ceremony's old lady, all in all, i'm making it tho. got a new song against cigarette lighters. this matchbook company offered me free matches for the rest of my life, Plus my picture on all the matchbooks, but you know me, it'd take a helluva lot more 'n that before i'd sell outsee you around nomination time

your fellow rebel

kid tiger

MAKING LOVE ON MARIA'S FRIEND

yawn to foxy queenie school teacher - gone, decatur entering the pink highway – your black mongrel vagabond, your rat from Delphi - now he shall tattle on your nauseous bra - your hair in chains & speak TU CAMINO while your El Paso ideals, they celebrate ES TERCIOPELO they leave your gruesome body - your structure falling, you listen for a lazy siren & some young Spaniard to buy your wounds, your pregnant drawl . . . yawn to queenie of the GOYA painting seeking poor Homer QUEDA - FE CONMIGO while the dikes break & count your number & Baby Mean crying NO PREDENDAS while author Fritz from your industrial south yelling what's this all about & get the hell home, queenie & you, queenie, the spider - the sweat web's got you - you beg your arms to move – you pray to be righteous - you look for postcards & teddy bears for payoffs - the partisans, they laugh CON TUS PIERNAS & the boys with brown rags, they whisper of the bust & already they have Leo the Sneak & Doc's gonna have to leave by noon - St. Willy hides in the pawnshop PARA QUEENIE you need not fear & nobody's chasing - you want to be held LA ERRONEA DAMA & dig into your purse - forget your pupils & pay for your partner & botheration - the shadow of your boss, it is your felony - author Fritz would like to suck your toe - your holiday be gone soon & vanishing like your life LA CHOTA the grass cuts your feet & Socrates' Prison is your goal AHI VIENEN you are the wrong lady – you threaten nobody - spend your money on health food & you shall be run over by a truck they'll put a tag on you - send you home to Fritz - Fritz will cry for a week & marry your nurse - the dikes will curl their mouths but you'll still be the wrong one TODO SON DE LA CHOTA live now . . . live before yo board your Titanic - reach out, Queenie, reach out – feel for equal saggy skin & believe this dark playboy licking ink from your notebook - see the cages & screaming ghosts you with the gall to think that ruins are buildings... take your bloody glands & medallion & make love once freely - it means nothing so wear a top hat - travel on a slow ship back to your guilt, your pollution, the kingdom o your blues

hi. watcha doing? how's the new religion? feel any different? gave it up myself. just couldn't make all the auctions and frankly, i's running out of bread. you know how it is, like about that little old lady in the back building all the time pointing telling me that God is watching. you know, like for a while there, i's scared to take a shit. anxious to get together with you. i know you dont wear bow ties anymore but i'm interested in other aspects of your new faith too. by the way, are you still in the keyhole business? cant wait to talk to you bye, your buddy, Testy

NOTE TO THE ERRAND BOY AS A YOUNG ARMY DESERTER

wonder why granpa just sits there & watches yogi bear? wonder why he just sits there & dont laugh? think about it kid, but dont ask your mother. wonder why elvis presley only smiles with his top lip? think about it kid, but dont ask your surgeon. wonder why the postman with one leg shorter'n the other kicked your dog so hard? think about it kid, but dont ask any mailman. wonder who ronald reagan talked to about the foreign situation? think about it kid, but dont ask any foreigners. wonder why the mechanic, whose wife shot herself with a gun she got from his best friend, hates castro so much? wonder why castro hates rock n roll? think about it kid, but dont ask no roll. wonder how much the man who wrote white Christmas made? think about it, but dont ask no made. wonder what bobby kennedy's really got against jimmy hoffa? think about it, but dont ask no bobby. wonder why frankie shot johnny? go ahead, wonder, but dont ask your neighbor . . . wonder who the carpet baggers are? think, but dont ask no carpet. wonder why you're always wearing your brother's clothes? think about it kid, but dont ask your father. wonder why general electric says that the most important thing for a family to do is stick together? think about it kid, but dont ask no together . . . wonder what is paydirt? go ahead, wonder..... wonder why the other boys wanna beat you up so bad? think about it kid, but dont ask nobody yes. ok. i guess you're a pumpkin. yes, it's true i referred to you as "that chinese girl" you have a right to be angry. but what i want to know is just what have you got against the chinese anyway? maybe we can still work it out properly

yours, prince goulash

TASTE OF SHOTGUN

the roar of our engines promises us cover - we wear chokin pants & are slaves to appetite - we get stoned on joan crawford & form teeming colonies & die of masculine conversation . . . Marcellus, wearing khaki when madness struck him, immediately filed suit against an illegitimate son be longing to someone else - josie said everybody at the trial came with a blowgun . . . Tom Tom made Melodius hate him, then jumped from a window - we are all alike & place scorpions neatly in our insides - we take pills thru the ass we praise faggot missionaries & throw homosexuals into phenomenon gutters . . . in the winter a blackface musician announces he is from Two Women - he spends his free time trying to peel the moon & he's here to collect his eight cent stamp – Marguerita the pusher, wheeling a cartful of Thursday up Damaen's Row yelling "cockles & muscles," kills him for getting in the way of her appetite . . . the rewards are few on Chemical Isle - little girls hide perfume up their shrimps & there are no giants – the warmongers have stolen all our german measles & are giving them to the doctors to use as bribes - i stayed awake for three hours last nite with Pearl - she claimed to have walked by a rooming house i once lived in - we had nothing in common, me & Pearl – I shared her boredom & had nothing to give her - i was drunk & entertained myself . . . we wish to make journeys & use everything except our feet & we meet tongue tied broken vulgar geeks with gorilla handshakes & drunken Hercules waits for us on our beds & we must salute him & he says that the new helicopters have arrived & "this is your geek" & "you will take your orders from him" yes the rewards are few here but there are oaths to take nor mental strokes - excpt for the self conscious insanity brought in by hunters with radios wear religious clothes, all goes well..... Angola being bombed this morning, right now am happy with nausea - my head is suffocating - i am gazing into the big dipper with silver buttoned blouse in my nostrils - i'm glad Marguerita's a right - i do feel expensive

i am leaving my kid on your doorstep, if you're so hot, you'll see that he gets taken care of. after all, he's your kid too. i expct to see him in about twenty years, so you better do a good job. i am going into the mountains to find work. i am taking along the food. remember luv, keep the stove clean & watch the gas tank yours louie louie

PART FOUR

MAE WEST STOMP (A FABLE)

train goes by every nite the same old time & he, same ol man, sits looking into a rosary which reads "i told you so" while rocking back & forth thinking about his eldest son, Hambone, who's in jail for life - buying beer for the kids & murdering the grocer with a pocket comb - this same old man, with nothing but a bathtub full of memories consisting of: a few Baby Huey for President buttons - a deck of cards with the aces missing – some empty deodorant bottle - a pamphlet of egyptian slogans - three pant legs that dont match & a hollow lynch rope . . . sits in a candy wrapper chair muttering day in court - day in court - i'll get it yet my day in court - a dapper young gentleman with chapped lips rubbed them on the old man's neck today - the little old man is planning revenge just as the same old time train shakes his whistler's mother painting off the wall & it gooses him to . . .day in court - i'll get it yet - yesterday was not so good either - a fox left him in a clump of mud & some little pest let him have it right in the kisser with a mixture of bamboo, barley & rotten ice cream - there he sits wishing he could get thru to the president - the little old man's bowels ache so he opens the window to breathe some good fresh air - he inhales deeply - there is a line full of wet underwear - used tires - dirty bed sheets - hats – chicken feathers an old watermelon - paper plates & some other garments - Johnny drumming wind - an indian, passing thru on his way to St. louis, is standing neath the old man's window "amazing" he says as he looks up & sees all this stuff on the clothes line suddenly get sucked into a hole . . . next day, the rent collector comes to get the rent - finds that the old man he disappeared & that the room's full of garbage - the lady who owns the clothesline, she reports theft to the robbery department - "all my valuables have been stolen" - she mutters to the inspector - the train still goes by at the same old time & Johnny drumming wind, he gets picked up for vagrancy - the rent collector looks around - steals a broken cooco "i think i'll give it to my wife" he says - his wife, who is 5 feet tall & wears a fez, & who, at the minute, by weird circumstance, is riding by on that same old time train - all all, not much happens in chicago

i'm not saying that books are good or bad, but i dont think you've ever had the chance to find out for yourself what there all about - ok, so you used to get B's in the ivanhoe tests & A minuses in the silas marners . . . then you wonder why you flunked the hamlet

exams - yeah well that's because one hoe & one lass do not make a spear the same way two wrongs do not make a throng - now that you've been thru life, why dont you try again . . . you could start with a telephone book wonder woman - or perhaps catcher in the rye - there all the same & everybody has their hat on backwards thru the stories see you at the docks helpfully yours, Sir Cringe

BLACK NITE CRASH

aretha in the blues dunes - Pluto with the high crack laugh & rambling aretha - a menace to president as he was jokingly called - go - yea! & the seniority complex disowning you . .. Lear looking in the window dangerous & dragging a mountain & you say "no i am a mute" & he says "no no i've told the others you were Charlie Chaplin & now you must live up to it - you must!" & aretha saying "split Lear - no of us got the guts for infinity – take your driving wheel split . . . & aretha next - she's got these hundred Angel Strangers all passing thru saying "i will be your Shakti your outlaw kid - pick me - pick me please – ah c'mon pick me" & aretha faking her intestinal black soul across all t fertile bubbles & whims & flashy winos - jinx, Poet Void Scary Plop all skipping to hell with their bunnies where food is cheaper & warmer & Nuclear Beethoven screaming "oh aretha - i shall be your voodoo doll - prick me - let make somebody hurt - draw on me whoever you wish! a pretty please! my bastard frame - my slimy self - penetrate unto me - unto me!" Scholar, his body held together by chiclets - raw beans & slaves of days gone by - he storms from the road his pipe nearly eaten "look! she burps o reality" & but he's not even talking to anybody - a moth flies out of his pocket & Void, the incredible fall apart reminds you once more of america with the dotted line - use less motive - the moral come on & silver haired men hidin in the violin cases . . . on a mound of phosphorus & success stands the voluptuous coyote eagle - he holds a half dollar - an anchor sways across his shoulders "good!" says Nuclear Beethoven "good to see there are some real bird around" "that's no bird - that's just a thief - he's building a outhouse out of stolen lettuce!" signs aretha - Sound o Sound - who really doesn't give a damn about real birds o outhouses or any Nuclear Beethoven - approval, complaint& explanations - they all frighten her - she has no flaws in her trumpet - she knows that the sun is not a piece of her the audio repairman stumbles thru the door with "sound is sacred so come in & talk to us" written on the back of his shirt

HOSTILE BLACK NITE CRASH

on this abandoned roof or pagoda stool they place you & you hear voices saying things like "titen 'in up Joe - keep 'm titened up" & then Orion looking evil & he wipes you off & keeps you clean & Familiar Face himself "i heard you been eating some eggs? any truth to that?" & Orion licking his flesh & trouble in mind blues & shades of fire hydrants..... YOU - the fire hydrant & Beau Geste, a fire hydrant - failures completely & walking to Gibraltar & trying to find your energy - get your kicks & shadow box your language. . . Faust from the garden - Emancipation Anne, who looks like a hungarian deer & Chump with a brain like a iceberg all imitating Africa ... Dead Lover who hitchhikes & brags & says he's going to Carthage & he keeps repeating "when i die" but then his mind goes black & blue & Methodist butter erupting & Twinkle Clown with arabic lettering on his forehead wanting everybody to experience his fright "you must experience my fright to be my friend! " so says he to Lucy Tunia, whose vegetarian legs shine like mahogany & who comforts Twinkle Clown in his fits when he has no harem . .. Zing & Orion stutters & coughs & SHAZAMMM - the opium ghost neath the ferris wheel on the side of the highway - where nobody can stop - where he can cause no trouble - where the show must go on . . . this is where He wishes to die - He wishes to die in the midst of cathedral bells - He wishes to die when the tornadoes strike the roofs & stools "so much for death" he will say when he dies

the newsboy comes in the back door his big toe sticks thru his shoe - he carries a piece of peeling with a number on it - he makes a phone call then he blows his nose

UNRESPONSIBLE BLACK NITE CRASH

the united states is Not soundproof - you might think that nothing can reach those tens of thousands living behind the wall of dollar - but your fear Can bring in the truth . . . picture of dirt farmer - long johns - coonskin cap - strangling himself on his shoe - his wife, tripping over the skulls - her hair in rats - their kid is wearing a scorpion - the scorpion wears glasses - the kid, he's drinking gin - everybody has balloons stuck into their eyes - that they will never get a suntan in mexico is obvious - send your dollar today - bend over backwards . . . or shut your mouths forever

the bully comes in - kicks the newsboy you know where - & begins ripping away at the audio repairman's shirt

ELECTRIC BLACK NITE CRASH

nature has made the young West Virginia miners not war to be miners but rather get this '46 Chevy - no money do - take to Geneva . . . hunting for the likes of escape Lord Buckley & Sherlock Holmes about to be his moth turning to Starhole the Biology Amazon saying "i dont war to be my mother!" & e.e. cummings - spell it right – wrapping his leftover chicken bones in a pig tail belonging Bronx Baby No. 2 & she thinks the world's coming to end & tries to organize a rally & her 320 pound Frenchman who sticks his tongue out at her father - he dont want part of it - "i dont wanna go to no San Quentin! i'm not criminal - i'm a foreigner & i cant help it if you dig e.e. cummings but me - like ah said - i'm just a foreigner" & s throws all these leftover chicken bones into his face & so celebrities passing by - they witness the whole thing & t down the serial numbers . . . Mona carries a lone ran advertisement on her left front breast - Mona's cousin - the 320 pound Frenchman - he resembles Arthur Conan Doyle. . .Mona – she resembles a sexy Buddha & always looks like she's standing over the Golden Gate.

she dont dig e.e.cummings - she digs Fernando Lamas - i am on a black train going west - there is no aretha on the desert - just you want - memories of aretha - but aretha teaches not depend on memory - there is no aretha on the desert the stripper comes in wearing an engagement ring - she asks for lemonade, but says she'll settle for a sandwich - the newsboy grabs her - yells "lord have mercy"

SOMEBODY'S BLACK NITE CRASH

from entire Mexico & gay innocence once comes Satan of Autumn - from the gentleness & barbarian bebop & lonesome rooms where you must put a nickel in the parking meter - into the arms of notorious daughters - daughters who get social poems published in bazaar & fashion magazines & wonder of adventure - beer barrel polkas & eat goofballs "why didn't HUAC get custer?" say some "how did robert burns escape Hitler is what i'd like to know!" say the smarter ones - all the hipster T - bone heads & wheel chair Marxists wishing to be in Kansas City '51 & Satan of Autumn & his friend, I DON’T KNOW YOU, gnawing farts in the farmlands & coming back & telling everybody & then I DONT KNOW YOU finally coming to the conclusion "who good's it all to tell everybody about anything - they all 9 alibis?" & then Montana coming & Aztec Landlords themselves - their atomic fag bars being looted & Bishops disguise as chocolate prisoners & the empty Barbary Coast haunt houses where the bureaucrats - the dreamy Huxley hangoners - the New Awake with money & no place else to & the ex cop who writes verse & thinks of himself as a salami & Gabby - the crippled horror from Telegraph Avenue but who wants to hear of this - who really wants to hear of this "who wants to hear anything? we just a part of a generation! just one mangy grubby part!" said I DONT KNOW YOU one day to Satan & it was autumn "you mean like the hula hoop happening?" "no – like the crucifixion happening!" "like the Modern beat?" "like the beat of a peach tree" . . . both Satan & I DONT KNOW YOU - they skip thru the New York race track - all the typical renaissance & a blond that looks like ezra pound & they go right into Summer – without winter - seeing them so unsuffered Lu with a crew cut, one of the chicks that write the big fat writings - her mouth hangs open - some beggar comes out of his hovel & hangs a hair from her lip - a streetcar crashes . . . but all in all - nobody really cares the chamber of commerce all come in - each member carrying hand grenades - everything turns into blood - excpt for the jukebox, a stranger wearing a calendar, & a postcard of a greek building..... which the owner of the place has left on top of the radiator by mistake/ the

play now begins . . . it is all in the past..... i will not be so insulting as to write it for you

SEEMS LIKE A BLACK NITE CRASH

between the shrieking mattress in the kitchen & Time, a mysterious weekly - Tao – a fingertip on his chin, his knees knocking together - Tao - he shows the inside of his mouth to a column of faces "does this mean you must take a nap today?" & Phil Silvers eating a banana - he is inside of the column of faces - Tao is quiet & Phil pokes Duff the Hero - a miser from the Aegean Sea - a vast desert in his head he has plenty of self confidence & lets yokels test bombs in his brain - "love is a ghost thing" says Duff "it goes right thru you" Tao strains - he looks almost pornographic "some tonsils!" says Phil, who

who now wears long suspenders tells Duff to keep up the self confidence self confidence is deceiving says Mr. O'toole-a husband of questionable virtue it gives people without balls a sense of virility do your wife own a cow? says Phil, who has now turned into an inexpensive Protestant ambassador from Nebraska now speaks with a marvelous accent "what do you mean does in wife own a cow?" "are you from Chicago then?" asks the ambassador . . . Tao's face - meanwhile - becomes so big it disappears "where'd he go?" says Duff - who's not so much of a hero anymore but rather a jolly youth that hate degenerates & is supposed to be in school anyway . . . mr. O'toole - falls out of his chair "i must find some railroad tracks - i must put my ear to the tracks - i must listen for train" - the column of faces - all together now - a munching chorus "DONT GET KILLED NOW" - repeat - "don't get killed now" yes & between this mattress shrieking & that in mysterious weekly lay the slave counties - Doris Day gone & Pacific fog - a Studebaker in twilight - crash - & breaking down the honkytonk doors & strange left handed moon men - from Arkansas & Texas & vagabonds with girlie magazines from Reed College - cellars & Queens - they all shouting "watch me Tao - watch me - i'm high - watch me now! " . . . that lonesome feeling - paralyzing - that lonesome feeling - or aretha - my mama didn't raise no fool - i have nothing new to add to that feeling . . . slide on vomit - better'n working with a shovel - Reject - God Bless Holy Phantomism & damn the farewell parties - statistic books the politicians..... the column of faces - all together now  - raising the flag & staring up to a hole in it - chanting "it's halloween! can Tao come out & play?" - getting no reaction & shouting louder - all in unison now - "IT'S HALLOWEEN..... CAN TAO COME OUT & PLAY? give up - give up - the ship is lost: go back to san bernardino - stop trying to organize the crew - it's every man for himself - are you a man or a self? when the coast guard gets there, stand up proudly & point - dont be a hero - everybody's a hero - be different - dont be a conformist forget about all those sea shanties - just stand up & say "san bernardino" in a deep monotone . . . everybody will get the message

your benefactor Smoky Horny

CHUG A LUG - CHUG A LUG HEAR ME HOLLAR HI DEE HO

he was propped in the crutch of an oak tree - looking down  - singing "there's a man going round taking names" indeed - i nod howdy - he nods howdy back "well he took my mother's name - left' me there in pain" i, who am holding a glass of sand in one hand & a calf's head in the other - i look up & say "are you hungry?" & he say "there's a man going round taking names" & i say "good nuff" & keep walking his voice rings thru the valley – it sounds like a telephone it is very disturbing - "you need anything up there?" - i'm going to town" he shakes his head "well he took my sister's name & i aint never been the same" "right - o" i say - tie my shoelace & keep walking - then i turn & say "if you need any help getting down, 'just you come to town & tell me" he doesn't even hear - "well he took my uncle's name & you know he wasn't to blame" "groovy" i say & continue my way to town. . . it couldn't 've been more 'n a few hours later when i happened to be passing by again - in the spot where the tree was, a lightbulb factory now stood - "did there used to be a guy here in a tree?" i yelled up to one of the windows - "are you looking for work?" was the reply . . . it was then when i decided that marxism did not have all the answers

why are you so frightened of being embarrassed? you spend a lot of time on the toilet dont you? why dont you admit it? why are you so embarrassed to be frightened?

your

uncle Matilda

PARADISE, SKID ROW & MARIA BRIEFLY

fatty Aphrodite's mama - i bend to you . . . & with sex mad eternity at

my vegetable shadow - i, wiping my hands on the horse's neck - the horse burping & you of the Indiana older brother - he who whips you with his belt & you who does not look for reason to your torture & i want your horizontal tongue - within Reflex - the perfect doom & these cruel nitemares where brickmasons introduce me to hideous connections & Marx Brothers grunting NO QUIERO TU SABIDURIA & your thighs be half awake & me so Sick so Sick of these lovers in Biblical roles - "so you're out to save the world are you? you impostor - you freak! you're a contradiction! you're afraid to admit you're a contradiction you're misleading! you have big feet & you will step on yourself all the people you mislead will pick you up! you have no answers! you have just found a way to pass you time! without this thing, you would shrivel up & be nothing - you are afraid of being nothing - you are caught up in i  - it's got you!" i am so Sick of Biblical people - they are like castor oil - like rabies & now i wish for Your eyes - you who does not talk any business & supplies my mind with blankness QUIERO TUS OJOS & your laughing & your slavery . . .there be no drunken risk - i am an intimate Egyptian - say good - bye to the marine hi - just arrived - terrible trip - this little man carrying a white mouse stared at me the whole way - jesus he was a handsome man - are there any good lawyers around? will look you up shortly have to eat first

sincerely yours, Froggy

A PUNCH OF PACIFIST

Peewee the Ear, whose mouth looks like a credit card - him & Jake the Flesh - along with Sandy Bob from Pecos there leading the white elephant to water somewhere between wichita falls & el camino real - it's late in the day & no word from Saigon is in yet – along comes jerry mc boingboing's daughter - Liza the Blimp - riding on a two dollar bill belonging to Goose John Henry, negro medicine man from Denver, who plays folk songs for kicks & speaks french for a living - onward then when Brown Dan, the creep cop - who likes to kill bullfrogs & whose boss keeps saying "he's got a bad knee but you oughta see him run, babe, you oughta see 'm run & chase them little chink lovers when they come down the river" - anyway Brown Dan he comes snooping for the strangers with his flunky known simply as Little Stick, who carries a burnt hat pin & two pieces of kotex in case of emergency ... they meet up with the crew at a clearing resembling a fisherman's dwarf . . . Jim Ghandi, the welder, is overlooking from his window - & yells something like "aw reet ye sons a vermits - draw ye now or shut ye mouths frever" just as the chick spreads her legs into the intersection & lets loose with the bumble seed grease, but nobody sneezes - she begins to yell about who her father is, but this doesn't work either . . . her fat two dollar bill falls dead from a bullet - "the flag of tex's ass is upon ye" screams Jim Ghandi & the chick immediate takes to the hills - Peewee drops his cookies as up drives XKE with Sandy Bob's cousin, Sandy Slim, who shows everybody his pictures of Nasser & says "hold it boys, know all about these things - i used to work in the edsel factory" taking advantage of the confusion, Little Stick steals the white elephant . . . nobody notices - not even Bro Dan, who by this time is busy beating Jake the Flesh to death with a hacksaw - all in all, the situation in viet nam very disturbing

who wants to be noticed anyway? only you, who believes what suits you, could speak so badly of thelonius baker - what'd he ever do to you anyway besides get his name in the papers? dont you know that everybody wants to pick a moron for you dont concern yourself with all this pettiness - it will all pass - think big you've seen the sign - all in all, tho, you're a pretty good guy - stay clean dont waste your money on haircuts - see you at the drugstore your highness, Gumbo the Hobo

SACRED CRACKED VOICE & THE JINGLE JANGLE MORNING

go on - flutter ye mystic ballad - ah haunting & Tokay jittery ye be like the mad pulse – the mad pulse of child - the children of ring around the rosy & wandering poets over India – the jugglers who call you by the wrong name & title you wounded kitten - it is that easy for they know no fairy tales . . . in the modal tuning - a pontiac is parked without a leg to stand on - Plague the Kid - crusading in the blues dimension, he - hitchhiking the pontiac - brooding over the highway & searching for Joker - or perhaps the devil's eight drummer "down with enthusiasm!" says Plague "it is all temporary! away with it!" & Lord Randall playing with a quart of beer - Fanny Blair dragging a judge - Willy Moore, a shoemaker, who counts his thumbs with a switchblade along with Sir James, the dunce, who wears a stovepipe when he goes out on the town - Matty Groves, who secretly at midnight tries to chop down the church steeple with Edward, who cuts hedges for his wages & last but not least - Barbara Allen - she smuggles Moroccan cinders into Brooklyn twice a month & she wears a sheet - she takes many penicillin shots "anything temporary can be used for money reasons" says Plague & all these people - call them what you will - they believe him - yesterday i talked Abner for forty minutes - he, Abner - cursed out East Texas, tomatoes & tin pan alley - he didn't talk to me - he talked in a mirror - i did not have the courage to crash or shatter myself . . . when i left him, i met Puff - Puff had nothing but bad words for unemployment, Wrigley's Spearmint Rabelais - i slapped myself in the face - he told me i crazy & my only regret being that i could not fart thru my mouth - i walked away into a dimestore . .

what i speak of is the crazy unspeakable microphone & great flower celebration - it is not phony vision but rather friendly dark behold the dark - your strength - the darkness "the matrimony of self & spinal dream" says Plague the Kid & we but him a boxcar - Hysterical - melody in the Hysterical - as opposed to the music which offers every sound to make life existable excpt that of silence . . .Houdini & the rest of the ordinary people taking down puckered Jesus posters out there on 61 highway - Midas putting them back up - in the throne sinks Cleo - she sinks because she's fat . . . this land is your land & this land is my land - sure - but the world run by those that never listen to music anyway - "enthusiasm is music which needs a flashlight to be heard" so says Plague

sorry to say baby but you ARE hung up aren't you? you know like suppose everybody DOES tell you you're like sabatchead dajapeeled you know what happened to him after everybody read him - yeah he went right up on the shelf let me know if you could use a horse tamer or a good worried mind

your meatman Shorty Cookie

FLUNKING THE PROPAGANDA COURSE

strange men with belly trouble & their pin up girls: zelda rat - crooked betty & volcano the leg - here they come there popped out & they've been seen crying in the chapel - their friend, who says that everybody cries a lot - he's the congressional one & carries the snapshots - his name is Tapanga Red - known in L.A. as Wipe 'M Out - he coughs a lot - anyway they walk in - it's very early & they ask for black mongrels apiece - jenny says "why not roll 'in?" "there cops!" says a little boy who just climbed a mountain & who's learned how to smell in the circus - jenny retires to the pinball machine – steam getting thicker  - zelda rat asks for second black mongrel - please make it hot - one of the men, he dangles a watch in front of her face "It's late  - zeld babe -  it's late" & zelda's face turns into a measle & she says "i'm allergic" - a ringing sound & she say "oh look - that girl over there is getting free balls" - trying to get jenny's attention, one of the men, he asks "anything bothering you?" jenny replies "yes - whatever happened to Orval Faubus?" & the man quickly drops the subject - his eye swollen he pushes one of the hot mongrels down poor zelda's dress asks now does she wanna another one -  everybody breaks into stitches excpt someone who's talking to a window & jenny, who's busy racking up balls ... the man who looks like an adam's apple -  i think he belongs to crooked betty he goes thru his stool -  volcano - she wraps him in the national insider  - everybody reads him – jenny tilts the machine   - the man's dead  - just then, the congressional one, he pulls out a luger he says a kraut give to him during the war which is a goddamn lie, & begins to shoot up the barbecue beef signs . . . the radio plays the star spangled banner - next day, a young arsonist, with a turtle on his head & his hands on his hips & his backbone slipping, sees me walking the donkey on the east side - "saw you with jenny last nite anything

happening there?" i say "oh my God, how can you ask such a thing? dont you know there are starving kids in china?" he say "yes, but that was last nite - today' a new day" & i say "yeah - well that's too bad - i still aint gonna tell you nothing about jenny" he calls me an idiot & i say "here take my donkey if it'll make you feel any better  - i'm on my way to the movies anyway it is five minutes to rush hour - a strange transaction of goods takes place on third avenue - the supermarket explodes from malnutrition  - God bless malnutrition

i dont care what bob hope says -  he aint going with you nowhere - also, john wayne mightve kicked cancer, but you oughta see his foot  - forget about those hollywood people telling you what to do they're all gonna get killed by the indians see you in your

dreams lovingly, plastic man

PART FIVE

APE ON SUNDAY

ZING & they throw him thru the door & he lands in truck  - he gets out somewhere on the Mobile line & says "the war's going fine  - aint it paleface?" & immediately makes a friend "it's nice to have friends, ain't it shitbrain?" this makes a stronger tie & both of 'm together they go beat up some male secretary who works for a jockey

...UNTOUCHABLE - they walk thru the streets of France & poison the dogs & when they get back both receive medals for bravery "it's nice to have medals aint it monsterass?" they cannot be separated these two friends ... they are invited to speak at religious & college gatherings & finally become board members of the rootbeer industry "it's nice to have all the rootbeer you can drink aint it fishturd?" an ABSOLUTE bond that cannot be broken ... one day one of the friends discovers that he's never been doing any of the talking ... he inquires about it but gets no response - he murders the other friend & some young punk around town - he gets put in jail for go years . . . everything wouldve been overlooked but John Huston - & i do mean John Huston - he made a Bible movie out of it & changed all the names - also there was nothing in the plot of course about the rootbeer stand - other'n that - it was a full drag "i was expecting to see a bit of Mobile" – said Princess "i was really expecting to see a bit of Mobile" Princess is an ape - she usually goes to movies on Sundays look you asshole - tho i might be nothing but a butter sculptor, i refuse to go on working with the idea of your praising as my reward like what are your credentials anyway? excpt for talking about all us butter sculptors, what else do you do? do you know what it feels like to make some butter sculpture? do you know what it feels like to actually ooze that butter around & create something of fantastic worth? you said that my last year's work "The King's Odor" was great & then you say I haven't done anything as great since - just who the hell are you talking to anyway? you must have something to do in your real life - i understand that you praised the piece you saw yesterday entitled "The Monkey Taster" about which you said meant "a nice work of butter carved into the shape of a young man who likes only african women" you are an idiot - it doesn't mean that at all ... i hereby want nothing to do with your hangups – I really dont care what you think of my work as i now know you dont understand it anyway ... i must go now - i have this new hunk of margarine waiting in the bathtub - yes i said MARGARINE & next week i just might decide to use cream cheese - & i really dont care what you think of my experimenting - you take yourself too seriously - you're going to get an ulcer & go into the hospital - they'll put you in a ward where you cant have any visitors - you'll go right off your nut - i really dont care anymore i am so bored with your rules & regulations that i might not even talk to you again - just remember tho, when you evaluate a piece of butter, you are talking about yourself, so you'd just better sign your name ...

see you, if you're lucky, at mrs. keeler's cake festival

yours Snowplow Floater p.s. you're my friend & i'm trying to help you

collision boss aint it awful the way they make you look at things as if you were inside of their toilet! these sadistic nurses - they speak to me as if i was a finger i lay in this bed unprotected & the fellow next door - he must be a Zulu - the doctors cant stand him & he gets no visitors - the Sister says he's irreligious but i just think he gags a lot boss three bodies got shipped out this morning - Lady Esther said that they went to the hunting ground Cronie said that they never were worth much anyway & St. Crockasheet said abracadabra - Lady Esther is the cleaning lady & she was mopping up the beds when i woke up . . . there was some candle wax on the window - Cronie said not to touch it there is a sign in the hall that reads "Quiet" it waits for no one - i think that is what makes people different than signs i say to him "they'll get you" & he say "no" & i say "& if they dont get you, you'll get yourself" & he say "you got bad manners & i go to church & nobody's gonna get me" & then some guys wearing parachutes come in & give him a wiff of mint & hand him a peacock feather & then they slit his throat . . . i looked out the window & saw this car stop - it had a bumper sticker saying "Vote, Goat" & a man got out & wiped his feet on a door mat he carried a book of Aesop's Fables & then Lady Esther came in again & cleaned up the mess - i turned on the radio but all that was happening was the news

boss aint it fierce the way that one woman with the Persian monkey treated the other woman with the Alley monkey? Claudette came to see me last nite she doesn't own a monkey & she couldn't get it then at the same time, the nurse came in & said "it's raining cats & dogs outside - is it too much for you to bear ha ha?" i couldve swallowed her

tonite i dance With Strawberry, the bloody clothes wife - i say her head, if necessary, would crack like an egg & she damns me - if i thank her then she calls me a whore so there's no way out..... my mind is with the kitchen workers but when they catch spiders & pull their legs off & laugh - it usually wakes me up . . . i am sick of people praising Einstein - bourgeois ghosts i am sick of heroic sorrow

as soon as i get out of here i'm going to my blood bank & make a withdrawal & go to Greece - Greece is beautiful & nobody understands you there

the janitor with a glass eye he's all right - at least he minds his own business - he tells me that Shakespeare's relatives killed his ancestors - & that now his brothers wont read Shakespeare he says that he used to ride to church on a ox & when they sold the church, he sold the ox . . . the janitor, he's ok . . . Lady Esther says that he aint never gonna amount to much but i never speak to Lady Esther & what does she know about people with glass eyes anyway?

my bosom feels like the grave diggers have been at it all nite ... tomorrow if i'm lucky, i'll have breakfast in Heaven ... some crazy fishhook dangles thru my window - i might as well get up & walk on my forehead i might as well lose all my tickets ... i wish there was something i wanted as badly as this fishhook wants to express itself

dear mister congressman: it's about my house - some time ago i made a deal with a

syrup company to advertise their product on the side facing the street - it wasn't so bad at first, but soon they put up another ad on the other side - i didn't even mind that, but then they plastered these women all over the windows with cans of syrup in their arms - in exchange the company paid my phone & gas bill & bought a few clothes for the tots – I told the town Council that i'd do most anything just to let some sun in the house but they said we couldn't offend the syrup company because it's called Granma Washington's Syrup & people tend to associate it with the constitution ... the neighbors dont help me at all because they feel that if anything comes off my house, it'll have to go on theirs & none of them want their houses looking like mine - the company offered to buy my house as a permanent billboard sign, but God, I got my roots here & i had to refuse at first - now they tell me some negroes are moving in down the block - as you can see, things dont look too good at the moment - my eldest son is in the army so he cant do a thing - i would appreciate any helpful suggestion

thank you

yours in allegiance Zorba the Bomb

COWBOY ANGEL BLUES

meanwhile back in texas - beautiful texas - Freud paces back & forth - struggling with his boot & trying to finish his Vermouth - "fraid you got the wrong idea Mr. Clap - if i was you, i'd give in & go chop those trees down for my mother - after all, there's a little mother in all of us" "yes but i mean why do you think i do it? why do you think i intentionally set fire to my bed every time she asks me to cut down those trees? why?" "yes - well - Mr. Clap - perhaps it is the womb calling - you know - perhaps when you were a little boy, you heard a tree falling & the sound of it went WOOOOM & now as you are older - every time you hear that sound - in one form or another of course - you just want to - oh shall we say - light it up?" "yes that seems logical - thank you very much - i feel to go chop those trees down now" "ah but remember son - a tree falling in the forest without any sound has nobody to hear it!" "yes well - i shall be there then - i shall not burn my bed anymore""good - let me know of your progress & if anything drastic comes up - here - take these pills - by the way, you should call your mother 'Stella' just to show her that you mean business - oh & while you're at it, could you chop me some firewood please?" "yes – all right - thank you very much again - excuse me sir - are you having some trouble with your boot?" "no - no - my leg's just getting a little hairier - that's all" - get back to this beautiful texas & dont swap that cow - Corpus Christi aflame - common thieves - maggots & millionaires trading sons & dollars & rolling back chumps - the black gypsy lady & Buddy Holly himself into the tanks & voids held up to Scrawny Horizon by Lee Marvin & the

forty thieves BRILLIANT & Sancho Panza Remembered like in an Arabic moonbook & Malcolm X Forgotten like a caught fish & wonder - ah wonder just what - just what That means . . . Lovetown so pathetic & the grown men crying - the winds are anchored here & you do not disturb these tears nor rivers - you do not take baths in the abandoned bathtubs but rather mix electric herbs & be watchdog to the Great White Mountain ...Funky Phaedra - in the center of a No Disturb sign & Black Ace singing - she tries to outstare a bowl of money she - as they say - has one foot in the grave - the apprentice clown, Tomboy, at her feet - he's known professionally as Rabbit Rough & plays a homemade steel guitar - when loaded, he really bites into it - Weep the Greed is watching the happening from a caved - in mare & he lights a cigarette with one of his stolen wanted posters . . . "love is magic" says Phaedra - Funky Phaedra - Rabbit dont say nothing Weep the Greed says "go to it gal!" "love is wonderful" says Phaedra "get in, stranger!" says Weep the Greed Phaedra takes off her stetson - five bunnies & a nickel shot full of holes jump out "which way's laos?" says one of the bunnies "some trick!" says Weep the Greed - "love is that gliding feeling" "yipee! & i'll be a coonbong!" says Weep the Greed "love is gentleness - softness - creaminess" say Phaedra - who is now having a pillow fight - her weapon a mattress - she stands on a deserted marshmallow – her foe some Unitarian who's fallen off one a them high sierras lived to tell about it - he holds a fascist pint of yogurt "love is riding a striped mare across the orgy plains on barbarian sunday" screams Rabbit Rough, the apprentice clown this is the first thing he's said all day & now he hesitates Phaedra - meanwhile - is getting beaten in the fight - "sure it is" says Weep the Greed "& then your mare ends up like this one - then you put your arm in a sling - your feet in a vault & then you get a job working for a camel - right?' Phaedra - totally

wiped out from the fight - she come crawling back - seizes Rabbit - pulls his shirt off – twists his arm behind his back & throws him into the windmill Weep the Greed gets busted by the Padres & all the wanted posters fly over the united states - the mare gets confiscated & held without bail . . . Mr. Clap - meantime - makes an other visit to Freud "only rich people can afford you" he says "only rich people can afford all art - isn't that the way it is?" "isn't that the way it always has been?" says Freud "ah yes" says Mr. Clap with a sigh - "by the way - how' the mother?" "oh she's ok - you know her name's -  Art - she makes a lot of money" "oh?" "yes - I've told her all about you - you must come to the house some time" "yes" say Freud with a martha raye type grin "yes - perhaps i will'. . . Phaedra pounding her knuckles into a piece of water  - scratching her snake bites - a getaway car goes by consisting of: three lying hunters off the Brazos River - two window – peeking mothers each holding some decayed pictures of lili st. cyr - a side order of bacon – some underprivileged bonus babies shot full of dexedrine - a painter with a plate on his face - one barbell - Dracula smoking a cigarette & eating an angel - the ghost of cheetah, madame nhu & bridey murphy all wrapped in toothpastes box of magic wands & one innocent bystander . . . needless to say there is no more room in the car – Phaedra scowls & she bellows "love is going PLUMB INSANE" & wine bottle breaking – texas exploding & dinner by the sea - ship commanders with perfect features - they're seen - they're seen by truck drivers - the truck drivers complain of hijacking & see these ship commanders riding stallions into the howling Gulf of Mexico & here comes Phaedra "love is going plumb insane" . . . she is walking by Mr. Clap - who is smiling he wears his cap inside out - he's eating good fruit - HE'LL be all right - Mr. Clap - he'll be all right

dear buzz: i want the bibles marked up thirty percent to justify the markup, i want free

hairbrushes given away with each bible - also, the chocolate jesuses should not be sold in the south... one more thing, concerning the end of the world game - perhaps if you had some germ warfare for it you could sell it for twice as much - things kinda stormy round here - office in turmoil secretary wiped out recently - guess what happened to the pictures of the pres? yeah well some joker drew a earring on him in the original print & somehow it slipped by the production staff needless to say, we couldn't get rid of any of them around here that's for sure, so we had to ship them all to puerto rico - thing worked out ok tho - distributors down there said they went like hot cakes ... almost as fast as the red white & blue hamburger sets - oh - i meant to tell you, i think if you made the "I voted for the winner" buttons triangle shaped, they might go a little faster ... by the way, i did tell you to send the "I'm a beatles eater" handkerchiefs to the dominican republic & Not to england - fraid you made a little mistake there, buzzy boy! like i said, office in turmoil – got a new kid but he fell in the water cooler right away ... he's suing us for teeth damage - lotza problems

see you in the cafeteria bosom buddy, syd dangerous

SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES & THE BLOND WALTZ

let me say this about Justine - she was 5 ft. 2 & had Hungarian eyes - her belief was that if she could make it with Bo Diddley - she could get herself straight - now Ruthy she was different - she always wanted to see a cock fight & went to Mexico City when she was 17 & a runaway castoff - she met Zonk when she was 18 - Zonk came from her home town – at least that's what he said when he met her when they busted up, he said he never heard of the place but that's beside the point - anyway these three - they make up the Realm Crew . . . i met them exactly at their table & they took 2 years of sanction from me but 1 never talk much about it myself - Justine was always trying to prove she existed as if she really needed proof - Ruthy - she was always trying to prove that Bo Diddley existed & Zonk he was trying to prove that he existed just for Ruthy but later on said that he was just trying to prove he existed to himself - me? i started wondering about whether anybody existed but i never pushed it too much - especially when Zonk was around – Zonk hated himself & when he got too high he thought everybody was a mirror

one day i discovered that my secrets were puny - i tried t build them up but Justine said "this is the Twentieth Century baby - i mean you know - like they dont do that any

more - why dont you go walk on the street - that'll build up your secrets - it's no use to spend all these hours a day doing it in a room - you're losing living - i mean like if you wanna be some kinda charles atlas, go right ahead ... but you better head off for muscle beach – I mean you just might as well snatch Jayne mansfield - become king of you kind & start some kind of secret gymnasium" . . . after being ridiculed to such a degree - i decided to leave in secrets alone & Justine - Justine was right - my secrets got bigger - in fact they grew so big that they outweighed in body . . . i hitchhiked a lot in those days & you had to be ready - you never knew what kind of people you were gonna meet on the road

i sang in a forest one day & someone said it was three O'clock - that nite when i read the newspaper, i saw that tenement had been set aflame & that three firemen & nine teen people had lost their lives - the fire was at three o'clock too . . . that nite in a dream i was singing again - i way singing the same song in the same forest & at the same time - in the dream there was also a tenement blazing there was no fog & the dream was clear – it was not worth analyzing as nothing is worth analyzing - you learn from conglomeration of the incredible past - whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever - controlling at once the present tense of the problem - more or less like a roy rogers & trigger relationship of which under present western standards is an impossibility - me singing – I moved from the forest - frozen in a moment & picked up & moved above land – the tenement blazing too at the same moment being picked up & moved towards me - i, still singing & this building still burning . . . needless to say - i & the building met & as instantly as it stopped, the motion started again - me, singing & the building burning - there i was – in all truth singing in front of a raging fire - i was unable to do anything about this fire – you see - not because i was lazy or loved to watch good fires - but rather because both myself & the fire were in the same Time all right but we were not in the same Space - the only thing we had in common was that we existed in the same moment . . . i could not feel any guilt about just standing there singing for as i said i was picked up & moved there not by my own free will but rather by some unbelievable force - i told Justine about this dream & she said "that's right - lot of people would feel guilty & close their eyes to such a happening - these are people that interrupt & interfere in other people's lives only God can be everywhere at the same Time & Space you are human - sad & silly as it might seem" . . . i got very drunk that afternoon & a mysterious confusion entered into my body - "when i hear of the bombingsI see red & mad hatred" said Zonk - "when i hear of the bombings, I see the head of a dead nun" said i - Zonk said "what?" . . . i have never taken my singing - let alone my other habits very seriously - ever since then - i have just accepted it exactly as i would any other crime

the soldier with the long beard says go ask questions my son but the shaggy orphan says that it's all a hype - the bearded soldier says what's a hype? & the shaggy orphan says what's a son? the taste of bread is common yet who can & who cares to tell someone else what it tastes like it tastes like bread that's what it tastes like... to find out why Bertha shouldn't push the man off the flying trapeze you dont find out by thinking about it - you find out by being Bertha - that's how you find out let me say this about Justine - Ruthy & Zonk - none of them understood each other at all - justine - she went off to join a rock n roll band & Ruthy - she decided to fight cocks professionally & when last heard from, Zonk was working in the garment district... they all lived happily ever after

where i live now, the only thing that keeps the area going is tradition - as you can figure out - it doesn't count very much - everything around me rots... i dont know how long it has been this way, but if it keeps up, soon i will be an old man - & i am only I 5 - the only job around here is mining - but jesus, who wants to be a miner ... i refuse to be part of such a shallow death - everybody talks about the middle ages as if it was actually in the middle ages i'll do anything to leave here – my mind is running down the river - i'd sell my soul to the elephant - i'd cheat the sphinx i'd lie to the conqueror.. . tho you might not take this the right way, i would even sign a chain with the devil ... please dont send me anymore grandfather clocks - no more books or care packages ... if you're going to send me something, send me a key - i shall find the door to where it fits, if it takes me the rest of my life your friend, Friend

FURIOUS SIMON'S NASTY HUMOR

i had a dream that the cook leaned & shook his fist over the balcony & said yes to the people yes the people & he said this to the people "i want four cups of stormtrooper a tablespoon of catholic - five hideous paranoids some water buffalo - a half pound of communist six cups of rebel - two cute atheists a quart bottle of rabbi - one teaspoon of bitter liberal - some antibirth tablets three fourths black nationalist a dab of lemon cock powder some mogen david capitalists & a whole lot of fat people with extra money" then the cook's helper appeared & cleared his throat & then he said to the people yes the people also we'd like a mocking bird & some maids in milking - some raped college students & a drenched hen two turtle gloves & a partridge & a gin & a pear tree" I awoke from this dream in the state of fright - then jumped out of bed & ran for the kitchen - crashed thru the door & slammed on the light/fell on my bended knees & thanked God that there was nothing new in the ice box

dear Puck, traded in my electric guitar for one you call a gut one ... you can play it all by yourself - dont need a band eliminates all the fighting except of course for the other gut guitar players - am doing well - have no idea of what's happening but all these girls with moustaches, they're going crazy over me - you must try them sometime weather is good - threw away all my lefty frizzell records - also got rid of my parka - you can keep my cow as i now am on the road to freedom

see yuh later alligator Franky Duck

I FOUND THE PIANO PLAYER VERY CROSS - EYED BUT EXTREMELY SOLID

he came with his wrists taped & he carried his own coat hanger - i could tell at a glance that he had no need for Sonny Rollins but I asked him anyway "whatever happened to gregory corso?" he just stood there - he took out a deck of cards & he replied "wanna play some cards?" to which i answered "no but whatever happened to jane russell?" he flapped the cards & they went sailing all over the room "my father taught me that" he said "it's called 52 pickup but i call it 49 pickup cause i'm shy three cards - haw haw aint that a scream & which one's the piano? " at this gesture, i was relieved to see that he was human - not a saint mind you - & he wasn't very likable - but nevertheless - he was human - "that's my piano over there" i say "the one with the teeth" he immediately rambled over & he stomped hard across the floor "shhhhhh" i said "you'll wake up my No Pets Allowed sign" he shrugged his shoulders & took out a piece of chalk - he began to draw a picture of his kid on my piano "hey now look - that aint what's wrong with my piano - i mean now dont take it personally - it's got nothing to do with you, but my piano is out of tune - now i dont care how you go about it but fix it - fix it right" "my kid's gonna be an astronaut" "i should hope so" says me "& by the way - could you tell me what happened to julius larosa?" a picture of abraham lincoln falls from the ceiling "that guy looks like a girl - i saw him on Shindig - he's a fag" "how wise you are" says i "hurry & fix my piano will ya - i have this geisha girl coming over at midnight & she digs to jump on it" "my kid's gonna be an astronaut" "c'mon -  get to work - my piano - my piano - c'mon it's out of tune" at this time, he takes out his tool & starts to tinkle on a few high notes - "yeah it's out of tune" he says "but it's also 5:30" "so what?" i say most melancholy "so it's quitting time - that's so what" "quitting time?" "look buddy i'm a union man "look yourself - you ever heard of woody guthrie? he was a union man too & he fought to organize unions like yers & he dug people's needs & do you know what he'd say if he knew that a union man - an honest to - God union man - was walking out on a poor hard traveling cat's needs - do you know what he'd say d'yuh know what he'd think?" "all right i'm getting sick of you sprouting out names at me - i never hearda no boody guppie & anyway . . ." "woody guthrie not boody guppie! " "yeah well anyway i dont know what he'd say, but tomorrow - no if you want a new man tomorrow - like you can just call up & the union 'll send you over one gladly - like i don care - it's just another job to me buddy - just another job to me" "WHAT! you dont even take any pride in your work? i cant believe this! do you know what boody guppie would do to you man? i mean do you know what he'd think of you?" "I'm going home - i hate it here - it's just not my style at all & anyway i never heard of any coody puppie" "boody guppie, you miserable bosom - not coody puppie & get out

of my house - get out this instant!" "my kid's gonna be a astronaut" "i dont care - you cant bribe me - i'm bigger' that - get out - get out" . . . after he leaves i try playin my piano – no use - it sounds like a bowling alley - i change my No Pets Allowed sign to a Home Sweet Home sign wonder why i haven't any friends . . . it starts to rain the rain sounds like a pencil sharpener - i look out the window & everybody's walking around without a hat - it is 5:30 - time to celebrate someone's birthday - the piano tuner has left his coat hanger behind ... which really brings me down

unfortunately my friend, you shall not get the information you seek out of me, my good man, I am not a fink! none of my relatives are or have been related to benedict arnold & i myself despise john wilkes booth - i dont smoke marijuana & my family hates italian food - none of my friends like black & white movies & again myself, i have never seen a russian ballet - also, i have started an organization to turn in all people that laugh at newsreels - so: could you please stop those letters to the district attorney saying that i know who murdered my wife - my principles are at stake here - i would NOT sacrifice them for one moment of pleasure - i am an honest man

yours

in growth, ivan the bloodburst

Part Six

THE VANDALS TOOK THE HANDLES (AN OPERA)

to South Duchess County comes Them & Woolworth's Fool & triumphant alice toklas, the National Bank in short sleeves & the regulars - the sincereful regulars - House on its final kick - still breeding & a cellarful of imaginary Russia peasant girls holding

triangles - the triangles are real - House on Doomstown, an academy - a priest with his winning from Reno coming in on a parachute . . . "integrate the house! " "only if you wish to live where you're not wanted" "then bomb the house!" "only if you wish to live there by yourself" "what do you suggest then?" "it's a pointless house - leave it alone - it is not happy within itself - it breeds disaster - it forces you to learn things that have nothing to do with the outside world & then it kicks you out there - the house dont need you - why should you be so low as to need it - leave - go far away from the house" "no, my friend, your way of thinking is called giving up" "do as you wish, your way is called losing - it's not even a way of thinking" the priest leaves with his eyes downward - he is examining the rocks but he's forgotten that his parachute has already been used once . . . alice toklas lays on a grassy knoll & blesses a flower "oh the enemy - beware of the enemy - the enemy is santa claus! the flower doesn't need her - the flower needs rain

we sat in a room where Harold, who called himself "Lord of dead animals, was climbing down from a ladder & he said "friend or doe? friend or doe?" he wore a black shawl & someone said that he experimented in the depth of mirrors - Poncho was very startled & screamed "i'll give you a friend or doe, you freak!" & banged him with a judo chop & stuck his head thru the ladder - "shouldn't done that" said a very manly girl who came down the chimney "he's very sullen but he's a good cat - does anybody want a piece of bread?" Poncho said that he wanted a piece of kidney - i said i wanted a piece of separate... the girl began to cry in the photographs - you see the sand at Nice & Tangier & all the medicine men looking elegant & then out come the radar slaves - each one wanting to be an apostle & they carry the electrograms - we call them Employment & each one says things like "haul away ho" & "heave 'm johnny" & "I dont dig harry james at all!" & Hefty Bore, a leftover horror from the beat generation & a dubious health freak saying to his bewildered birdgirl, WeeWee the Dyke, "oh c'mon - it wouldn't cost you nothing to tell everybody that i'm the hippest person you ever met - c'mon - i do lots of things for you!" & WeeWee saying "but i never see anybody - you never let me see anybody!" & then Olive, who once started a streetfight over Carl Perkins' eyes & now builds laugh machines for rich democrats - he brings in the equipment & you get taken across a narrow bridge where hundreds of tourists follow & sail lead weight records at your feet & they place you in a giant bus horn & voices yelling "i want that one - i want that one!" Madame Remember appears & she takes away your photographs & all that's left in the outside world is your hand - little babies bite it & mothers are screaming SCREAMING "yes - he can have my vote - i'll vote for him any day" . . . now you're a plastic vein - you've vanished inside of a perfect message - historic phone calls come thru to your belly & curious tabernacles move slowly thru your mind - hitchhiking - hitchhiking unashamed thru the goofs of your brain - your ideals are gone & all that remains are the cutup photographs of you standing in the supermarket - the bus still runs but now you take cabs with the jungle boys ...Egotist shows you his diary & he says "I've learned to be silent" & you say "you've learned nothing - you've just said something"

the good folks around here, they got plenty of questions they beat elephants to death with candy sticks - "a white bear is a crazy bear" say the thieves who really are not thieves but rather plain people who dont expect their friends to get sick so they'll need them - there is an illness on the mountain & a polio lily grew out of a green purse last

Sunday - a dangerous nickel lays on the town square . . . everybody watches to see who'll pick it up . . . TO SEARCH IS TO NEGLECT & VIOLENT LUCK IS STAMPEDE & there's a bunch of us around here but we only pick up dollars

here lies bob dylan murdered from behind by trembling flesh who after being refused by Lazarus, jumped on him for solitude but was amazed to discover that he was already a streetcar & that was exactly the end of bob dylan he now lies in Mrs. Actually's beauty parlor God rest his soul & his rudeness

two brothers & a naked mama's boy who looks like Jesus Christ can now share the remains of his sickness & his phone numbers there is no strength to give away everybody now can just have it back

here lies bob dylan demolished by Vienna politeness which will now claim to have invented him the cool people can now write Fugues about him & Cupid can now kick over his kerosene lamp bob dylan - killed by a discarded Oedipus who turned around to investigate a ghost & discovered that the ghost too was more than one person

South Duchess County importing pyramids & scavengers by the truckload & Cousin Butch - he leaves now & then to make three dollars a nite telling about the flying saucers a warmonger - Antonio - working day & nite in a garage - he smuggles pad locks to the olympic swimmers & hires out women for the baseball players - he's very quiet & very fashion conscious - he knows his religious geography he's training his kid to be a gorilla & then he will rent him out for people's closets - he says his right hand holds war but his left hand holds a wet paranoid smile . . . the peacemonger - Roach - when last seen – was chasing a train - he says that his right hand hold peace but his left hand was seen holding a doorknob & a meathook . . . South Duchess County in bandages & little Lady Suntan trying to analyze the Albino terrorists..... South Duchess County pure as visions & uneducated - shall exist past the deadly complements to it - past its lack of holidays & past the possible

you cant fool me - i'm too smart - you were on that subway train when that kid got knifed - you just sat there - you were on the street when that black car drove up & tossed some form in the river - you turned around & walked to a phone & pretended you had someone to call.. you were also there when they castrated that poor boy in public – you cant fool me you're not so tough - sure, you took a big stand on juvenile delinquency – you said to run all the hoods out of town - oh you're so brave - sure, you say you're patriotic - you say you're not scared to drop any H bomb & show everybody that you mean what you say but you dont say anything excpt that you're not scared to drop any H bombs - how can you say that my kids must learn from a good example? they can learn from a bad example just as well - they can learn from you as well as me - you cant have me under your thumb anymore - not because i'm too squirmy, but because your hands are made of water ... when you wish to talk to me, let me know ahead of time - i'll have a bucket waiting ... just because your wife is pregnant, you've no license to meddle in mine or my friends' affairs - ask your wife if she remembers me yours faithfully

Simon Dord p.s. you probably remember me as Julius the Honk

A SHERIFF IN THE MACHINERY

Fringe - the boy lunatic - conceived on an Ash Wednesday when Scrounge meets Suckup girl - now Scrounge he's twisted - he's completely wacked - ever since a midget (who turned out to be a child actor smoking a cigar) stomped on him like a balloon, Scrounge just aint never been the same - it's been said that he paralyzed his home - town soda jerk & if he didn't like you, he'd turn the jerk loose on you - to my knowledge, this never happened ... Suckup girl - her nosejob keeps dripping & she has to carry a gardener along when she goes to parties - she is talking to Bishop Freeze, who asks her "wha'a thinka that Monet painting? i mean i just got done spending five days reading Kierkegaard - alone in a room baby - just me & Kierkegaard - yeah - & the first thing i see when i come outa there is that painting - well! flip? lemme tell you did i flip? i mean did you dig the wisdom in that goddamn forehead? did you dig the crumbs in the chick's smile?" "yes i found it extremely i found it extremely . . ." "monographic?" says Scrounge trying to help her out & put the make on her "yes & also i found it voluptuously interesting" when Bishop Freeze goes home, Suckup comes over to Scrounge & thanks him "dont mention it" says Scrounge who unbuttons his shirt & shows her his name signed on his stomach "had that done in Kadalawoppa last year - that's in Mexico you know" "oh that's donkey country - i know it very well the beaches are extremely fantastic - i hear the fuzz are down there now tho" "yeah baby the fuzz come in about last Christmas - the scene now is in the jungle" "would you like to go for a ride on my stallion - we'll drop the gardener off" "yeah baby sure - then maybe we'll come back & shoot the bull" "all right - sounds wizzy - i got my gun & we can talk about Kadalawoppa & everything" "Kadalawoppa yeah did you ever know Puny Jim down there?" "no but what about Lupe d'Lupe - did you know him - he's a retired coffee expert - comes from the coast?" "yes - oh my god i did  - i found him extremely uh . . . extremely . yes" "he's a natural baby - he's a natural - a meth - head but he's all beautiful - he's the one that showed me that the jungle was there" "yes me too - i found him extremely interesting" . . . nite falls

now & Scrounge takes Suckup girl by the leg - she rearranges her mouth & they both go out the back door looking at the moon . . . Fringe is conceived a greasy fat newspaper lays on Roger's counter - Roger, the owner of Cafe de la All Nite - a spanish all nite restaurant - is sad for the first time in 9 months - his mother has disappeared in Paris & he fears now that all those frenchmen might have their fun over what they think is her dead body . . . roger glances thru the facts of the fat greasy newspapers tiger stampede in hollywood - annette & frankie avalon found in pacific ocean - hands tied behind their backs - footage of bugs bunny documentary found in the lungs of tom mix, whom everybody thought was dead but showed up as a boxtop - rebels attack Walgreen's in Fantasia - dictator wires for more candy - U.S. sending in marines & arnold stang – in Phoenix, man eats his wife at 2 in the afternoon - FBI investigating/ bomb explodes in norman mailer's pantry - leaves him color blind - big shakeup in sports department – ed sullivan & Freshkid, a relative of Prince Rainier & visiting this country as a guest of Cong Long, a grandson of Huey Long - seen escaping with catchers' mitts – contact lenses & dope tablets - Bishop Sheen very disturbed - when asked for opinion - just stated "i cant believe it - i cant believe this could happen to ed - it mustve been the company he's been keeping lately" - william buckshot junior writing oriental cookbook - is very upset that he's lived after falling off diving board with no water in the pool - walter crankcase arrested in Utah for lifting candles - when questioned, he calmly explained that he needed them to listen to some early little richard records - Doctor Sponge, inventor of deer poison & snap crackle & pop cereal - willing to take case for slight fee/ little girls spray chancellor erhard with goose fat on his arrival from miami - president lets embarrassing fart at banquet table - blames it on the eggs - stock market takes worst dive in years - in gary, indiana, colored man shot twenty times thru the head - coroner says cause of death is unknown . . . no good movies playing in town & only one job in the want ads - NEEDED: a honest man to be rag picker for friendly family - must be sturdy - preferably a basketball player -  must have a love for children - couch & a toilet - wages to be discussed - phone TOongee 1965 ... Roger puts down his greasy paper & who should come in but Scrounge the Suckup girl - it is early morning & they are not lovers anymore - they are customers

FALSE EYELASH IN MARIA'S TRANSMISSION

maria - she's mexican - but she's american as Howling Wolf  - "my worried mind, it annoys me! i cant take my rest! i'm disgusting!" says her brother, who sneaks across the border & gets drunk on skinny whores & Turkish gas - "maria needs a shot" says King Villager "she needs a shot of a very bored God" - the rest of the villagers sing a song that sounds like "oh the days of forty - nine" in a Welsh accent & Adlai Stevenson starting a riot on the mountaintop . . . maria once nailed coffins for a living - "i will bust a plate-glass window over Adlai Stevenson's head! " says her brother very drunk on Turkish gas "I will prove to him that he too is a masochist - i shall make him bend like a woman & wish he was on a freight train to Frisco" - a marine with his finger nibbled - josephine – whose grandfather died at Shiloh stabbed maria once & hid her clothes - she was arrested on an incest charge . . . King Villager, who is slowly dying of cancer, polishes his noisy beard now & mutters "cops progress - american monuments" & "nothing matters" maria has made love with a beggar recently - he was disguised in flamboyant tinfoil - they made it in ' a saddlebag - she can run a mile in 5 days point 9 & the traveling roadshow that comes thru the town once a year respects her for it . . .maria's father lays dead on the hill - rich pimps - human it & civilization walk over his grave to show her that he means business... she is not going on any goodwill tours this year - there is a false eyelash in her transmission..... there is not many places she can taste

this is my last letter - I've tried to please you, but i see now that you have too much on your mind - what you need is someone to flatter you - i would do that, but what would be the worth? after all, i need nothing from you - you are so much tied up in, though, that you have turned into a piece of hunger - while the mystics of the world jump in the sun, you have turned into a lampshade - if you're going to think, dont think about why people don’t love each other - think about why they dont love themselves maybe then, you will begin to love them - if you have something to say, let me know, i'm just around the corner, located by the flight controls - take it easy & dont scratch too much - watch the green peppers & I think you've had enough popcorn - you're turning into an addict as i said, there's simply nothing i can give you excpt a simply - there is nothing i can take from you excpt a guilty conscience - i cant give nor take any habit... see you at the masquerade ball tormented

water boy

AL AARAAF & THE FORCING COMMITTEE

now the anarchist - we call him Moan - he takes us & Medusa - she carries the wigs – Moan carries the maps - by noon, we're in Abyss Hallway - there are shadows of jugglers on the wall & from out of the Chelsea part of the ceiling drops Monk - Moan's boy – Medusa going into a room with two swords above the door - some removable mirrors inside Medusa disappears . . . Lacky, a strange counterpart of the organization - he comes out of the room carrying a mirror - both swords above the door fall down - one sticks into the floor - the other slices him in half . . . Monk, typical flunky & writer of eccentric gag lines to tell yourself i you're ever hung up in the Andes - he leads us into a room with Chinese sayings that all read "a penny slaved is a penny is a penny is a penny" . -  . there is a gigantic looking glass & Monk immediately disintegrates . . . after lunch, you hear a punch of rocks & car accidents over a loudspeaker & Chang Chung - some transient & a professional extra sensual bum without any pride or shame & he's selling rebel war cries & "how to become a birth control pill' pamphlets"invent me a signature" says Mom "i must go sign some papers concerning the zippers of truth" "zippers of truth!" says Chang Chung "there is no truth!" "right" says Moan "but there are zippers" "very sorry - velly solly - it is my mistake - it's just that i'm wearing huge shoes today that's all" "dont let it happen again" says Moan, staring down to his own shoes ... down the  hallway now in a wheelchair comes Photochick - she is the flower of Moan & she's eating a cowpie

Grady O'lady comes in - gives everybody the nod & wants to know where she can get a maid - 't dig henry miller?" she asks kind of snaky like - '(you mean that fantastically dead henry miller? the real estate agent henry miller?" "what you mean?" say Grady O'lady "henry's not a real estate agent - he's a cavedweller - he's an artist - he writes about God" "i'm thinking of another henry miller - i'm thinking of the one that wears a tulip in his crotch & writes about cecil b. de mille's girls ... O'lady takes an orange out of her pocket "got this in the Aztec country - watch me now boys" she takes the orange & squeezes it very gently & slowly - then she rips it open madly & snarls & it oozes & dribbles down her mouth - all over her shirt - more - more she's all covered in orange - Moan comes in with his art critic - Sean Checkshit & both of them - they start discussing a shipping deal "Junior Bork has just finished his novel on World War I - speaks very good for our side & we must remember not to use it for toilet paper" "i'm going to use it for toilet paper" says Photochick "explain yourself! " says Moan & Photochick explains that one person's truth is always someone else's lie & Moan he starts whipping her with his map & she starts crying & walks into a room with mirrors & blows up - "now back to this shipping deal" says Moan, who turns around to find Sean Checkshit on the floor with Grady O'lady & they're both covered in orange "tell me more about this henry miller" says Sean "oo ah isn't it wonderful" says Grady O'lady in Ponce de Leon land - the union leader - Stormy Leader is on exhibition fighting a lady wrestler ... out of his past appears Insanely Hoppy screaming & dancing Screaming pouting "the world belongs to the woikas - the woikas - none of you want to be woikas - none of you - none of you could make it - none of you" "shut up!" says Moan, who comes in the room unnoticed "shut up - I've got a backache & anyway it's workers not woikas! " "the world is his - it's his that looks like a walrus & moves about like a walrus & has to sleep with a wife that feels like a walrus & he's forced to be a walrus for a buncha nagging kids & he goes to nagging walrus ball games & plays poker with a bunch of walruses & then he's driven into the earth & buried with a walrus in his mouth - i dare not say enough about him - he lives in his armpit & he hates you - he has no need for you – you clutter his life - you are lucky to be hanging around in his world you have no choice excpt to walk naked - why be so honorable about it - why be so honorable about sleeping with pigs?" CRASH "put that boy in with proverb writers - but give him a bad review & say that he beat his wife & ate pork say that he ate meat on Friday say anything - just get him out of here till he's ready for training" . . . a lost pony express rider peers out from the trap door - he is carrying a picture of a long corridor & he sort of blows out his words when he talks "you are all fools! you cant add! you can count to a million but none of you - none of you - can see the sum total of the ground on which you stand on" Darling the

Hypocrite immediately lights a fire to the floor & People Gringo pounds his fist on a book & says that rocking chair & watermelon are the same word only with different letters . . . St. Bread from the riot squad - entering with his chess pieces & a hilarious hard on & he laughs too mother say go in That direction & please do the greatest deed of all time & say i say mother but it's already been done & she say VEHEMENT what else is there for you to do & i say i dont know mother, but i'm not going in That direction - i'm going in that direction & she say ok but where will you be & i say i dont know mother but i'm not tom joad & she say all right then i am not your mother

prince hamlet of his hexagram - sheik of unsanitary angel she rides on a bareback instrument - exact factor concerning the reality of grandstand - Taj Mahal & Clytia's sundial missing - this exact factor missing . . . nevertheless - the bubbling under does not disturb him - Lilith teaches her new husband, Bubba, how to use deodorant - also she teaches him that "stinky doo doo" means nasty filth & both of these teachings together add up to Bubbling Under Number One . . . Obie Doesn't - whose eyes are waxed & that they say lives in a world of his own - he keeps repeating "these aint normal people are they? are they? oh my God - pass the crackers - these aren't normal people are they? hello hello can you hear me?" "yes yes it's true - they are - they are the normal people" says prince - who gives Obie a little tickle makes him laugh "but remember - it's like the boogie man told the centaur when the centaur invaded the territory of the Giant Mother Geese, 'you dont have to be around those people' - by the way, i've heard you live in a world of your own "yes it's true" says Obie "& i also dont go to birthday parties" "very good" says the prince "keep up the good work" . . . about this bareback instrument - sometimes the prince is sure he's on it but not so sure he's riding on it - at other times, he's sure he's riding on it, but not so sure it's bareback - at odd moments, the prince is sure that he's riding on something bareback but not so sure it's an instrument . . . all his daily adventures, unsuccessful potatoes & other pirates try to pin him down to Certainality & put him in his place once & for all "care to arm wrestle?" say some "you're a phony - you're no prince!" say the smarter ones who go into bathtubs & ask for the usual .

. . the prince sees many jacks & jilts come tumbling down "funny how when you look, you cant find any pieces to pick up" he says this usually once a day to his bareback

instrument who never talks back - most good souls dont it is not that there is no

Receptive for anything written or acted in the first person - it is just that there is no Second person

MAMMOTH NOAH & the orient marauders all on the morality rap & Priest of Harmony

in a narrow costume - he's with the angels now & he says "all's useless - useless" & Instinct, poet of the antique zenith - putting on his hoofs & whinnying "all's not useless – all is very signifying! " & the insane pied piper stealing the Queen's Pawn & the conquering war cry "neither - neither" & jails being cremated & jail in I fall' g & newly arrived spirits digging - digging their finger nails - their fingernails into each other . . .

Goal - H Cari & the Cruel Mother teasing at your harmless fate . . the sight of george raft - richard nixon - liberace - d.h. lawrence & pablo casals - all the same person - & struggle - struggle & your weapons of curls blowing & Digging - Diggin Everything aretha - known in gallup as number 69 - in wheeling as the cat's in heat - in Pittsburgh as number 5 - in brownsville as the left road, the lonesome sound - in atlanta as dont dance, listen - in bowling green as oh no, no, not again - she's known as horse chick up in cheyenne - in new york city she's known as just plain aretha... i shall play her as my trump card

i would like to do something worthwhile like perhaps plan a on the ocean but i am just a guitar player - with no absurd fears of her reputation, Black Gal co - exists with melody & i want to feel my evaporation like Black Gal feels her co - existence... i do not want to carry a pitchfork

prince hamlet - he's somewhere on the totem pole - he hums a little shallow tune "oh killing me by the grave" - aretha lady godiva of the migrants - she sings too ... there are a lot of historians under the totem pole - all pretending to be making a living - there's also a lot of spies & customs agents  - the popes dont quit & the artists live in the meantime - the meantime dies & in its place comes the sometimes - there is never any real sometime & the customs agents & spies usually turn into star ice skaters on a winter vacation & they brood about the meantime/ they usually dont know anybody under the totem pole excpt their elders . . . San Francisco freezing & New York neath spells of Poe & famous barbarians "you can make it if you have nothing" lips prince to a spaghetti dinner - wasting away on a slushy rink - belonging to nobody & the lumberjacks are coming "i'm searching - i'm searching for some kind of meaning!" says Jug the Lady, an escaped werewolf - she wears a chrome head piece & has been studying Yugoslavia for the past ten months - she has a built - in jukebox on her motorcycle "your mind is small - it is limited - what kind of sense must you need?" says prince "i want to be on the totem pole too" she confides "the lumberjacks are coming" says prince & then he takes out his shirt tail & begins to draw circles on the air "there are magnets on this shirt tail & they all pick up pieces of minute - now you see - i've got something to do why'n you go see this fellow - Moan is his name - he'll straighten you - & if he cant - he knows someone that can" one of Jug's friends, a drummer who doesn't drum but rather just drops his sticks on the drums - comes out of the bushes  - rather a sadist type & whose entire wardrobe consists of marine's uniform & a washed out nurse's outfit - he yells "i' looking for a partner - gimme some secrets! " & then there' two little boys playing & one says "if i owned the world, each man would have a million dollars" & one says "if i owned the world - each man would have the chance to save the world once in his lifetime" . . . prince hamlet of his hexagram - he pulls a train & makes love to miss Julie Ann Johnson "i said gimme some secrets - i'm just the usual beer" says this drummer & prince carves Memphis - London & Viet Nam into the pole "there are only a few things that exist: Boogie Woogie - highpowered frogs - Nashville Blues - harmonicas walking - 80 moons & sleeping midgets - there are only three things that continue: Life - Death & the lumberjacks are coming"

CHRONICLES

LOU LEVY, top man of Leeds Music Publishing company, took me up in a taxi to the Pythian Temple on West 70th Street to show me the pocket sized recording studio where Bill Haley and His Comets had recorded "Rock Around the Clock"-then down to Jack Dempsey's restaurant on 58th and Broadway, where we sat down in a red leather upholstered booth facing the front window.

Lou introduced me to Jack Dempsey, the great boxer. Jack shook his fist at me. "You look too light for a heavyweight kid, you'll have to put on a few pounds. You're gonna have to dress a little finer, look a little sharper-not that you'll need much in the way of clothes when you're in the ring--don't be afraid of hitting somebody too hard."

"He's not a boxer, Jack, he's a songwriter and we'll be publishing his songs."

"Oh, yeah, well I hope to hear 'em some of these days. Good luck to you, kid."

Outside the wind was blowing, straggling cloud wisps, snow whirling in the red lanterned streets, city types scuffling around, bundled up-salesmen in rabbit fur earmuffs hawking gimmicks, chestnut vendors, steam rising out of manholes.

None of it seemed important. I had just signed a contract with Leeds Music giving it the right to publish my songs, not that there was any great deal to hammer out. I hadn't written much yet. Lou had advanced me a hundred dollars against future royalties to sign a paper and that was fine with me.

John Hammond, who had brought me to Columbia Records, had taken me over to see Lou, asked him to look after me. Hammond had only heard two of my original compositions, but he had a premonition that there would be more.

Back at Lou's office, I opened my guitar case, took the guitar out and began fingering the strings. The room was cluttered-boxes of sheet music stacked up, recording dates of artists posted on bulletin boards, black lacquered discs, acetates with white labels scrambled around, signed photos of entertainers, glossy portraits-Jerry Vale, A] Martino, The Andrews Sisters (Lou was married to one of them), Nat King Cole, Patti Page, The Crew Cuts-a couple of console reel-to-reel tape recorders, big dark brown wooden desk fun of hodgepodge. Lou had put a microphone on the desk in front of me and plugged the cord into one of the tape recorders, all the while chomping on a big exotic stogie.

"John's got high hopes for you," Lou said.

John was John Hammond, the great talent scout and discoverer of monumental artists, imposing figures in the history of recorded music-Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, Charlie Christian, Cab Calloway, Benny Goodman, Count Basic, Lionel Hampton. Artists who had created music that resonated through American life. He had brought it all to the public eye. Hammond had even conducted the last recording sessions of Bessie Smith. He was legendary, pure American aristocracy. His mother- was an original Vanderbilt, and John had been raised in the upper world, in comfort and ease but he wasn't satisfied and had followed his own heart's love, music, preferably the ringing rhythm of hot jazz, spirituals and blues-which he endorsed and defended with his life. No one could block his way, and he didn't have time to waste. I could hardly believe myself awake when sitting in his office, him signing me to Columbia Records was so unbelievable. It would have sounded like a made-up thing.

Columbia was one of the first and foremost labels in the country and for me to even get my foot in the door was serious. For starters, folk music was considered junky, second rate and only released on small labels. Big-time record companies were strictly for the elite, for music that was sanitized and pasteurized. Someone like myself would never be allowed in except under extraordinary circumstances. But John was an extraordinary man. He didn't make schoolboy records or record schoolboy artists. He had vision and foresight, had seen and heard me, felt my thoughts and had faith in the things to come. He explained that he saw me as someone in the long line of a tradition, the tradition of blues, jazz and folk and not as some newfangled wunderkind on the cutting edge. Not that there was any cutting edge. Things were pretty sleepy on the Americana music scene in the late '50s and early '60s. Popular radio was sort of at a standstill and filled with empty pleasantries. It was years before The Beatles, The Who or The Rolling Stones would breathe new life and excitement into it. What I was playing at the time were hard-lipped folk songs with fire and brimstone servings, and you didn't need to take polls to know that they didn't match up with anything on the radio, didn't lend themselves to commercialism, but John told me that these things weren't high on his list and he understood all the implications of what I did.

"I understand sincerity," is what he said. John spoke with a rough, coarse attitude, yet had an appreciative twinkle in his eye.

Recently he had brought Pete Seeger to the label. He didn't discover Pete, though. Pete had been around for years. He'd been in the popular folk group The Weavers, but had been blacklisted during the McCarthy era and had a hard time, but he never stopped working. Hammond was defiant when he spoke about Seeger, that Pete's ancestors had come over on the Mayflower, that his relatives had fought the Battle of Bunker Hill, for Christsake. "Can you imagine those sons of bitches blacklisting him? They should be tarred and feathered."

"I'm gonna give you all the facts," he said to me. "You're a talented young man. If you can focus and control that talent, you'll be fine. I'm gonna bring you in and I'm gonna record you. We'll see what happens."

And that was good enough for me. He put a contract in front of me, the standard one, and I signed it right then and there, didn't get absorbed into details--didn't need a lawyer, advisor or anybody looking over my shoulder. I would have gladly signed whatever form he put in front of me.

He looked at the calendar, picked out a date for me to start recording, pointed to it and circled it, told me what time to come in and to think about what I wanted to play. Then he called in Billy James, the head of publicity at the label, told Billy to write some promo stuff on me, personal stuff for a press release.

Billy dressed Ivy League like he could have come out of Yale-medium height, crisp black hair. He looked like he'd never been stoned a day in his life, never been in any kind of trouble. I strolled into his office, sat down opposite his desk, and he tried to get me to cough up some facts, like I was supposed to give them to him straight and square. He took out a notepad and pencil and asked me where I was from. I told him I was from Illinois and he wrote it down. He asked me if I ever did any other work and I told him that I had a dozen jobs, drove a bakery truck once. He wrote that down and asked me if there was anything else. I said I'd worked construction and he asked me where.

"Detroit."

"You traveled around?"

He asked me about my family, where they were. I told him I had no idea, that they were long gone.

"What was your home life like?" I told him I'd been kicked out. "What did your father do?" electrician.

"And your mother, what about her?" "Housewife."

"What kind of music do you play?" "Folk music."

"What kind of music is folk music?"

I told him it was handed down songs. I hated these kind of questions. Felt I could ignore them. Billy seemed unsure of me and that was just fine. I didn't feel like answering his questions anyway, didn't feel the need to explain anything to anybody.

"How did you get here?" he asked me.

"I rode a freight train."

"You mean a passenger train?"

"No, a freight train."

"You mean, like a boxcar?"

"Yeah, like a boxcar. Like a freight train."

"Okay, a freight train."

I gazed past Billy, past his chair through his window across the street to an office building where I could see a blazing secretary soaked up in the spirit of something - she was scribbling busy, occupied at a desk in a meditative manner. There was nothing funny about her. I wished I had a telescope. Billy asked me who I saw myself like in today's music scene. I told him, nobody. That part of things was true, I really didn't see myself like anybody. The rest of it, though, was pure hokum-hophead talk.

I hadn't come in on a freight train at all. What I did was come across the country from the Midwest in a four-door sedan, '57 Impala-straight out of Chicago, clearing the hen out of there - racing all the way through the smoky towns, winding roads, green fields covered with snow, onward, eastbound through the state lines, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, a twenty-four-hour ride, dozing most of the way in the backseat, making small talk. My mind fixed on hidden interests ... eventually riding over the George Washington Bridge.

The big car came to a full stop on the other side and let me out. I slammed the door shut behind me, waved good-bye, stepped out onto the hard snow. The biting wind hit me in the face. At last I was here, in New York City, a city like a web too intricate to understand and I wasn't going to try.

I was there to find singers, the ones I'd heard on record Dave Van Ronk, Peggy Seeger, Ed McCurdy, Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, Josh White, The New Lost City Ramblers, Reverend Gary Davis and a bunch of others  - most of all to find Woody Guthrie. New York City, the city that would come to shape my destiny. Modern Gomorrah. I was at the initiation point of square one but in no sense a neophyte.

When I arrived, it was dead-on winter. The cold was brutal and every artery of the city was snow packed, but I'd started out from the frostbitten North Country, a little corner of the earth where the dark frozen woods and icy roads didn't faze me. I could transcend the limitations. It wasn't money or love that I was looking for. I had a heightened sense of awareness, was set in my ways, impractical and a visionary to boot. My mind was strong like a trap and I didn't need any guarantee of validity. I didn't know a single soul in this dark freezing metropolis but that was all about to change-and quick.

The Cafe Wha? was a club on MacDougal Street in the heart of Greenwich Village. The place was a subterranean cavern, liquorless, ill lit, low ceiling, like a wide dining hall with chairs and tables opened at noon, closed at four in the morning. Somebody had told me to go there and ask for a singer named Freddy Neil who ran the daytime show at the Wha?

I found the place and was told that Freddy was downstairs in the basement where the coats and hats were checked and that's where I met him. Neil was the MC of the room and the maestro in charge of all the entertainers. He couldn't have been nicer. He asked me what I did and I told him I sang, played guitar and harmonica. He asked me to play something. After about a minute, he said I could play harmonica with him during his sets. I was ecstatic. At least it was a place to stay out of the cold. This was good.

Fred played for about twenty minutes and then introduced all the rest of the acts, then came back up to play whenever he felt like it, whenever the joint was packed. The acts were disjointed, awkward and seemed to have come from the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, a popular TV show. The audience was mostly collegiate types, suburbanites, lunch-hour secretaries, sailors and tourists. Everybody performed from ten to fifteen minutes. Fred would play for however long he felt, however long the inspiration would last. Freddy had the flow, dressed conservatively, sullen and brooding, with an enigmatical gaze, peachlike complexion, hair splashed with curls and an angry and powerful baritone voice that struck blue notes and blasted them to the rafters with or without a mike. He was the emperor of the place, even had his own harem, his devotees. You couldn't touch him. Everything revolved around him. Years later, Freddy would write the hit song "Everybody's Talkin'." I never played any of my own sets. I just accompanied Neil on all of his and that's where I began playing regular in New York.

The daytime show at the Cafe Wha?, an extravaganza of patchwork, featured anybody and anything-a comedian, a ventriloquist, a steel drum group, a poet, a female impersonator, a duo who sang Broadway stuff, a rabbit-in-the-hat magician, a guy wearing a turban who hypnotized people in the audience, somebody whose entire act was facial acrobatics just anybody who wanted to break into show business. Nothing that would change your view of the world. I wouldn't have wanted Fred's gig for anything.

At about eight o'clock, the whole daytime menagerie would come to a halt and then the professional show would begin. Comedians like Richard Pryor, Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, Lenny Bruce and commercial folk singing groups like The Journeymen would command the stage. Everyone who had been there during the day would pack up. One of the guys who played in the afternoons was the falsetto-speaking Tiny Tim. He played ukulele and sang like a girl-old standard songs from the '20s. I got to talking to him a few times and asked him what other kinds of places there were to work around here and he told me that sometimes he played at a place in Times Square called Hubert's Flea Circus Museum. I'd find out about that place later.

Fred was constantly being pestered and pressured by moocher types who wanted to play or perform one thing or another. The saddest character of all was a guy named Billy the Butcher. He looked like he came out of nightmare alley. He only played one song-"High-Heel Sneakers" and he was addicted to it like a drug. Fred would usually let him play it sometime during the day, mostly when the place was empty. Billy would always preface his song by saying "This is for all you chicks." The Butcher wore an overcoat that was too small for him, buttoned tight across the chest. He was jittery and sometime in the past he'd been in a straitjacket in Bellevue, also had burned a mattress in a jail cell. All kinds of bad things had happened to Billy. There was a fire between him and everybody else. He sang that one song pretty good, though.

Another popular guy wore a priest's outfit and red-topped boots with little bells and did warped takes on stories from the Bible. Moondog also performed down here. Moondog was a blind poet who lived mostly on the streets. He wore a Viking helmet and a blanket with high fur boots. Moondog did monologues, played bamboo pipes and whistles. Most of the time he performed on 42nd Street.

My favorite singer in the place was Karen Dalton. She was a tall white blues singer and guitar player, funky, lanky and sultry. I'd actually met her before, run across her the previous summer outside of Denver in a mountain pass town in a folk club. Karen had a voice like Billie Holiday's and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed and went all the way with it. I sang with her a couple of times.

Fred always tried to make a place for most performers and was as diplomatic as possible. Sometimes the room would be inexplicably empty, sometimes half-empty and then suddenly for no apparent reason it would be flushed with people with lines outside. Fred was the man down here, the main attraction and his name was on the marquee, so maybe a lot of these people came to see him. I don't know. He played a big dreadnought guitar, lot of percussion in his playing, piercing driving rhythm-a one-man band, a kick in the head singing voice. He did fierce versions of hybrid chain gang songs and whomped the audience into a frenzy. I'd heard stuff about him, that he was an errant sailor, harbored a skiff in Florida, was an underground cop, had hooker friends and a shadowy past. He'd come up to Nashville, drop off songs that he wrote and then head for

New York where he'd lay low, wait for something to blow over and fill up his pockets with wampum. Whatever it was, it wasn't a huge story. He seemed to have no aspirations. We were very compatible, didn't talk personal at all. He was very much like me, polite but not overly friendly, gave me pocket change at the end of the day, said "Here ... so you'll keep out of trouble."

The best part of working with him, though, was strictly gastronomical-all the French fries and hamburgers I could eat. At some point during the day, Tiny Tim and I would go in the kitchen and hang around. Norbert the cook would usually have a greasy burger waiting. Either that, or he'd let us empty a can of pork and beans or spaghetti into a frying pan. Norbert was a trip. He wore a tomato-stained apron, had a fleshy, hard-bitten face, bulging cheeks, scars on his face like the marks of claws-thought of himself as a lady's man-saving his money so he could go to Verona in Italy and visit the tomb of Romeo and Juliet. The kitchen was like a cave bored into the side of a cliff.

One afternoon I was in there pouring Coke into a glass from a milk pitcher when I heard a voice coming cool through the screen of the radio speaker. Ricky Nelson was singing his new song, "Traveln' Man." Ricky had a smooth touch, the way he crooned in fast rhythm, the intonation of his voice. He was different than the rest of the teen idols, had a great guitarist who played like a cross between a honky-tonk hero and a barn-dance fiddler. Nelson had never been a bold innovator like the early singers who sang like they were navigating burning ships. He didn't sing desperately, do a lot of damage, and you'd never mistake him for a shaman. It didn't feel like his endurance was ever being tested to the utmost, but it didn't matter. He sang his songs calm and steady like he was in the middle of a storm, men hurling past him. His voice was sort of mysterious and made you fall into a certain mood.

I had been a big fan of Ricky's and still liked him, but that type of music was on its way out. It had no chance of meaning anything. There'd be no future for that stuff in the future. It was all a mistake. What was not a mistake was the ghost of Billy Lyons, rootin' the mountain down, standing round in East Cairo, Black Betty bam. be lam. That was no mistake. That's the stuff that was happening. That's the stuff that could make you question what you'd always accepted, could litter the landscape with broken hearts, had power of spirit. Ricky, as usual, was singing bleached out lyrics. Lyrics probably written just for him. I'd always felt kin to him, though. We were about the same age, probably liked the same things, from the same generation although our life experience had been so dissimilar, him being brought up out West on a family TV show. It was like he'd been born and raised on Walden Pond where everything was hunky-dory, and I'd come out of the dark demonic woods, same forest, just a different way of looking at things. Ricky's talent was very accessible to me. I felt we had a lot in common. In a few years' time he'd record some of my songs, make them sound like they were his own, like he had written them himself. He eventually did write one himself and mentioned my name in it. Ricky, in about ten years' time, would even get booed while onstage for changing what was perceived as his musical direction. It turned out we did have a lot in common.

There was no way to know that standing in the kitchen of

the Cafe Wha? listening to that smooth, monotone drawl. The thing was that Ricky was still making records and that's what I wanted to do, too. I envisioned myself recording for Folkways Records. That was the label I wanted to be on. That was the label that put out all the great records.

Ricky's song ended and I gave the rest of my French fries to Tiny Tim, went back into the outer room to see what Fred was up to. I had asked Fred once if he had any records out and he said, "That's not my game." Fred used darkness as a musically potent weapon, but as skilled and powerful as he was, there was something that he lacked as a performer. I couldn't figure out what it was. When I saw Dave Van Ronk I knew.

Van Ronk worked at the Gaslight, a cryptic club-had a dominant presence on the street, more prestige than anyplace else. It had mystique, a big colorful banner out front and paid a weekly wage. Down a flight of stairs next to a bar called the Kettle of Fish, the Gaslight was non-booze but you could bring a bottle in a paper bag. It was shut down in the day and opened early in the evening with about six performers that rotated throughout the night, a closed drawn circle that an unknown couldn't break into. There weren't any auditions. It was a club I wanted to play, needed to.

Van Ronk played there. I'd heard Van Ronk back in the Midwest on records and thought he was pretty great, copied some of his recordings phrase for phrase. He was passionate and stinging, sang like a soldier of fortune and sounded like he paid the price. Van Ronk could howl and whisper, turn blues into ballads and ballads into blues. I loved his style. He was what the city was all about. In Greenwich Village, Van Ronk was king of the street, he reigned supreme.

Once on a cold winter day near Thompson and 3rd, in a flurry of light snow when the feeble sun was filtering through the haze, I saw him walking towards me in a frosty silence. It was like the wind was blowing him my way. I wanted to talk to him, but something was off. I watched him go by, saw the flash in his eye. It was a fleeting moment and I let it go. I wanted to play for him, though. Actually, I wanted to play for anybody. I could never sit in a room and just play all by myself. I needed to play for people and all the time. You can say I practiced in public and my whole life was becoming what I practiced. I kept my sights on the Gaslight. How could I not? Compared to it, the rest of the places on the street were nameless and miserable, low-level basket houses or small coffeehouses where the performer passed the hat. But I began to play as many as I could. I had no choice. The narrow streets were infused with them. They were small and ranged in shape, loud and noisy and catered to the confection of tourists who swarmed through the streets at night. Anything could pass for one double door parlor rooms, storefronts, second story walk-ups, basements below street level, all holes in the wall.

There was an unusual beer and wine place on 3rd Street in what used to be Aaron Burr's livery stable, now called Cafe Bizarre. The patrons were mostly workingmen who sat around laughing, cussing, eating red meat, talking pussy. There was a small stage in the back and I played there once or twice. I probably played all the places at one time or another. Most of them stayed open 'til the break of day, kerosene lamps and sawdust on the floor, some with wooden

benches, a strong-armed guy at the door-no cover charge and the owners tried to offload as much coffee as they could. Performers either sat or stood in the window, visible to the street, or were positioned at the opposite end of the room facing the door, singing at the top of their voices. No microphones or anything.

Talent scouts didn't come to these dens. They were dark and dingy and the atmosphere was chaotic. Performers sang and passed the hat or played while watching tourists file past, hoping some of them would toss coins into a breadbasket or guitar case. On weekends, if you played all the joints from dusk 'til dawn, you could make maybe twenty dollars. Weeknights it was hard to tell. Sometimes not much because it was so competitive. You had to know a trick or two to survive.

One singer I crossed paths with a lot, Richie Havens, always had a nice-looking girl with him who passed the hat and I noticed that he always did well. Sometimes she passed two hats. If you didn't have some kind of trick, you'd come off with an invisible presence, which wasn't good. A couple of times, I hooked up with a girl I knew from the Cafe Wha?, a waitress who was good to the eye. We'd go from place to place, I'd play and she'd take up collection, wear a funny little bonnet, heavy black mascara, low laced blouse-looked almost naked from the waist up under a capelike coat. I'd split the money with her later, but it was too much of a hassle to do it all the time. I still made more when she was with me than when I was working on my own.

What really set me apart in these days was my repertoire. It was more formidable than the rest of the coffeehouse players, my template being hard-core folk songs backed by incessantly loud strumming. I'd either drive people away or they'd come in closer to see what it was all about. There was no in-between. There were a lot of better singers and better musicians around these places but there wasn't anybody close in nature to what I was doing. Folk songs were the way I explored the universe, they were pictures and the pictures were worth more than anything I could say. I knew the inner substance of the thing. I could easily connect the pieces. It meant nothing for me to rattle off things like "Columbus Stockade," "Pastures of Plenty," "Brother in Korea" and "If I Lose, Let Me Lose" all back to-back just like it was one long son,-. Most of the other performers tried to put themselves across, rather than the song, but I didn't care about doing that. With me, it was about putting the song across.

I had stopped going down to the Cafe Wha? in the afternoons. Never stepped foot in there again. Lost touch with Freddy Neil, too. Instead of going over there, I began hanging out at the Folklore Center, the citadel of Americana folk music. That was also on MacDougal Street, between Bleecker and 3rd. The small store was up a flight of stairs and the place had an antique grace. It was like an ancient chapel, like a shoebox sized institute. The Folklore Center sold and reported on everything that had to do with folk music. It had a wide plate-glass window where records and instruments were displayed.

One afternoon I went up the flight of stairs and wandered in there. I browsed around and met Izzy Young, the proprietor. Young was an old-line folk enthusiast, very sardonic and wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses, spoke in a thick Brooklyn dialect, wore wool slacks, skinny belt and work boots, tie at a careless slant. His voice was like a bulldozer and always seemed too loud for the little room. Izzy was always a little rattled over something or other. He was sloppily good natured. In reality, a romantic. To him, folk music glittered like a mound of gold. It did for me, too. The place was a crossroads junction for all the folk activity you could name and you might at any time see real hard-line folksingers in there. Some people picked up their mail there.

Young occasionally produced folk concerts by the unmistakably authentic folk and blues artists. He'd bring them in from out of town to play at Town Hall or at some university. At one time or another I saw Clarence Ashley, Gus Cannon, Mance Lipscomb, Tom Paley, Erik Darling hanging around in the place. There were a lot of esoteric folk records, too, all records I wanted to listen to. Extinct song folios of every type-sea shanties, Civil War songs, cowboy songs, songs of lament, church house songs, anti-Jim Crow songs, union songs-archaic books of folk tales, Wobbly journals, propaganda pamphlets about everything from women's rights to the dangers of boozing, one by Daniel De Foe, the English author of Moll Flanders. A few instruments for sale, dulcimers, five string banjos, kazoos, pennywhistles, acoustic guitars, mandolins. If you were wondering what folk music was all about, this was the place where you could get more than a vague glimmer.

Izzy had a back room with a potbellied wood-burning stove, crooked pictures and rickety chairs-old patriots and heroes on the wall, pottery with crossed-stitch design, lacquered black candlesticks ... lots of things having to do with craft. The little room was filled with American records and a phonograph. Izzy would let me stay back there and listen to them. I listened to as many as I could, even thumbed through a lot of his antediluvian folk scrolls. The madly complicated modern world was something I took little interest in. It had no relevancy, no weight. I wasn't seduced by it. What was swinging, topical and up to date for me was stuff like the Titanic sinking, the Galveston flood, John Henry driving steel, John Hardy shooting a man on the West Virginia line. All this was current, played out and in the open. This was the news that I considered, followed and kept tabs on.

As far as keeping tabs on things, Izzy kept a diary, too. It was some sort of ledger that he kept open on his desk. He'd ask me questions about myself like, where it was that I grew up and how did I get interested in folk music, where I discovered it, stuff like that. He'd then write about me in his diary. I couldn't imagine why. His questions were annoying, but I liked him because he was gracious to me and I tried to be considerate and forthcoming. I was very careful when talking to outsiders, but Izzy was okay and I answered him in plain talk.

He asked me about my family. I told him about my grandma on my mom's side who lived with us. She was filled with nobility and goodness, told me once that happiness isn't on the road to anything. That happiness is the road. Had also instructed me to be kind because everyone you'll ever meet is fighting a hard battle.

I couldn't imagine what Izzy's battles were. Internal, external, who knows? Young was a man that concerned himself with social injustice, hunger and homelessness and he didn't mind telling you so. His heroes were Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Moby Dick, the ultimate fish story, was his favorite tall tale. Young was besieged with bill collectors and dictates from the landlord. People were always chasing him down for money, but it didn't seem to faze him. He had a lot of resilience, had even fought city hall into allowing folk music to be played in Washington Square Park. Everybody was for him.

He'd pull out records for me. He'd given me a Country Gentlemen record and said I should listen to "Girl Behind the Bar." He played me "White House Blues" by Charlie Poole and said that this would be perfect for me and pointed out that this was the exact version that The Ramblers did. He played me the Big Bill Broonzy song "Somebody's Got to Go," and that was right up my alley, too. I liked hanging around at Izzy's. The fire was always crackling.

One winter day a big burly guy stepped in off the street. He looked like he'd come from the Russian embassy, shook the snow off his coat sleeves, took off his gloves and put them on the counter, asked to see a Gibson guitar that was hanging up on the brick wall. It was Dave Van Ronk. He was gruff, a mass of bristling hair, don't give a damn attitude, a confident hunter. My mind went into a rush. There was nothing between the man and me. Izzy took the guitar down and gave it to him. Dave fingered the strings and played some kind of jazzy waltz, put the guitar back on the counter. As he put the guitar down, I stepped over and put my hands on it and asked him at the same time how does someone get to work down at the Gaslight, who do you have to know? It's not like I was trying to get buddy-buddy with him, I just wanted to know.

Van Ronk looked at me curiously, was snippy and surly, asked if I did janitor work. I told him, no, I didn't and he could perish the thought, but could I play something for him? He said, "Sure." I played him "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out." Dave liked what he heard and asked me who I was and how long I'd been in town, then said I could come down about eight or nine in the evening and play a couple of songs in his set. That was how I met Dave Van Ronk.

I left the Folklore Center and went back into the ice chopping weather. Towards evening, I was over at the Mills Tavern on Bleecker Street where the basket-house singers would bunch up, chitchat and make the scene. My flamenco guitar-playing friend, Juan Moreno, told me about a new coffeehouse that had just opened on 3rd Street, called the Outter, but I was barely listening. Juan's lips were moving, but they were moving almost without sound. I'd never play in the Outter, didn't have to. I'd soon be hired to play at the Gaslight and never see the basket houses again. Outside of Mills Tavern the thermometer was creeping up to about ten below. My breath froze in the air, but I didn't feel the cold. I was heading for the fantastic lights. No doubt about it. Could it be that I was being deceived? Not likely. I don't think I had enough imagination to be deceived; had no false hope, either. I'd come from a long ways off and had started from a long ways down. But now destiny was about to manifest itself. I felt like it was looking right at me and nobody else.

I SAT UP in bed and looked around. The bed was a sofa in the living room and steam heat was rising out of the iron radiator. Above the fireplace, a framed portrait of a wigged colonial was staring back at me near the sofa, a wooden cabinet supported by fluted columns, near that, an oval table with rounded drawers, a chair like a wheelbarrow, small desk of violet wood veneer with flip-down drawers-a couch that was a padded back car seat with spring upholstery, a low chair with rounded back and scroll armrests-a thick French rug on the floor, silver light gleaming through the blinds, painted planks accenting the rooflines.

The room smelled of gin and tonic, wood alcohol and flowers. The place was a top floor walk-up in a Federal style building near Vestry Street below Canal and near the Hudson River. On the same block was the Bull's Head, a cellar tavern where John Wilkes Booth, the American Brutus, used to drink. I'd been in there once and saw his ghost in the mirror-an ill spirit. Paul Clayton, a folksinger friend of Van

Ronk, good-natured, forlorn and melancholic, who must have had at least thirty records out but was unknown to the American public-an intellectual, a scholar and a romantic with an encyclopedic knowledge of balladry-had introduced me to Ray Gooch and Chloe Kiel, the occupants of the place. I walked over to the window and looked out into the white, gray streets and over towards the river. The air was bitter cold, always below zero, but the fire in my mind was never out, like a wind vane that was constantly spinning. It was mid afternoon and both Ray and Chloe were gone.

Ray was maybe ten years older than me-from Virginia he was like an old wolf, gaunt and battle-scarred - came from a long line of ancestry made up of bishops, generals, even a colonial governor. He was a nonconformist, a nonintegrator and a Southern nationalist. He and Chloe lived in the place like they were hiding out. Ray was like a character from out of some of the songs I'd been singing, someone who had seen life, done deeds and lived romances-had traipsed around, had a broad grasp of the country, its conditions. Though there was an undercurrent of upheaval reverberating, and in a few years the American cities would tremble, Ray took little interest, said the real action was "in the Congo."

Chloe had red-gold hair, hazel eyes, an illegible smile, face like a doll and an even better figure, fingernails painted black. She worked as a hatcheck girl at the Egyptian Gardens, a belly-dancing dinner place on 8th Avenue also posed as a model for Cavalier magazine. "I've always worked," she said. They lived as husband and wife., or brother and sister, or cousins, it was hard to tell, they just lived here, that's all. Chloe had her own primitive way of looking at things, always would say mad stuff that clicked in a cryptic way, told me once that I should wear eye shadow because it keeps away the evil eye. I asked her whose evil eye and she said, "Joe Blow's or Joe Schmoe's." According to her, Dracula ruled the world and he's the son of Gutenberg, the guy who invented the printing press.

Being an heir of the '40s and '50s cultures, this kind of talk was fine with me. Gutenberg could have been some guy who stepped out of an old folk song, too. Practically speaking, the '50s culture was like a judge in his last days on the bench. It was about to go. Within ten years' time, it would struggle to rise and then come crashing to the floor. With folk songs embedded in my mind like a religion, it wouldn't matter. Folk songs transcended the immediate culture.

Before I moved into a place of my own, I'd stayed pretty much all over the Village. Sometimes for a night or two, sometimes for weeks or more. I stayed a lot at Van Ronk's. I probably stayed at Vestry Street off and on longer than anywhere. I liked it at Ray and Chloe's. I felt comfortable there. Ray had an elite background, even studied at Camden Military Academy in South Carolina, which he had left with "sincere and utter hatred." He'd also been "expelled with gratitude" from Wake Forest Divinity School, a religious college. He had parts of Byron's Don Juan memorized and could quote it also some of the beautiful lines of "Evangeline," the Longfellow poem. He was working in a tool-and-die factory in Brooklyn, but before that had drifted around, had been employed at the Studebaker plant in South Bend and also at an Omaha slaughterhouse on the kill floor. Once I asked him what that was like. "You ever heard of Auschwitz?" Sure I had, who hadn't? It was one of the Nazi death camps in Europe and Adolf Eichmann, the chief Nazi Gestapo organizer who'd managed them, had been put on trial recently in Jerusalem. He'd escaped after the war and was captured by the Israelis at a bus stop in Argentina. His trial was a big deal. On the witness stand Eichmann declared he was merely following orders, but his prosecutors had no problem proving that he had carried out his mission with monstrous zeal and relish. Eichmann had been convicted and his fate was now being decided. There was a lot of talk about sparing his life, even sending him back to Argentina, but that would have been foolish. Even if he was set free he probably wouldn't last an hour. The State of Israel claimed the right to act as heir and executor of all who perished in the final solution. The trial reminds the whole world of what led to the formation of the Israeli state.

I was born in the spring of 1941. The Second World War was already raging in Europe, and America would soon be in it. The world was being blown apart and chaos was already driving its fist into the face of all new visitors. If you were born around this time or were living and alive, you could feel the old world go and the new one beginning. It was like putting the clock back to when B.C. became A.D. Everybody born around my time was a part of both. Hitler, Churchill, Mussolini, Stalin, Roosevelt-towering figures that the world would never see the likes of again, men who relied on their own resolve, for better or worse, every one of them prepared to act alone, indifferent to approval-indifferent to wealth or love, all presiding over the destiny of mankind and reducing the world to rubble. Coming from a long line of Alexanders and Julius Caesars, Genghis Khans, Charlemagnes and Napoleons, they carved up the world like a really dainty dinner. Whether they parted their hair in the middle or wore a Viking helmet, they would not be denied and were impossible to reckon with-rude barbarians stampeding across the earth and hammering out their own ideas of geography.

My father was stricken with polio and it kept him out of the war, but my uncles had all gone and come back alive. Uncle Paul, Uncle Maurice, Jack, Max, Louis, Vernon and others had gone off to the Philippines, Anzio, Sicily, North Africa, France and Belgium. They brought back mementos and keepsakes-a straw Japanese cigarette case, German bread bag, a British enameled mug, German dust goggles, British fighting knife, a German Luger pistol-all kinds of junk. They returned to civilian life as if nothing ever happened, never said a word about what they did or what they saw.

In 1951 I was going to grade school. One of the things we were trained to do was to hide and take cover under our desks when the air-raid sirens blew because the Russians could attack us with bombs. We were also told that the Russians could be parachuting from planes over our town at any time. These were the same Russians that my uncles had fought alongside only a few years earlier. Now they had become monsters who were coming to slit our throats and incinerate us. It seemed peculiar. Living under a cloud of fear like this robs a child of his spirit. It's one thing to be afraid when someone's holding a shotgun on you, but it's another thing to be afraid of something that's just not quite real. There were a lot of folks around who took this threat seriously, though, and it rubbed off on you. It was easy to become a victim of their strange fantasy. I had the same teachers in school that my mother did. They were young in her time and elderly in mine. In American history class, we were taught that commies couldn't destroy America with guns or bombs alone, that they would have to destroy the Constitution-the document that this country was founded upon. It didn't make any difference, though. When the drill sirens went off, you had to lay under your desk facedown, not a muscle quivering and not make any noise. As if this could save you from the bombs dropping. The threat of annihilation was a scary thing. We didn't know what we did to anybody to make them so mad. The Reds were everywhere, we were told, and out for bloodlust. Where were my uncles, the defenders of the country? They were busy making a living, working, getting what they could and making it stretch. How could they know what was going on in the schools, what kind of fear was being roused?

All that was over now. I was in New York City, communists or no communists. There were probably plenty around. Plenty of fascists, too. Plenty of would-be left-wing dictators and right-wing dictators. Radicals of all stripes. It was said that World War 11 spelled the end of the Age of Enlightenment, but I wouldn't have known it. I was still in it. Somehow I could still remember and feel the light of something about it. I'd read that stuff. Voltaire, Rousseau, John Locke, Montesquieu, Martin Luther - visionaries, revolutionaries ... it was like I knew those guys, like they'd been living in my backyard.

I walked across the floor over to the cream colored drapes, pulled up the venetian blinds, seeing into the snowy streets. The furniture in the place was nice, some of it even hand built. That was nice, too-inlaid industrial dresser cabinets with highly stylized carvings with florid latches floor-to-ceiling ornamental bookcases, a long narrow rectangular table with metal elements with geometrics that seemed to follow some unguided rule-one amusing piece, an organically shaped console table resembled a big toe. There were electric plates ingeniously placed in closet shelves. The small kitchen was like a forest. Kitchen herb boxes stuffed with pennyroyal, woodruff, lilac leaves, other things. Chloe, a Southern girl with Northern blood, was skilled in the use of bathroom clotheslines and sometimes I'd find one of my shirts hanging in there. I usually came in before dawn and slid onto the sofa, which came out into a folding bed in the high portico living room. I often fell asleep to the sounds of the night train rumbling and grumbling through Jersey, the iron horse with steam for blood.

I'd seen and heard trains from my earliest childhood days and the sight and sound of them always made me feel secure. The big boxcars, the iron ore cars, freight cars, passenger trains, Pullman cars. There was no place you could go in my hometown without at least some part of the day having to stop at intersections and wait for the long trains to pass. Tracks crossed the rural roads and ran alongside them as well. The sound of trains off in the distance more or less made me feel at home, like nothing was missing, like I was at some level place, never in any significant danger and that everything was fitting together.

Across the street from where I stood looking out the window was a church with a bell tower. The ringing of bells made me feel at home, too. I'd always heard and listened to the bells. Iron, brass, silver bells-the bells sang. On Sunday, for services, on holidays. They clanged when somebody important died, when people were getting married. Any special occasion would make the bells ring. You had a pleasant

feeling when you heard the bells. I even liked doorbells and the NBC chimes on the radio. I looked out through the leaded glass window across to the church. The bells were silent now and snow swirled off the rooftops. A blizzard was kidnapping the city, life spinning around on a drab canvas. Icy and cold.

Across the way a guy in a leather jacket scooped frost off the windshield of a snow-packed black Mercury Montclair. Behind him, a priest in a purple cloak was slipping through the courtyard of the church through an opened gate on his way to perform some sacred duty. Nearby, a bareheaded woman in boots tried to manage a laundry bag up the street. There were a million stories, just everyday New York things if you wanted to focus in on them. It was always right out in front of you, blended together, but you'd have to pull it apart to make any sense of it. St. Valentine's Day, lovers' day, had come and gone and I hadn't noticed. I had no time for romance. I turned away from the window, from the wintry sun, crossed through the room, went to the stove and made and poured myself a cup of hot chocolate and then clicked on the radio.

I was always fishing for something on the radio. Just like trains and bells, it was part of the soundtrack of my life. I moved the dial up and down and Roy Orbison's voice came blasting out of the small speakers. His new song, "Running Seared," exploded into the room. Lately I'd been listening for songs with folk connotations. There had been some in the past: "Big Bad John," "Michael Row the Boat Ashore," "A Hundred Pounds of Clay." Brook Benton had made "Boll Weevil" a contemporary hit. The Kingston Trio and Brothers Four were getting radio play. I liked The Kingston Trio. Even though their style was polished and collegiate, I liked most of their stuff anyway. Songs like "Getaway John," "Remember the Alamo," "Long Black Rifle." There was always some kind of folk type song breaking through. "Endless Sleep," the Jodie Reynolds song that had been popular years before, had even been folk in character. Orbison, though, transcended all the genre&-folk, country, rock and roll or just about anything. His stuff mixed all the styles and some that hadn't even been invented yet. He could sound mean and nasty on one line and then sing in a falsetto voice like Frankie Valli in the next. With Roy, you didn't know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. He kept you on your toes. With him, it was all about fat and blood. He sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop and he meant business. One of his early songs, "Ooby Dooby," had been popular way previously, but this new song of his was nothing like that. "Ooby Dooby" was deceptively simple, but Roy had progressed. He was now singing his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he'd start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttering to yourself something like, "Man, I don't believe it." His songs had songs within songs. They shifted from major to minor key without any logic. Orbison was deadly serious-no pollywog and no fledgling juvenile. There wasn't anything else on the radio like him. I'd listen and wait for another song, but next to Roy the playlist was strictly dullsville ... gutless and flabby. It all came at you like you didn't have a brain. Outside of maybe George Jones, I didn't like country music either. Jim Reeves and Eddy Arnold, it was hard to know what was country about that stuff. All the wildness and weirdness had gone out of country music. Elvis Presley. Nobody listened to him either. It had been years since he had done his hip thing and taken songs to other planets. I still kept turning the radio on, probably more out of mindless habit than anything else. Sadly, whatever it played reflected nothing but milk and sugar and not the real Jekyll and Hyde themes of the times. The On the Road, Howl and Gasoline street ideologies that were signaling a new type of human existence weren't there, but how could you have expected it to be? 45 records were incapable of it.

I agonized- about making a record, but I wouldn't have wanted to make singles, 45s-the kind of songs they played on the radio. Folksingers, jazz artists and classical musicians made LPs, long-playing records with heaps of songs in the grooves-they forged identities and tipped the scales, gave more of the big picture. LPs were like the force of gravity. They had covers, back and front, that you could stare at for hours. Next to them, 45s were flimsy and uncrystallized. They just stacked up in piles and didn't seem important. I had no song in my repertoire for commercial radio anyway. Songs about debauched bootleggers, mothers that drowned their own children, Cadillacs that only got five miles to the gallon, floods, union hall fires, darkness and cadavers at the bottom of rivers weren't for radiophiles. There was nothing easygoing about the folk songs I sang. They weren't friendly or ripe with mellowness. They didn't-come gently to the shore. I guess you could say they weren't commercial. Not only that, my style was too erratic and hard to pigeonhole for the radio, and songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment. They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality, some different republic, some liberated republic. Greil Marcus, the music historian, would some

thirty years later call it "the invisible republic." Whatever the case, it wasn't that I was anti-popular culture or anything and I had no ambitions to stir things up. I just thought of mainstream culture as lame as hell and a big trick. It was like the unbroken sea of frost that lay outside the window and you had to have awkward footgear to walk on it. I didn't know what age of history we were in nor what the truth of it was. Nobody bothered with that. If you told the truth, that was all well and good and if you told the un-truth, well, that's still well and good. Folk songs had taught me that. As for what time it was, it was always just beginning to be daylight and I knew a little bit about history, too-the history of a few nations and states-and it was always the same pattern. Some early archaic period where society grows and develops and thrives, then some classical period where the society reaches its maturation point and then a slacking off period where decadence makes things fall apart. I had no idea which one of these stages America was in. There was nobody to check with. A certain rude rhythm was making it all sway, though. It was pointless to think about it. Whatever you were thinking could be dead wrong.

I cut the radio off, crisscrossed the room, pausing for a moment, to turn on the black-and-white TV. Wagon Train was on. It seemed to be beaming in from some foreign country. I shut that off, too, and went into another room, a windowless one with a painted door-a dark cavern with a floor-to-ceiling library. I switched on the lamps. The place had an overpowering presence of literature and you couldn't help but lose your passion for dumbness. Up until this time I'd been raised in a cultural spectrum that had left my mind black with soot. Brando. James Dean. Milton Berle. Marilyn Monroe. Lucy. Earl Warren and Khrushchev, Castro. Little Rock and Peyton Place. Tennessee Williams and Joe DiMaggio. J. Edgar Hoover and Westinghouse. The Nelsons. Holiday Inns and hot-rod Chevys. Mickey Spillane and Joe McCarthy. Levittown.

Standing in this room you could take it all for a joke. There were all types of things in here, books on typography, epigraphy, philosophy, political ideologies. The stuff that could make you bugged-eyed. Books like Fox Book of Martyrs, The Twelve Caesars, Tacitus lectures and letters to Brutus. Pericles' Ideal State of Democracy, Thucydides' The Athenian General-a narrative which would give you chills. It was written four hundred years before Christ and it talks about how human nature is always the enemy of anything superior. Thucydides writes about how words in his time have changed from their ordinary meaning, how actions and opinions can be altered in the blink of an eye. It's like nothing has changed from his time to mine.

There were novels by Gogol and Balzac, Maupassant, Hugo and Dickens. I usually opened up some book to the middle, read a few pages and if I liked it went back to the beginning. Materia Medica (the causes and cures for diseases) - that was a good one. I was looking for the part of my education that I never got. Sometimes I'd open up a book and see a handwritten note scribbled in the front, like in Machiavelli's The Prince, there was written, "The spirit of the hustler." "The cosmopolitan man" was written on the title page in Dante's Inferno. The books weren't arranged in any particular order or subject matter. Rousseau's Social Contract was next to Temptation of St. Anthony, and Ovid's Metamorphoses, the scary horror tale, was next to the autobiography of Davy Crockett. Endless rows of books-Sophocles' book on the nature and function of the gods-why there are only two sexes. Alexander the Great's march into Persia. When he conquered Persia, in order to keep it conquered, he had all of his men marry local women. After that, he never had any trouble with the population, no uprisings or anything. Alexander knew how to get absolute control. There was Sim6n Bolivar's biography, too. I wanted to read all these books, but I would have to have been in a rest home or something in order to do that. I read some of The Sound and the Fury, didn't quite get it, but Faulkner was powerful. I read some of the Albertus Magnus book ... the guy who mixed up scientific theories with theology. It was lightweight compared to Thucydides. Magnus seemed like a guy who couldn't sleep, writing this stuff late at night, clothes stuck to his clammy body. A lot of these books were too big to read, like giant shoes fitted for large-footed people. I read the poetry books, mostly. Byron and Shelley and Longfellow and Poe. I memorized Poe's poem "The Bells" and strummed it to a melody on my guitar. There was a book there on Joseph Smith, the authentic American prophet who identifies himself with Enoch in the Bible and says that Adam was the first mangod. This stuff pales in comparison to Thucydides, too. The books make the room vibrate in a nauseating and forceful way. The words of "La Vita Solitaria" by Leopardi seemed to come out of the trunk of a tree, hopeless, uncrushable sentiments.

There was a book by Sigmund Freud, the king of the subconscious, called Beyond the Pleasure Principle. I was thumbing through it once when Ray came in, saw the book and said, "The top guys in that field work for ad agencies. They deal in air." I put the book back and never picked it up again. I did read a biography about Robert E. Lee, though, read about how his father had been disfigured in a riot, had lye poured into his eyes and then abandoned his family and went to the West Indies. Robert E. Lee had grown up without a father. Lee had made something out of himself, nevertheless. Not only that, but it was on his word and his word alone that America did not get into a guerrilla war that probably would have lasted 'til this day. The books were something. They were really something.

I read a lot of the pages aloud and liked the sound of the words, the language. Milton's protest poem, "Massacre in Piedmont." A political poem about the murder of innocents by the Duke of Savoy in Italy. It was like the folk song lyrics, even more elegant.

The Russian stuff on the shelves had an especially dark presence. There were the political poems of Pushkin, who was considered revolutionary. Pushkin was killed in a duel in 1837. There was a book by Count Leo Tolstoy, whose estate I'd visit more than twenty years later-his family estate, which he used to educate peasants. It was located outside of Moscow, and this was where he went later in life to reject all his writings and renounce all forms of war. One day when he was eighty-two years old he left a note for his family to leave him alone. He walked off into the snowy woods and a few days later they found him dead of pneumonia. A tour guide let me ride his bicycle. Dostoyevsky, too, had lived a dismal and hard life. The czar sent him to a prison camp in Siberia in 1849. Dostoyevsky was accused of writing socialist propaganda. He was eventually pardoned and wrote stories to ward off his creditors. Just like in the early '70s I wrote albums to ward off mine.

In the past, I'd never been that keen on books and writers but I liked stories. Stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs, who wrote about the mythical Africa-Luke Short, the mythical Western tales-Jules Verne-H. G. Wells. Those were my favorites but that was before I discovered the folksingers. The folksingers could sing songs like an entire book, but only in a few verses. It's hard to describe what makes a character or an event folk song worthy. It probably has something to do with a character being fair and honest and open. Bravery in an abstract way. Al Capone had been a successful gangster and was allowed to rule the underworld in Chicago, but nobody wrote any songs about him. He's not interesting or heroic in any kind of way. He's frigid. A sucker fish, seems like a man who never got out alone in nature for a minute in his life. He comes across as a thug or a bully, like in the song . . . "looking for that bully of the town." He's not even worthy enough to have a name comes across as a heartless vamp. Pretty Boy Floyd, on the other hand, stirs up an adventurous spirit. Even his name has something to say. There's something unbound and not frozen in the muck about him He'll never rule over any city, can't manipulate the machine or bend people to his will, yet he's the stuff of real flesh and blood, represents humanity in general and gives you an impression of power. At least before they trapped him in the boonies.

There was no noise in Ray's place, just if I'd turn the radio on or listen to records. If not, there was only a graveyard silence and I'd always return to the books ... dig through them like an archeologist. I read the biography of Thaddeus Stevens, the radical Republican. He lived in the early part of the 1800s and was quite a character. He's from Gettysburg and he's got a clubfoot like Byron. He grew up poor, made a fortune and from then on championed the weak and any other group who wasn't able to fight equally. Stevens had a grim sense of humor, a sharp tongue and a white-hot hatred for the bloated aristocrats of his day. He wanted to confiscate the land of the slaveholding elite, once referred to a colleague on the floor of the chamber as "slinking in his own slime." Stevens was an anti-Mason and he denounced his foes as those whose mouths reeked from human blood. He got right in there, called his enemies a "feeble band of lowly reptiles who shun the light and who lurk in their own dens." Stevens was hard to forget. He made a big impression on me, was inspiring. Him and Teddy Roosevelt, maybe the strongest U.S. president ever. I read about Teddy, too. He was a cattle rancher and a crime buster, had to be restrained from declaring war on California-had a big run in with J. P. Morgan, a deity figure who owned most of the United States at the time. Roosevelt backed him down and threatened to throw him in jail.

Either one of those guys, Stevens or Roosevelt or even Morgan could have stepped out of a folk ballad. Songs like "Walkin' Boss," "The Prisoner's Song" or even one like "Ballad of Charles Guiteau." They're just in there somewhere, though maybe not in a specific way. They're even in early rock-and-roll songs if you want to add electricity and drums.

There were art books, too, on the shelves, books of Motherwell and early Jasper Johns, German impressionist pamphlets, Grunwald, Adolf von Menzel stuff. "How-to" books, how to repair a man's knee that's been bent backwards ... how to deliver a baby, how to perform an appendectomy in the bedroom. The stuff could give you real hot dreams. There were other things laying around that would catch your eye chalk sketches of Ferraris and Ducatis, books about Amazon women, Pharaonic Egypt, photo books of circus acrobats, lovers, graveyards. There weren't any big bookstores around, so it would have been hard to find these books in any one place. I liked the biographies a lot and read part of one about Frederick the Great, who, besides being King of Prussia, I was surprised to find out was also a composer. I also looked through Vom Kriege, the Clausewitz book. They called Clausewitz the premier philosopher of war. By the sound of his name you'd think he looked like Von Hindenburg, but he doesn't. In the book's portrait of him, he looks like Robert Burns, the poet, or Montgomery Cliff, the actor. The book was published in 1832 and Clausewitz had been in the military since he'd been twelve. His armies were highly trained professionals, not young men who served only for a few years or more. His men were hard to replace and he talks a lot about how to maneuver into position where the other side can see there's no fighting chance and basically lay down their arms. In his time there was little to gain and much to lose by any serious fighting. For Clausewitz, flinging stones was not war-not idealized war, anyway. He talks a lot about psychological and accidental factors on the battlefield-the weather, air currents-playing a big part.

I had a morbid fascination with this stuff. Years earlier, before I knew I was going to be a singer and my mind was in full swing, I had even wanted to go to West Point. I'd always pictured myself dying in some heroic battle rather than in bed. I wanted to be a general with my own battalion and wondered how to get the key to open this wonderland. I asked my father how to get into West Point and he seemed shocked, said that my name didn't begin with a "De" or a "Von" and that you needed connections and proper credentials to get in there. His advice was that we should concentrate on how to acquire them. My uncle was even less forthcoming. He said to me, "You don't want to have to work for the government. A soldier is a housewife, a guinea pig. Go to work in the mines."

Mines or no mines, it was the connections and credentials thing that rattled me. I didn't like the sound of it, made me feel deprived of something. It wasn't long before I discovered what they were and how these things can sometimes interfere with your plans. When I put together my early bands, usually some other singer who was short of one would take it away. It seemed like this happened every time one of my bands was fully formed. I couldn't understand how this was possible seeing that these guys weren't any better at singing or playing than I was. What they did have was an open door to gigs where there was real money. Anybody who had a band could play at park pavilions, talent shows, county fairgrounds, auctions and store openings, but those gigs didn't pay except maybe for expenses and sometimes not even for that. These other crooners could perform at small conventions, private wedding parties, golden anniversaries in hotel ballrooms, Knights of Columbus functions, things like that-and there was cash involved. It was always the promise of money that lured my band away. I would always be moaning to my grandmother who lived with us, my one and only confidante, and she'd tell me not to take it personal. She'd say stuff like, "There are some people you'll never be able to win over. Just let it go-let it wear itself out." Sure, that's easy to say, but it didn't make me feel any less bad. Truth was, that the guys who took my bands away had family connections to someone up the ladder in the chamber of commerce or town council or merchants associations. These groups were connected to different committees throughout the counties. The family connection thing made a strong impression, left me feeling naked.

It went to the very root of things, gave unfair advantage to some and left others squeezed out. How could somebody ever reach the world this way? It seemed like it was the law of life, but even if it was, I wasn't going to sulk about it or, like my grandma said, take it personal. Family connections were legitimate. You couldn't blame anyone for having them. It got so that I almost always expected to lose my band and it didn't even shock me anymore if it happened. I kept forming them, though, because I was determined to play. There was a lot of halting and waiting, little acknowledgment, little affirmation, but sometimes all it takes is a wink or a nod from some unexpected place to vary the tedium of a baffling existence.

That happened to me when Gorgeous George the great wrestler came to my hometown. In the mid-'50s I was performing in the lobby of the National Guard Armory, the Veterans Memorial Building, the site where all the big shows happened-the livestock shows and hockey games, circuses and boxing shows, traveling preacher revivals, country-and western jamborees. I'd seen Slim Whitman, Hank Snow, Webb Pierce and a lot of others there. Once a year or so, Gorgeous George would bring his whole troupe of performers to town: Goliath, The Vampire, The Twister, The Strangler, The Bone Crusher, The Holy Terror, midget wrestlers, a couple of lady wrestlers, and a whole lot more. I was playing on a makeshift platform in the lobby of the building with the usual wild activity of people milling about, and no one was paying much attention. Suddenly, the doors burst open and in came Gorgeous George himself. He roared in like the storm, didn't go through the backstage area, he came right through the lobby of the building and he seemed like forty men. It was Gorgeous George, in all his magnificent glory with all the lightning and vitality you'd expect. He had valets and was surrounded by women carrying roses, wore a majestic fur-lined gold cape and his long blond curls were flowing. He brushed by the makeshift stage and glanced towards the sound of the music. He didn't break stride, but he looked at me, eyes flashing with moonshine. He winked and seemed to mouth the phrase "You're making it come alive."

Whether he really said it or not, it didn't matter. It's what I thought I heard him say that mattered, and I never forgot it. It was all the recognition and encouragement I would need for years to come. Sometimes that's all it takes, the kind of recognition that comes when you're doing the thing for the thing's sake and you're on to something-it's just that nobody recognizes it yet. Gorgeous George. A mighty spirit. People said that he was as great as his race. Maybe he was. Inevitably, I would soon lose the band that was playing with me in the lobby of the Veterans building. Someone else had seen them and took them. I'd have to work on my connections. It was beginning to dawn on me that I would have to learn how to play and sing by myself and not depend on a band until the time I could afford to pay and keep one. Connections and credentials would have to become an irrelevancy, but I did feel good for a moment. Crossing paths with, Gorgeous George was really something. Clausewitz's book seemed outdated, but there's a lot in it that's real, and you can understand a lot about conventional life and the pressures of environment by reading it. When he claims that politics has taken the place of morality and politics is brute force, he's not playing. You have to believe it. You do exactly as you're told, whoever you are. Knuckle under or you're dead. Don't give me any of that jazz about hope or nonsense about righteousness. Don't give me that dance that God is with us, or that God supports us. Let's get down to brass tacks. There isn't any moral order. You can forget that. Morality has nothing in common with politics. It's not there to transgress. It's either high ground or low ground. This is the way the world is and nothing's gonna change it. It's a crazy, mixed up world and you have to look it right in the eye. Clausewitz in some ways is a prophet. Without realizing it, some of the stuff in his book can shape your ideas. If you think you're a dreamer, you can read this stuff and realize you're not even capable of dreaming. Dreaming is dangerous. Reading Clausewitz makes you take your own thoughts a little less seriously.

I read The White Goddess by Robert Graves, too. Invoking the poetic muse was something I didn't know about yet. Didn't know enough to start trouble with it, anyway. In a few years' time I would meet Robert Graves himself in London. We went out for a brisk walk around Paddington Square. I wanted to ask him about some of the things in his book, but I couldn't remember much about it. I liked the French writer Balzac a lot, read Luck and Leather, and Le Cousin Pons. Balzac was pretty funny. His philosophy is plain and simple, says basically that pure materialism is a recipe for madness. The only true knowledge for Balzac seems to be in superstition. Everything is subject to analysis. Horde your energy. That's the secret of life. You can learn a lot from Mr. B. It's funny to have him as a companion. He wears a monk's robe and drinks endless cups of coffee. Too much sleep clogs up his mind. One of his teeth falls out, and he says, "What does this mean?" He questions everything. His clothes catch fire on a candle. He wonders if fire is a good sign. Balzac is hilarious.

There was nothing upscale about the Gaslight, no ringside tables or anything, but it was always packed from start to finish-some people sitting at tables, some standing and crowded up along the walls-bare brick walls, low level lighting and pipes exposed. Even on cold winter nights there was a line to get in, clusters of people huddled in the doorway, twin entrances downstairs. There were always so many people inside, it was hard to breathe. I don't know how many it could hold, but it always seemed like ten thousand or more. The fire marshals would always be coming in and out, always a lot of anticipation, apprehension in the air, a lot of audacity. You got the feeling that something, someone, was always coming to blow away the fog.

I played twenty minute sets. Played the folk songs that I possessed and paid attention to what was going on in the moment. It was hot in there and too claustrophobic to hang around after playing, so performers would often hang out upstairs in one of the back rooms, which you got to by going out back through the kitchen, into the small courtyard and up the icy fire escape. There'd always be a card game going on. Van Ronk, Stookey, Romney, Hal Waters, Paul Clayton,

Luke Faust, Len Chandler and some others would play poker continuously through the night. You could come and go as you pleased. A small radio speaker in the room let you know who was performing downstairs so you knew when it was your turn to go back. Bets were usually nickels and dimes and quarters, although sometimes the pot could get up as high as twenty dollars. I usually folded my cards if I didn't have a pair by the second or third draw. Chandler told me once, "You gotta learn how to bluff. You'll never make it in this game if you don't. Sometimes you even have to get caught bluffing. It helps later if you got a winning hand and want some other players to think you might be bluffing."

I didn't spend too much time downstairs because it was too crowded and stifling. I'd either be up in the card room or at the Kettle of Fish Tavern next door. That place was usually packed, too, on any given night of the week. A frantic atmosphere all kinds of characters talking fast, moving fast some debonair, some rakish. Literary types with black beards, grim-faced intellectuals- eclectic girls, non-homemaker types. The kind of people who come from out of nowhere and go right back into it-a pistol-packing rabbi, a snaggle-toothed girl with a big crucifix between her breasts-all kinds of characters looking for the inner heat. I felt like I was seeing it all sitting on the crest of a cliff. Some people even had titles-"The Man Who Made History ... .. The Link Between the Races” that’s how they'd want to be referred to. Comedians from comedy shows, like Richard Pryor, used to hang around in there, too. You could sit on a bar stool and look out the windows to the snowy streets and see heavy people going by, David Amram bundled up, Gregory Corso, Ted Joans, Fred Hellerman.

One night a guy named Bobby Neuwirth came through the door with a couple of friends and caused a lot of commotion. Bobby and I would meet again sometime later at a folk festival. Right from the start, you could tell that Neuwirth had a taste for provocation and that nothing was going to restrict his freedom. He was in a mad revolt against something. You had to brace yourself when you talked to him. Neuwirth was about the same age as me, from Akron, played claw hammer banjo and knew some songs. He was going to art school in Boston and could paint, too-said he was going back to Ohio in the spring to his folks' house to take down the storm windows and put up the screens. That was his customary thing to do and it had been mine, too. I wasn't planning on going back, though. Later we'd become pretty tight and travel around together. Like Kerouac had immortalized Neal Cassady in On the Road, somebody should have immortalized Neuwirth. He was that kind of character. He could talk to anybody until they felt like all their intelligence was gone. With his tongue, he ripped and slashed and could make anybody uneasy, also could talk his way out of anything. Nobody knew what to make of him. If there ever was a renaissance man leaping in and out of things, he would have to be it. Neuwirth was a bulldog. He didn't provoke me, though, not in any way. I got a kick out of everything he did and liked him. Neuwirth had talent, but he wasn't ambitious. We liked pretty much all the same things, even the same songs on the jukebox.

The jukebox in the place showed mostly jazz records. Zoot Simms, Hampton Hawes, Stan Getz, and some rhythm-and blues records-Bumble Bee Slim, Slim Galliard, Percy Mayfield. The Beats tolerated folk music, but they really didn't like it. They listened exclusively to modern jazz, bebop. A couple of times I dropped a coin right into the

played "The Man That Got Away" by Judy Garland. The song always did something to me, not in any stupefying, tremendous kind of way. It didn't summon up any strange thoughts. It just was nice to hear. Judy Garland was from Grand Rapids, Minnesota, a town about twenty miles away from where I came from. Listening to Judy was like listening to the girl next door. She was way before my time, and like the Elton John song says, "I would have liked to have known you, but I was just a kid." Harold Arlen had written "The Man That Got Away" and the cosmic "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," another song by Judy Garland. He had written a lot of other popular songs, too-the powerful "Blues in the Night," "Stormy Weather," "Come Rain or Come Shine," "Get Happy." In Harold's songs, I could hear rural blues and folk music. There was an emotional kinship there. I couldn't help but notice it. The songs of Woody Guthrie ruled my universe, but before that, Hank Williams had been my favorite songwriter, though I thought of him as a singer, first. Hank Snow was a close second. But I could never escape from the bittersweet, lonely intense world of Harold Arlen. Van Ronk could sing and play these songs. I could, too, but never would have dreamed of it. They weren't in my script. They weren't in my future. What was the future? The future was a solid wall, not promising, not threatening-all bunk. No guarantees of anything, not even the guarantee that life isn't one big joke.

You'd never know who you were liable to run into at the Kettle of Fish. Everyone seemed like somebody and nobody at the same time. Once, me and Clayton were sitting, drinking wine at a table with some people and one of the guys there had sometime back provided sound effects for radio shows. Radio shows had been a big part of my consciousness back in the Midwest, back when it seemed like I was living in perpetual youth. Inner Sanctum, The Lone Ranger, This Is Your FBI, Fibber McGee and Molly, The Fat Man, The Shadow, Suspense. Suspense always had a creaking door more horrible sounding than any door you could imagine-nerve-wracking, stomach-turning tales week after week. Inner Sanctum, with its horror and humor all mixed up. Lone Ranger, with the sounds of buckboards and spurs clinking out of your radio. The Shadow, the man of wealth and student of science out to right the world's wrongs. Dragnet was a cop show with the musical theme that sounded like it was taken out of a Beethoven symphony. The Colgate Comedy Hour kept you in stitches.

There was no place too far. I could see it all. All I needed to know about San Francisco was that Paladin lived in a hotel there and that his gun was for hire. I knew that “stones" were jewels and that villains rode in convertibles and that if you wanted to hide a tree, hide it in the forest where nobody could find it. I was raised on that stuff, used to quiver with excitement listening to these shows. They gave me clues to how the world worked and they fueled my daydreams, made my imagination work overtime. Radio shows were a strange craft.

Before I had ever gone into any department store, I was already an imaginary consumer. I used Lava Soap, shaved with Gillette Blue Blades, was on Boliva Time, putting Vitalis in my hair, used laxatives and pills for acid indigestion Feenamint and Dr. Lyon's tooth powder. I had the Mike Hammer attitude, my own particular brand of justice. The courts were too slow and too complicated, don't take care of business. My sentiment was that the law is fine but this time, I'm the law-the dead can't speak for themselves. I'm speaking for 'em. Okay? I asked the guy who made the sound effects for the radio shows how he got the sound of the electric chair and he said it was bacon sizzling. What about broken bones? The guy took out a LifeSaver and crushed it between his teeth.

I can't say when it occurred to me to write my own songs. couldn't have come up with anything comparable or halfway close to the folk song lyrics I was singing to define the way I felt about the world. I guess it happens to you by degrees. You just don't wake up one day and decide that you need to write songs, especially if you're a singer who has plenty of them and you're learning more every day. Opportunities may come along for you to convert something-something that exists into something that didn't yet. That might be the beginning of it. Sometimes you just want to do things your way, want to see for yourself what lies behind the misty curtain. It's not like you see songs approaching and invite them in. It's not that easy. You want ' to write songs that are bigger than life. You want to say something about strange things that have happened to you, strange things you have seen. You have to know and understand something and then go past the vernacular. The chilling precision that these old-timers used in coming up with their songs was no small thing. Sometimes you could hear a song and your mind jumps ahead. You see similar patterns in the ways that you were thinking about things. I never looked at songs as either good" or "bad," only different kinds of good ones.

Some of them can be true to life cases. I'd been hearing a song around called "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill." I knew that Joe Hill was real and important. I didn't know who he was, so I asked Izzy at the Folklore Center. Izzy pulled out some pamphlets on him from the back room and gave them to me to read. What I read could have come out of a mystery novel. Joe Hill was a Swedish immigrant who fought in the Mexican War. He had led a bare and meager life, was a union organizer out West in about 1910, a Messianic figure who wanted to abolish the wage system of capitalism-a mechanic, musician and poet. They called him the workingman's Robert Burns.

Joe wrote the song "Pie in the Sky" and was the forerunner of Woody Guthrie. That's all I needed to know. He'd been convicted on circumstantial evidence for a murder crime and shot by a firing squad in Utah. His life story is heavy and deep. He was an organizer for the Wobblies, the fighting section of the American working class. Hill is tried for killing a grocery store owner and his son in a petty holdup and his only defense is to say, "Prove it!" The grocer's son, before he dies, fires off a shot at somebody, but there's no evidence that the bullet ever hits anything. Yet Joe's got a bullet wound and it looks pretty incriminating. Five people on the same night have bullet wounds and are treated in the same hospital, released, and they all disappear. Joe says he was somewhere else at the time of the crime, but he won't say where or with whom. He won't name any names, not even to save his own skin. There's a general belief that a woman was involved, a woman who Joe does not want to shame. It gets weirder and more complicated. Another guy, a good friend of Joe's, disappears the day after.

It's all pretty twisted. Joe's beloved by all workingmen nationwide-miners and meat cutters, sign painters and blacksmiths, plasterers, steamfitters, ironworkers-whoever they were, he united them and he fought for the rights of them all, risked his life to make things better for all the under-classed, the disadvantaged-the most poorly paid and mistreated workers in the country. If you read his history, his character comes through and you know he's not the type who would rob and murder a grocery clerk at random. He just wouldn't have that in him. It's impossible he would have done something like that for a bit of change. Everything in his life speaks of honor and fairness. He was a drifter and protector and at all times on foot patrol. To the politicians and industrialists who hated him, though, he was a hardened criminal and an enemy to society. For years they waited for an opportunity to get rid of him. Joe was judged guilty even before the trial began.

The history of it all is amazing. In 1915 there were marches and rallies on his behalf that filled the streets in all the big American cities-Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Brooklyn, Detroit, many more-wherever there were workers and unions. That's how much he was known and loved. Even the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, tried to get Utah officials to look at the case again, but the governor of Utah thumbed his nose at the president. In his final hour, Joe says, "Scatter my ashes anyplace but Utah."

Sometime after that, the song "Joe Hill" was written. As far as protest songs went, I had heard a few. The Leadbelly song "Bourgeois Blues," Woody's "Jesus Christ" and "Ludlow Massacre," "Strange Fruit," the Billie Holiday song, some others-and they were all better than this one. Protest songs are difficult to write without making them come off as preachy and one-dimensional. You have to show people a side of themselves that they don't know is there. The song "Joe Hill" doesn't even come close, but if there ever was someone who could inspire a song, it was him. Joe had the light in his eyes.

I fantasized that if I had written the song, I would have immortalized him in a different way-more like Casey Jones or Jesse James. You would have had to. I thought about it two ways. One way was to title the song "Scatter My Ashes Anyplace but Utah" and make that line the refrain. The other way to do it was like the song "Long Black Veil," a song where a man talks from the grave ... a song from the underworld. This is a ballad where a man gives up his life not to disgrace a certain woman and has to pay for somebody else's crime because of what he can't say. The more I thought about it, "Long Black Veil" seemed like it could have been a song written by Joe Hill himself, his very last one.

I didn't compose a song for Joe Hill. I thought about how I would do it, but didn't do it. The first song I'd wind up writing of any substantial importance was written for Woody Guthrie.

It was freezing winter with a snap and sparkle in the air, nights full of blue haze. It seemed like ages ago since I'd lay in the green grass and it smelled of true summer-glints of light dancing off the lakes and yellow butterflies on the black tarred roads. Walking down 7th Avenue in Manhattan in the early hours, you'd sometimes see people sleeping in the back-seats of cars. I was lucky I had places to stay-even people who lived in New York sometimes didn't have one. There's a lot of things that I didn't have, didn't have too much of a concrete identity either. "I'm a rambler-I'm a gambler. I'm a long way from home." That pretty much summed it up.

In the world news, Picasso at seventy-nine years old had just married his thirty-five-year-old model. Wow. Picasso wasn't just loafing about on crowded sidewalks. Life hadn't flowed past him yet. Picasso had fractured the art world and cracked it wide open. He was revolutionary. I wanted to be like that.

There was an art movie house in the Village on 12th Street that showed foreign movies-French, Italian, German. This made sense, because even Alan Lomax himself, the great folk archivist, had said somewhere that if you want to get out of America, go to Greenwich Village. I'd seen a couple of Italian Fellini movies there one called La Strada, which means "The Street," and another one called La Dolce Vita. It was about a guy who sells his soul and becomes a gossip hound. It looked like life in a carnival mirror except it didn't show any monster freaks-just regular people in a freaky way. I watched it intently, thinking that I might not see it again. One of the actors in it, Evan Jones, was also a dramatist and I would meet him in a few years when I went to London to perform in a play he had written. I knew he looked familiar when I saw him. I never forget a face.

A lot was changing in America. The sociologists were saying that TV had deadly intentions and was destroying the minds and imaginations of the young-that their attention spans were being dragged down. Maybe that's true but the three minute song also did the same thing. Symphonies and operas are incredibly long, but the audience never seems to lose its place or fail to follow along. With the three minute song, the listener doesn't have to remember anything as far back as twenty or even ten minutes ago. There's nothing you have to be able to connect. Nothing to remember. A lot of the songs I was singing were indeed long, maybe not as long as an opera or a symphony, but still long . . . at least lyrically. "Tom Joad" had at least sixteen verses, "Barbara Allen" about twenty. "Fair Ellender," "Lord Lovell," "Little Mattie Groves" and others had numerous verses and I didn't find it troubling at all to remember or sing the story lines.

I had broken myself of the habit of thinking in short song cycles and began reading longer and longer poems to see if I could remember anything I read about in the beginning. I trained my mind to do this, had cast off gloomy habits and learned to settle myself down. I read all of Lord Byron's Don Juan, and concentrated fully from start to finish. Also, Coleridge's Kubla Khan. I began cramming my brain with all kinds of deep poems. It seemed like I'd been pulling an empty wagon for a long time and now I was beginning to fill it up and would have to pull harder. I felt like I was coming out of the back pasture. I was changing in other ways, too. Things that used to affect me, didn't affect me anymore. I wasn't too concerned about people, their motives. I didn't feel the need to examine every stranger that approached.

Ray had told me to read Faulkner. "It's hard, what Faulkner does," he said. "It's hard putting deep feeling into words. It's easier to write Das Kapital." Ray was an opium smoker, smoked opium in a bamboo pipe with a mushroom bowl. They had cooked it up once in the kitchen, boiling little kilos of bricks until they became like gum. Boiling and reboiling and draining liquid through filtered cloth-the kitchen smelled like cat piss. They kept it in a crock jar. He wasn't like a slob junkie from the junkyard, though, not in any way, not like somebody who uses dope just to get normal-not a part time junkie, he's not even addicted. He's not someone who would rob anybody to pay for a habit. He's wasn't like that. There's a lot of things I didn't know about Ray. I didn't know what saved him from arrest, either.

One time Clayton and myself came in late and Ray was asleep in a big chair-he looked like he was asleep in the room with the light on his face-dark hollows under his eyes, face caked with sweat. It looked like he was dreaming a dead dream. We just stood there. Paul is tall, has dark hair, Vandyke beard, resembles Gauguin the painter. Paul takes a deep breath and seems to hold it forever and then he turns around and leaves.

Ray dressed in a variety of ways. Sometimes you'd see him in a striped suit with a wing-shaped collar, pleated pants that were pegged. Sometimes he's in a sweater, corduroy trousers, country boots. A lot of times he dressed in overalls like a garage mechanic. He wears a long coat. Tan. Camel's hair. Wore it over everything.

Within the first few months that I was in New York I'd lost my interest in the "hungry for kicks" hipster vision that Kerouac illustrates so well in his book On the Road. That book had been like a bible for me. Not anymore, though. I still loved the breathless, dynamic bop poetry phrases that flowed from Jack's pen, but now, that character Moriarty seemed out of place, purposeless-seemed like a character who inspired idiocy. He goes through life bumping and grinding with a bull on top of him.

Ray wasn't like that. He wasn't somebody who would leave any footprints on the sands of time, but there was something special about him. He had blood in his eyes, the face of a man who could do no wrong---total lack of viciousness or wickedness or even sinfulness in his face. He seemed like a man who could conquer and command anytime he wished to. Ray was mysterious as hell.

Through the narrow passageway, trailing through the apartment that led past one or two Victorian type rooms, there was another room-a larger one with a big window that backed up to an alley. The space was configured into a workshop with all kinds of paraphernalia piled up. Most things either on a table with a long wooden top, or on another one with a slate surface. There were some iron flowers on a spiral vine painted white leaning in the corner. All kinds of tools laying around-hammers, hacksaws, screwdrivers, electricians' pliers, wire cutters and levers, claw chisels, boxes with gear wheels-everything glistening in the backlight of the sun. Soldering equipment and sketch pads, paint tubes and gauges, electric drill-cans of stuff that could make things either waterproof or fireproof.

Everything in plain sight. A lot of firearms, too. You'd think that Ray was part of the police force or a licensed gunsmith or something. There were different parts of guns-of pistols, large frame, small frame, Taurus Tracker pistol, a pocket pistol, trigger guards, everything like in a compost heap-altered guns ... guns with shortened barrels, different brands of guns-Ruger, Browning, a single-action Navy pistol, everything poised to work, shined out. You'd walk into this room and feel like you were under the vigilance of some unsleeping eye. It was weird. Ray was anything but a macho tough guy. I asked him once what he did with all this stuff back there, what it was for. "Tactical response," he said.

I'd seen guns before. My old hometown girlfriend, my Becky Thatcher had a father who wasn't anything like Judge Thatcher. He had had a lot of guns laying around, too. Mostly deer rifles and shotguns, some long-barreled pistols and that was pretty creepy. She lived in a log house past the edge of town, off the asphalt. It was always kind of dangerous over there because the old man had a reputation for being mean. It was funny because her mother was the kindest woman-like Mother Earth. Her dad, though, was a hardscrabble guy, weather-beaten face, always unshaven-wore a hunter's cap, had calloused hands . . . nice enough when he'd been working, but when not, you'd have to look out. You'd never know which mood you'd catch him in. The kind of guy that's always thinking that somebody's out to take advantage of him. When he wasn't working, he'd be drinking and get wrecked and then things would turn evil. He'd come into the room and mutter something through locked teeth. Once he ran me and a friend of mine off with a shotgun. He shot at us in the dark down a gravel road. But other times, he could be considerate. You just never knew. One of the reasons I liked going there, besides puppy love, was that they had Jimmie Rodgers records, old 78s in the house. I used to sit there mesmerized, listening to the Blue Yodeler, singing, "I'm a Tennessee hustler, I don't have to work." I didn't want to have to work, either. I was looking at all the guns up at Ray's place and thought about my old-time girlfriend, wondered what she was doing. The last time I'd seen her, she was heading West. Everybody said she looked like Brigitte Bardot, and she did.

There was other stuff in the room, other delights. A Remington typewriter, the neck piece of a saxophone with a swanlike curve, aluminum constructed field glasses covered in Moroccan leather, things to marvel over-a little machine that put out four volts, a small Mohawk tape recorder, odd photos, one of Florence Nightingale with a pet owl on her shoulder, novelty postcards-a picture postcard from California with a palm tree.

I'd never been to California. It seemed like it was the place of some special, glamorous race. I knew that movies came from there and that there was a folk club in Los Angeles called the Ash Grove. At the Folklore Center I'd seen posters of folk shows at the Ash Grove and I used to dream about playing there. It seemed so far away. I never thought I'd ever get out there. As it turned out, not only did I get out there, but I bypassed the Ash Grove entirely and when I finally did arrive in California, my songs and my reputation had preceded me. I had records out on Columbia and I'd be playing at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and meeting all the performers who had recorded my songs-artists like The Byrds, who'd recorded "Mr. Tambourine Man," Sonny and Cher, who'd done "All I Really Want to Do," The Turtles, who recorded "It Ain't Me, Babe," Glen Campbell, who had released "Don't Think Twice," and Johnny Rivers, who had recorded "Positively 4th Street."

Of all the versions of my recorded songs, the Johnny Rivers one was my favorite. It was obvious that we were from the same side of town, had been read the same citations, came from the same musical family and were cut from the same cloth. When I listened to Johnny's version of "Positively 4th Street," I liked his version better than mine. I listened to it over and over again. Most of the cover versions of my songs seemed to take them out into left field somewhere, but Rivers's version had the mandate down-the attitude and melodic sense to complete and surpass even the feeling that I had put into it. It shouldn't have surprised me, though. He had done the same thing with "Maybellene" and "Memphis," two Chuck Berry songs. When I heard Johnny sing my song, it was obvious that life had the same external grip on him as it did on me. It would be a few more years before Id reach Sunland. I stared around the room, looked over towards the back window and saw that twilight was coming. lee was stacked up, thick, all along the fire escape rail. I stared down into the alleyway and then up to the rooftops from tower to tower. Snow was beginning to fall again, covered the cement covered earth. If I was building any new kind of life to live, it really didn't seem that way. It's not as if I had turned in any old one to live it. If anything, I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. I needed to learn how to telescope things, ideas. Things were too big to see all at once, like all the books in the library-everything laying around on all the tables. You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right.

Sometimes you know things have to change, are going to change, but you can only feel it-like in that song of Sam Cooke's, "Change Is Gonna Come"-but you don't know it in a purposeful way. Little things foreshadow what's coming, hut you may not recognize them. But then something immediate happens and you're in another world, you jump into the unknown, have an instinctive understanding of it you’re set free. You don't need to ask questions and you already know the score. It seems like when that happens, it happens fast, like magic, but it's really not like that. It isn't like some dull boom goes off and the moment has arrived your eyes don't spring open and suddenly you're very quick and sure about something. It's more deliberate. It's more like you've been working in the light of day and then you see one day that it's getting dark early, that it doesn't matter where you are-it won't do any good. It's a reflective thing. Somebody holds the mirror up, unlocks the door-something jerks it open and you're shoved in and your head has to go into a different place. Sometimes it takes a certain somebody to make you realize it.

Mike Seeger had that effect on me. I'd seen him recently up at Camilla Adams's place. Camilla was an exotic, dark haired lady, a full bodied woman who looked like Ava Gardner. I used to see her in Gerde's Folk City, the preeminent folk club in America. Gerde's was on Mercer Street near West Broadway at the edge of the Village, an uptown type club not unlike the Blue Angel, but it was downtown. It booked mostly nationally known folksingers with records out and you needed a union card plus a cabaret card to work there. On Monday nights, which were called Hootenanny Nights, unknown folksingers could perform. One of those nights, I was in there and I met Camilla. From then on, I knew her a little bit. She'd usually be with the type of guys that looked like private detectives. She was a superb picture

of a woman, close friends with Josh White and also Cisco Houston. Cisco had a terminal disease and he would be doing some of his last few performances at Folk City and I was there to hear him. I'd heard him a lot on the Woody Guthrie records and also on his own records, all the cowboy songs, lumberjack and railroad songs and bad man ballads. He was a perfect counterpart to Woody and had a soothing baritone voice--had traveled extensively and worked all the towns with Woody, made records with him, went to sea with him on a merchant marine ship during World War II. Cisco, handsome and dashing with a pencil thin mustache, looked like a riverboat gambler, like Errol Flynn. People said he could have been a movie star, that he once turned down a starring role opposite Myrna Loy. Burl Ives, who did go on to become a movie star, and Cisco had played together at migrant camps during the Great Depression. Cisco also starred on his own TV show on CBS but it was during the McCarthy era and the network had to let him go. I knew all about him. Cisco was sitting with Camilla during a break in his set, and she introduced me to him, told Cisco that I was a young folksinger and sang a lot of Woody's songs. Cisco was gracious, had a dignified air about him, talked like he sang. He didn't need to say much-you knew he had been through a lot, achieved some great deed, praiseworthy and meritorious, yet unspoken about it. I'd watched him perform and even though he was a hair's breadth away from death, you suspected nothing. Camilla was having a get-together for him later in the week, a bon voyage party, and she invited me to come by. She lived in a large apartment on 5th Avenue near Washington Square Park on the top floor of a Romanesque mansion.

Though I didn't know it, later she might have been influential with the owners of Gerde's Folk City, Mike Porco and his brother John, in hiring me for a two-week booking, opposite John Lee Hooker. Because I was underaged, Mike signed for me as a guardian on my cabaret and union cards, so he became like a father to me the Sicilian father that I never had. I showed up at Camilla's with my sort of part-time girlfriend, Delores Dixon, the girl singer from The New World Singers, a group I was pretty close with. Delores was from Alabama, an ex-reporter and an ex-dancer.

As we came through the door, I could see the rooms were already swarming with people, the bohemian crowd-a lot of old-timers. The air was thick with perfume and cigarette smoke and the smell of whiskey and a lot of people. The apartment was very Victorian, decorated with a lot of lovely things. Beaux Arts lamps, carved boudoir chairs, couches in plush velvet-heavy andirons connected with chains by the fireplace and the fireplace was flaming. I got up close to it, it made me think of hot dogs and marshmallows. Delores and I didn't feel out of place, not too much. I was wearing a thick flannel shirt under a sheepskin jacket, peaked cap, khaki pants and motorcycle boots. Delores was wearing a long beaver fur coat over a nightgown that looked like a dress. I saw a lot of people here that I'd meet again not too far off, a lot of the folk community hierarchy, who were all pretty indifferent towards me at the time and showed very little enthusiasm. They could tell I wasn't from the North Carolina mountains nor was I a very commercial, cosmopolitan singer either. I just didn't fit in. They didn't know what to make of me. Pete Seeger did, though, and he said hello. He was with Harold Leventhal who managed The Weavers. Harold spoke in a low, guttural whisper. You had to lean in close to hear what he was saying. He'd later promote a concert of mine at Town Hall.

Another guy there, Henry Sheridan, had been Mae West's boyfriend. Mae West would later record a song of mine. Everybody was there, avant-garde artists like Judith Dunne, a choreographer whose dance pieces were based on sports activities like wrestling and baseball, Ken Jacobs, the underground filmmaker who made Blond Cobra, and Peter Schumann, from the Bread and Puppet Theatre-his play Christmas Story portrayed King Herod smoking a big cigar and one puppet in a three-faced mask who played all the Magi. Moe Asch, who founded Folkways Records, was also there and so was Theodore Bikel, who played Sheriff Max Muller in the film The Defiant Ones. Theo was an accomplished actor who also sang folk songs in foreign languages. In a few years' time, I'd travel to Mississippi with both him and Pete to play at a voters' registration rally. At Camilla's place I met up with Harry Jackson, who I already knew from Folk City-Harry, the cowboy sculptor, painter, singer from Wyoming. Harry had a studio on Broome Street and would later make a painting of me, which I sat for. He also had a studio in Italy where he made statues for town piazzas. He was a rough, gruff guy-looked like General Grant, sang cowboy songs and was a heavy drinker.

Cisco brought all kinds of people together. There were union guys there x-union guys, labor organizers. Recently, there'd been some accounts in the national news of an AFL-CIO executive council meeting that had been held in Puerto Rico and it was pretty funny. It had been a weeklong affair, and the union bosses were photographed drinking mammoth rum drinks, visiting casinos and nightclubs hanging around at hotel pools in flowing bathrobes, swimming the surf, wearing Hollywood-ish sunglasses-doing handstands on the diving board. It looked pretty decadent. They were supposedly there to discuss the march on Washington to dramatize the unemployment problem. Evidentially they didn't know they were being photographed.

These guys at Camilla's place weren't like that, though, they looked more like tugboat captains or baggy-pantsed outfielders or roustabouts. Mack Mackenzie had been an organizer on the Brooklyn waterfront. I met him and his wife, Eve, who was an ex-Martha Graham dancer. They lived on 28th Street. Later on, I'd be their houseguest, too ... sleep on their living room couch. Some people were there from the art world, too-people who knew and commented on what was going on in Amsterdam, Paris and Stockholm. One of them, Robyn Whitlaw, the outlaw artist, walked by in a motion like a slow dance. I said to her, "What's happening?" "I'm here to eat the big dinner, she responded. Years later Whitlaw would be arrested for breaking and entering and stealing. Her defense was that she was an artist and that the act was performance art and, incredulously, the charges against her were dropped.

Irwin Silber, the editor of the folk magazine Sing Out! was there, too. In a few years' time he would castigate me publicly in his magazine for turning my back on the folk community. It was an angry letter. I liked Irwin, but I couldn't relate to it. Miles Davis would be accused of something similar when he made the album Bitches Brew, a piece of music that didn't follow the rules of modern jazz, which had been on the verge of breaking into the popular marketplace, until Miles's record came along and killed its chances. Miles was put down by the jazz community. I couldn't imagine Miles being too upset. Latin artists were breaking rules, too. Artists like Jojo Gilberto, Roberto Menescal and Carlos Lyra were breaking away from the drum infested samba stuff and creating a new form of Brazilian music with melodic changes. They were calling it bossa nova. As for me, what I did to break away was to take simple folk changes and put new imagery and attitude to them, use catchphrases and metaphor combined with a new set of ordinances that evolved into something different that had not been heard before. Silber scolded me in his letter for doing this, as if he alone and a few others had the keys to the real world. I knew what I was doing, though, and wasn't going to take a step back or retreat for anybody.

There were Broadway and Off-Broadway actors at Camilla's place, too-Diana Sands, an electrifying actress who I might have been secretly in love with, and some others. A lot of musicians and singers-Lee Hayes, Erik Darling (Erik had just formed a group called The Rooftop Singers and they'd soon record an old Gus Cannon song called "Walk Right In" that hit the pop charts), Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Logan English. I knew Logan from Folk City, too. Logan was from Kentucky, wore a black neckerchief and played the banjo ... was an expert in playing Bascom Lamar Lunsford songs like "Mole in the Ground" and "Grey Eagle." Logan was like a psychology professor, a good performer, but originality not his long suit. There was something very formal and orthodox about him, but he had a twinkle in his eye and a passion for the old-time music, had a ruddy complexion, and there's always a drink in his hand calls me Robert. Millard Thomas, who played guitar for Harry Belafonte, was also there. Harry was the best balladeer in the land and everybody knew it. He was a fantastic artist, sang about lovers and slaves-chain gang workers, saints and sinners and children. His repertoire was full of old folk songs like "Jerry the Mule ... .. Tol' My Captain," "Darlin' Cora," "John Henry," "Sinner's Prayer" and also a lot of Caribbean folk songs all arranged in a way that appealed to a wide audience, much wider than The Kingston Trio. Harry had learned songs directly from Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie. Belafonte recorded for RCA and one of his records, Belafonte Sings of the Caribbean, had even sold a million copies. He was a movie star, too, but not like Elvis. Harry was an authentic tough guy, not unlike Brando or Rod Steiger. He was dramatic and intense on the screen, had a boyish smile and a hard-core hostility. In the movie Odds Against Tomorrow, you forget he's an actor, you forget he's Harry Belafonte. His presence and magnitude was so wide. Harry was like Valentino. As a performer, he broke all attendance records. He could play to a packed house at Carnegie Hall and then the next day he might appear at a garment center union rally. To Harry, it didn't make any difference. People were people. He had ideals and made you feel you're a part of the human race. There never was a performer who crossed so many lines as Harry. He appealed to everybody, whether they were steelworkers or symphony patrons or bobby-soxers, even children- everybody. He had that rare ability. Somewhere he had said that he didn't like to go on television, because he didn't think his music could be represented well on a small screen, and he was probably right. Everything about him was gigantic. The folk purists had a problem with him, but Harry-who could have kicked the shit out of all of them-couldn't be bothered, said that all folksingers were interpreters, said it in a public way as if someone had summoned him to set the record straight. He even said he hated pop songs, thought they were junk. I could identify with Harry in all kinds of ways. Sometime in the past, he had been barred from the door of the world famous nightclub the Copacabana because of his color, and then later he'd be headlining the joint. You've got to wonder how that would make somebody feel emotionally. Astoundingly and as unbelievable as it might have seemed, I'd be making my professional recording debut with Harry, playing harmonica on one of his albums called Midnight Special. Strangely enough, this was the only one memorable recording date that would stand out in my mind for years to come. Even my own sessions would become lost in abstractions. With Belafonte I felt like I'd become anointed in some kind of way. He did the same thing for me that Gorgeous George did. Harry was that rare type of character that radiates greatness, and you hope that some of it rubs off on you. The man commands respect. You know he never took the easy path, though he could have.

It was getting late and me and Delores were about to leave when I suddenly spotted Mike Seeger in the room. I hadn't noticed him before and I watched him walk from the wall to the table. When I saw him my brain became wide awake and I was instantly in a good mood. I'd seen Mike play previously with The New Lost City Ramblers at a schoolhouse on East 10th Street. He was extraordinary, gave me an eerie feeling. Mike was unprecedented. He was like a duke, the knight errant. As for being a folk musician, he was the supreme archetype. He could push a stake through Dracula's black heart. He was the romantic, egalitarian and revolutionary type all at once-had chivalry in his blood. Like some figure from a restored monarchy, he had come to purify the church. You couldn't imagine him making a big deal out of anything. I also heard him play on his own up in Alan Lomax's loft on 3rd Street. Lomax used to have parties twice a month where he'd bring in folk ' singers to play. They weren't really parties or concerts. I don't know what you'd call them ... soirees? You might see Roscoe Holcomb or Clarence Ashley or Dock Boggs, Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Pete Williams or even Don Stover and The Lilly Brothers-sometimes, even real live section gang convicts that Lomax would get out of state penitentiaries on passes and bring to New York to do field hollers in his loft. The invitees to these gatherings would most likely be local doctors, city dignitaries, anthropologists, but there'd always be some regular folk there, too.

I'd been there once or twice and that's where I saw Mike play without The Ramblers. He played "The Five Mile Chase," "Mighty Mississippi," "Claude Allen Blues" and some other songs. He played all the instruments, whatever the song called for-the banjo, the fiddle, mandolin, autoharp, and the guitar, even harmonica in the rack. Mike was skin-stinging. He was tense, poker-faced and radiated telepathy, wore a snowy white shirt and silver sleeve bands. He played on all the various planes, the full index of the old-time styles, played in all the genres and had the idioms mastered-Delta blues, ragtime, minstrel songs, buck-and-wing, dance reels, play party, hymns and gospel-being there and seeing him up close, something hit me. It's not as if he just played everything well, he played these songs as good as it was possible to play them. I was so absorbed in listening to

him that I wasn't even aware of myself. What I had to work at, Mike already had in his genes, in his genetic makeup. Before he was even born, this music had to be in his blood. Nobody could just learn this stuff, and it dawned on me that I might have to change my inner thought patterns ... that I would have to start believing in possibilities that I wouldn't have allowed before, that I had been closing my creativity down to a very narrow, controllable scale ... that things had become too familiar and I might have to disorientate myself.

I knew I was doing things right, was on the right road, was getting all the knowledge immediately and firsthand-memorizing words and melodies and changes, but now I saw that it could take me the rest of my life to make practical use of that knowledge and Mike didn't have to do that. He was just right there. He was too good and you can't be "too good," not in this world, anyway. In order to be as good as that, you'd just about have to be him, and nobody else. Folk songs are evasive-the truth about life, and life is more or less a he, but then again that's exactly the way we want it to be. We wouldn't be comfortable with it any other way. A folk song has over a thousand faces and you must meet them all if you want to play this stuff. A folk song might vary in meaning and it might not appear the same from one moment to the next. It depends on who's playing and who's listening.

The thought occurred to me that maybe I'd have to write my own folk songs, ones that Mike didn't know. That was a startling thought. Up 'til then, I'd gone some places and thought I knew my way around. And then it struck me that I'd never been there before. You open a door to a dark room and you think you know what's there, where everything is arranged, but you really don't know until you step inside. I can't say I'd seen any performances that were like spiritual experiences until I went to Lomax's loft. I pondered it. I wasn't ready to act on any of it but knew somehow, though, that if I wanted to stay playing music, that I would have to claim a larger part of myself. I would have to overlook a lot of things-a lot of things that might even need attention-but that was all right. They were things that I probably felt totally powerless over, anyway. I had the map, could even draw it freehand if I had to. Now I knew I'd have to throw it away. Not today, not tonight, sometime soon, though.

At Camilla's apartment, Moe Asch was chatting with Mike. They were just standing there like people who knew what they were talking about. Moe's Folkways Records put out all The Ramblers stuff and that's the label that captured my attention the most. It would have been a dream come true if Moe would have signed me to the label. It was time for me and Delores to leave, so I said good-bye to Cisco, talked with him for a moment-told him that I'd been visiting Woody Guthrie in the hospital. Cisco smiled, said that Woody never tried to camouflage anything, did he, and told me to say hello to him next time I went. I nodded, said good-bye, walked out into the hallway and down the stairs . . . went out through the lobby.

Outside Delores and I stopped and looked up at the Romanesque pillars surmounted by carved mythological beasts. It was freezing cold. I put my hands in my pockets and we headed off towards 6th Avenue. There was a lot of action and people on the street and I watched them go by. T. S. Eliot wrote a poem once where there were people walking to and fro, and everybody taking the opposite direction was appearing to be running away. That's what it looked like that night and often would for some time to come. In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche talks about feeling old at the beginning of his life ... I felt like that, too. Somebody told me a few weeks later that Cisco had died.

America was changing. I had a feeling of destiny and I was riding the changes. New York was as good a place to be as any. My consciousness was beginning to change, too, change and stretch. One thing for sure, if I wanted to compose folk songs I would need some kind of new template, some philosophical identity that wouldn't burn out. It would have to come on its -own from the outside. Without knowing it in so many words, it was beginning to happen.

Sometimes Paul Clayton and Ray would talk through the night. They called New York City the capital of the world. They would sit at two tables . . . either they'd lean back against the wall or forward on the table, drink coffee and glasses of brandy. Clayton, a good friend of Van Ronk's, was from New Bedford, Mass., the whaling town-he sang a lot of sea shanties, had a Puritan ancestry, but some of his old relatives had been from the early Virginia families. Clayton had a log cabin outside of Charlottesville, too, where he used to go from time to time. Later on, a few of us went down there and hung around for a week or so in the mountains. The place had no electricity or plumbing or anything; kerosene lamps lit the place at night with reflective mirrors.

Ray, who was from Virginia, had ancestors who had fought on both sides of the Civil War. I'd lean back against the wall and shut my eyes. Their voices drifting into my head like voices talking from another world. They talked about dogs and fishing and forest fires-love and monarchies, and the Civil War. Ray had said that New York City was the city that won the Civil War, came out on top-that the wrong side had lost, that slavery was evil and that the thing would have died out anyway, Lincoln or no Lincoln. I heard him say it and thought it was a mysterious and bad thing to say, but if he said it, he said it and that's all there is to it.

When I woke up later in the day, the place was empty. After a while I walked downstairs and left to go meet a singing pal of mine, Mark Spoelstra. We planned to meet up at a creepy but convenient little coffeehouse on Bleecker Street near Thompson run by a character called the Dutchman. The Dutchman resembled Rasputin, the Siberian mad monk. He held the lease on the place. It was mostly a jazz coffeehouse where Cecil Taylor played a lot. I played there with Cecil once. We played "The Water Is Wide," the old folk song. Cecil could play regular piano if he wanted to. I had also played with Billy Higgins and Don Cherry there. From the coffeehouse, Mark and I were going to walk over to Gerde's Folk City and run over some songs with Brother John Sellers, a Mississippi gospel blues singer who MC'd the shows there.

I was heading to meet Mark, walking along Carmine Street, past the garages, the barbershops and dry cleaners, hardware stores. Radio sounds came shifting out of cafes. Snowy streets full of debris, sadness, the smell of gasoline. The coffeehouses and folk music joints were only a few blocks away, but it seemed like miles would go by.

When I got to the place, Spoelstra was already there and so was the Dutchman. The Dutchman was lying dead in the doorway of his storefront. There were splotches of blood on the ice and red lines in the snow, like spiderwebs. The old man who owned the building had been waiting for him and had stuck a knife in him. The Dutchman was still wearing his fur hat, long brown overcoat and riding boots, and his head was propped up on the stoop under the pearl gray sky. The problem had something to do with the Dutchman refusing to pay his rent and being belligerent about it. A lot of times he'd force the old man out physically. The little old man had taken enough and snapped, he must have thrown himself through the air like Houdini. It must have taken much skill and faculty to stick a knife through the heavy brown overcoat. Seeing the Dutchman lying there, his long brown stringy hair and frosted beard, he looked like a mercenary who could have fallen at Gettysburg. The old man was sitting inside with the door open, facing the sidewalk surrounded by a couple of cops. His face was misshapen, looked queer formed, almost mutilated-like putty in color. His eyes were dead, and he had no idea where he was.

A few people were passing by and not even looking. Spoelstra and I walked away, headed towards Sullivan Street. "It's sad. Makes you sorry as hell, but what can you do?" he said, not like he expected any answer. "Sure it is," I said. But I wasn't sorry. The only thing that I was thinking was that it was unpleasant and sick and that I might not ever go back into this joint again, and probably never would.

The power of the scene somehow jarred my mind, though maybe because I'd just heard talk about it the previous night, but it reminded me of some old still images I'd seen of the Civil War. How much did I know about that cataclysmic event? Probably close to nothing. There weren't any great battles fought out where I grew up. No Chancellorsvilles, Bull Runs, Fredericksburgs or Peachtree Creeks. What I knew about it, was that it was a war fought about states' rights and it ended slavery. It seemed odd, but I became curious to know more and so I asked Van Ronk, who was as politically minded as anybody, what he knew about states' rights. Van Ronk could talk all day about socialist heavens and political utopias-bourgeois democracies and Trotskyites and Marxists, and international workers' orders-he could grasp all that stuff firmly, but about states' rights he almost looked bemused. "The Civil War was fought to free the slaves," he said, 44 there's no mystery to it." But then again, Van Ronk would never let you forget that he had his own way of seeing things. "Look, my man, even if those elite Southern barons would have freed their captives, it wouldn't have done them any good. We still would have gone down there and annihilated them, invaded them for their land. It's called imperialism." Van Ronk took the Marxist point of view. "It was one big battle between two rival economic systems is what it was. One thing about Van Ronk, what he said was never dull or muddy. We sang the same type of songs and all of these songs were originally sung by singers who seemed to be groping for words, almost in an alien tongue. I was beginning to feel that maybe the language had something to do with causes and ideals that were tied to the circumstances and blood of what happened over a hundred years ago over secession from the Union-at least to those generations who were caught in it. All of a sudden, it didn't seem that far back.

Once I was talking to the folks back home and my father got on the line, asked me where I was. I told him that I was in New York City, the capital of the world. He said, "That's a good joke." But it wasn't a joke. New York City was the magnet-the force that draws objects to it, but take away the magnet and everything will fall apart.

Ray had flowing, wavy, blond hair like Jerry Lee Lewis or Billy Graham, the evangelist-the kind of hair that preachers had. The kind that the early rock-and-roll singers used to imitate and want to look like. The kind that could create a cult. Ray wasn't a preacher, though, but he knew how to be one and he could be funny. He said if he preached to farmers, he'd tell them about plowing the furrows with seeds of love and then reaping the harvest of salvation. He could preach to businessmen, too. He would say stuff like, "Sisters and brothers, there's no profit in trading in sin! Everlasting life is not bought and sold." He had a sermon for just about anybody. Ray was a Southerner and made no bones about it, but he would have been antislavery as much as he would have been antiunion. "Slavery should have been outlawed from the start," he said. "It was diabolical. Slave power makes it impossible for free workers to make a decent living-it had to be destroyed." Ray was pragmatic. Sometimes it was as if he had no heart or soul.

There were about five or six rooms in the apartment. In one of them was this magnificent roll top desk, sturdy looking, almost indestructible - oak wood with secret drawers and a double sided clock on the mantel, carved nymphs and a medallion of Minerva-mechanical devices to release hidden drawers, upper side panels and gilt bronze mounts emblematic of mathematics and astronomy. It was incredible. I sat down at it, firm footed, and pulled out a sheet of paper and dashed off a letter to my cousin Reenie. Reenie and I were pretty close growing up. We rode the same, bicycle, one of those Schwinns with coaster-brakes'' Sometimes she'd come along with me when I played at different places, even embroidered a shirt for me to play in that was pretty flashy, and she sewed stripes of ribbon down the sides of a pair of pants.

One time she asked me why I was using a different name when I played, especially in the neighboring towns. Like, didn't I want people to know who I was? "Who's Elston Gunn?" she asked. "That's not you, is it?" "Ah," I said, 11 you'll see." The Elston Gunn name thing was only temporary. What I was going to do as soon as I left home was just call myself Robert Allen. As far as I was concerned, that was who I was-that's what my parents named me. It sounded like the name of a Scottish king and I liked it. There was little of my identity that wasn't in it. What kind of confused me later was seeing an article in a Downbeat magazine with a story about a West Coast saxophone player named David Allyn. I had suspected that the musician had changed the spelling of Allen to Allyn. I could see why. It looked more exotic, more inscrutable. I was going to do this, too. Instead of Robert Allen it would be Robert Allyn. Then sometime later, unexpectedly, I'd seen some poems by Dylan Thomas. Dylan and Allyn sounded similar. Robert Dylan. Robert Allyn. I couldn't decide-the letter D came on stronger. But Robert Dylan didn't look or sound as good as Robert Allyn. People had always called me either Robert or Bobby, but Bobby Dylan sounded too skittish to me and besides, there already was a Bobby Darin, a Bobby Vee, a Bobby Rydell, a Bobby Neely and a lot of other Bobbys. Bob Dylan looked and sounded better than Bob Allyn. The first time I was asked my name in the Twin Cities, I instinctively and automatically without thinking simply said, "Bob Dylan."

Now, I had to get used to people calling me Bob. I'd never been called that before, and it took me some time to respond to people who called me that. As far as Bobby Zimmerman goes, I'm going to give this to you right straight and you can check it out. One of the early presidents of the San Bernardino Angels was Bobby Zimmerman, and he was killed in 1964 on the Bass Lake run. The muffler fell off his bike, he made a U-turn to retrieve it in front of the pack and was instantly killed. That person is gone. That was the end of him.

I finished the letter to Reenie and signed it Bobby. That's how she knew me and always would. Spelling is important. If I would have had to choose between Robert Dillon or Robert Allyn, I would have picked Robert Allyn, because it looked better in print. The name Bob Allyn never would have worked-sounded like a used-car salesman. I'd suspected that Dylan must have been Dillon at one time and that that guy changed the spelling, too, but there was no way to prove it.

Speaking of Bobbys, my old friend and fellow performer Bobby Vee had a new song out on the charts called "Take Good Care of My Baby." Bobby Vee was from Fargo, North Dakota, raised not too far from me. In the summer of '59 he had a regional hit record out called "Suzie Baby" on a local label. His band was called The Shadows and I had hitchhiked out there and talked my way into joining his group as a piano player on some of his local gigs, one in the basement of a church. I played a few shows with him, but he really didn't need a piano player and, besides, it was hard finding a piano that was in tune in the halls that he played.

Bobby Vee and me had a lot in common, even though our paths would take such different directions. We had the same musical history and came from the same place at the same point of time. He had gotten out of the Midwest, too, and had made it to Hollywood. Bobby had a metallic, edgy tone to his voice and it was as musical as a silver bell, like Buddy Holly's, only deeper. When I knew him, he was a great rockabilly singer and now he had crossed over and was a pop star. He recorded for Liberty Records and was having one Top 40 hit after another. He'd still be having songs hit the charts even right alongside The Beatles when they invaded the country. His current song, "Take Good Care of My Baby," was as slick as ever.

I wanted to see him again, so I took the D train out to the Brooklyn Paramount Theater on Flatbush Avenue where he was appearing with The Shirelles, Danny and the Juniors, Jackie Wilson, Ben E. King, Maxine Brown, and some others. He was on the top of the heap now. It seemed like so much had happened to him in such a short time. Bobby came out to see me, was as down-to-earth as ever, was wearing a shiny silk suit and narrow tie, seemed genuinely glad to see me, didn't even act surprised. We talked for a little while. He asked me about New York, what it was like to be here. "Lot of walking. Got to keep your feet in good shape," I said.

I told him I was playing in the folk clubs, but it was impossible to give him any indication of what it was all about. His only reference would have been The Kingston Trio, Brothers Four, stuff like that. He'd become a crowd pleaser in the pop world. As for myself, I had nothing against pop songs, but the definition of pop was changing. They just didn't seem to be as good as they used to be. I loved songs like "Without a Song," "Old Man River ... .. Stardust" and hundreds of others. My favorite of all the new ones was "Moon River." I could sing that in my sleep. My Huckleberry friend, too, was up there, waiting 'round the bend maybe on 14th Street. At Ray's, where there weren't many folk records, I used to play the phenomenal "Ebb Tide" by Frank Sinatra a lot and it had never failed to fill me with awe. The lyrics were so mystifying and stupendous. When Frank sang that song, I could hear everything in his voice-death, God and the universe, everything. I had other things to do, though, and I couldn't be listening to that stuff much.

Standing there with Bobby, I didn't want to act selfishly on his time so we said good-bye and I walk