GINSBERG MADE ME DO IT

Here's how it happens:  words start unrolling between your ears, and maybe you could stop them if you wanted, but you're too damn curious not to find out what they're going to be, and how they're going to end, so you grab your notebook and pen, and start taking dictation.  Anyway, that's how it happens for me.

Bob Dylan said writing the fifty-four verses in the first draft of Like a Rolling Stone was like vomiting.

Henry Miller said he couldn't shut the words off, so he wrote them down.  I think that was Sexus, Nexus, and Plexus - three volumes, thousands of pages, god knows how many words.

Phil Ochs said he couldn't get the words to come. He killed himself.

I started the morning reading "The Lion," by Allen Ginsberg.  This is what it led to, and except for crossing out a few words it's un-edited:

SPONTANEOUS MAUDLIN GINSBERG

One of these mornings you're going to wake up cold with not enough covers to roll you back to sleep

One of these mornings you're going to wake up tired with never enough sleep never enough sleep

One of these mornings you're going to wake up hungry and old Mother Hubbard will be blowing on a thigh bone trumpet

One of these mornings you're going to wake up lonesome with no one around but the stubbled reflection of the self you need glasses to see

One of these mornings you're going to wake up with a stomach as big as a baby elephant - you've got a lot of nerve, Ganesha

One of these mornings you're going to wake up bleeding from every hole

One of these mornings you're going to wake up with stars in your eyes and concrete in your head

One of these mornings you're going to wake up spouting gibberish your dog actually understands

One of these mornings you're going to wake up to a bowl of cold cherries wet and slick, and a glass of cold water, and you're going to enjoy the fuck out of them

One of these mornings you're going to wake up dead, and won't that be the last available straw…

Get outta here, Allen, I'm up, already.

WAR

American as apple pie  

GI - government issue  

Your soul might belong to God, but your ass belongs to the US Army.

1968

Hood, sweet young sad eyed GI 

Pissed off emptied out

Stretched too thin for fuck you just wanted left alone

Rotated out of Nam into cool your heels short time worlds collide would collide macht nicht no matter where no matter what no matter

Wraith kid 

watched death smudge air 

watched death slide by cold war GI's 

watched death pool 

Scared the shit out of everybody 

Could have dissolved like salt in rain no energy to him occupied so little space hardly there

Uniform Code of Military Justice finally did him in

       

Spec 4 

busted

PFC 

busted

Private 

busted

court martialed

gone

Bring it on down:

airborne

infantry

combat

dark eyed 

sweet young

eagle 

screaming 

eagle

Hood

sweet young

Hood

Turned into a ghost

Sad eyed GI.

gone.

What is it good for?  Absolutely nothing!

(Me and My) Morphine Cadillac

Song w/o Music 6

I drive a morphine Cadillac

and I feel no pain

I drive a morphine Cadillac

and I feel no pain

         Don't care about sun

         Don't care about that cold, cold  rain

I've got a tank full of gas

and I've worked through all the gears

Got a tank full of gas

and I've worked through all the gears

         Fourth down to first was what it took

         to get me here

                  Oooo-ooooo

                           morphine

                  Whoa-ohhhh

                           no steering

                           no brakes.

I'm in a dark, dark room

and I like it this way

I'm in a dark, dark room

and I like it this way

         Those shadows on the wall

         gonna' stay all day

It's so slow in here, baby

it's so slow right now

It's so slow in here, baby

it's so slow right now

         It's alright, honey

         got no place to get to anyhow

                  Oooo-ooooo

                           morphine

                  Whoa-ohhhh

                           feel like I'm fixin' to die.

Nighttime now

ain't never gonna' get to day

Nighttime now

ain't never gonna' get to day

         my morphine Cadillac

         is taking me away

                  Oooo-ooooo

                           morphine

                  Whoa-ohhhh

                           drive on, James

                           don't stop now

                  Oooo-ooooo

                           is that an Escalade

                           it's an Eldorado, honey

                           no it's not, it's a Fleetwood, Mack

                           you sure that's not a Lincoln Continental

                           no, it's not a Lincoln Continental, it's not a Lexus,

                                    and it's for sure not a god-damn Prius

                  Whoa-ohhhh

                           Cadillac, honey,

                                    Morphine Cadillac.

                  

DON'T FOLLOW ME

Song w/o Music 5

Thirty coming into town

sixty heading out

Couldn't leave fast enough

on any highway route

A one hearse town

with a crappy whiskey bar

Near enough to everyplace

and ugly as a scar

         Thirty coming into town

         Sixty heading out

Get drunk, got drunk, gone

how'd you get next to me

Past the city limits

you still won't feel free

         Thirty coming into town

         Sixty heading out

         Ninety on the straightaway

I watched her watch the road

with that smile on her face

Didn't see the hairpin curve

'til we launched out into space

         Thirty coming into town

         Sixty heading out

         Ninety on the straightaway

         Weightless

Ain't no parachute to save our skin

Won't get out the trouble we been in

Just another lousy weekend binge

And she meant less to me than a shot of gin

         Thirty coming into town

         Sixty heading out

         Ninety on the straightaway

         Weightless

         Blind

Don't give it too much thought

how I might of wrote this song

You think the bottom's coming up

But it's still a long way down.

         Thirty coming into town

         Sixty heading out

         Ninety on the straightaway

         Weightless

         Blind

                  and dead.

Older and Colder

Song w/o Music 4

Come over here, brother

pull up a stool

have a drink

that's ok, I'll get it

I just need to talk

you might lend me your ear

I know, it's Shakespeare that said it.

See that big old map hanging on the wall

shows every place I've been

and there's stars up there on those little towns -

heartbreak, misery, and sin.

Miriam was in Louisville

and Linda lived up north

there was Susie in my own home town

Crazy Mamie was the fourth.

I married every one of those girls

wasn't one that I liked best

but they all had arms

growing out of their charms

and they all put bars

up around the nest.

I left those women far behind

without a phone call or a note

and headed down to Mexico

with some money and some hope

I'd find a better place

where people prayed

on their knees - just like they meant it

and forgiveness would come

like a sweet sweet gift

a merciful God would send it.

But it weren't in the cards

it didn't happen

even though I prayed it would

so I came back north

with my hat in my hands

to try to make up

or try to make good.

I was soon to learn

that too much time

had passed and you know I let it

and if you're not on time

the people you hurt

won't let you forget it.

It's a hard and wicked world, my friend

full of roads that never end

and there ain't no truck that's long enough

to haul the hurtin' I been in.

Now I got me a room

in a skid road crash

and a job that don't really pay

that keeps me floating on whiskey fumes

and a couple of meals a day

I'd like to change my life

and do a few good things

don't know how, I'd like to try

but I'm afraid the sweet and the holy might be

too soft for hands like mine.

Thanks a lot, brother

let me get you another

there's some reason you're sitting here

but you don't have to say

and you don't have to pay

and you don't have to shed a tear.

There is one kind favor

I ask of you

think of me down the road

'cause the days are short

and the nights are long

and the older you get

the more you feel the cold

yeah, the older you get

the more you feel the cold.

A Quietly Disappearing Slow Dance

Song w/o Music 3

I'm just as dry as I can be

and run right out of happiness

The signals that you're sending

are of shipwreck and distress

I swear your midnight Hoodoo

has crept into the day

and makes it hard and all the harder

for me to stay.

If there was a bus

I'd take it

If there was a train

I'd get on board

But there's nothing here but us

and the absence of the Lord.

We used to live in some place safe

where God's creatures had a chance

And where every invitation

didn't lead to the last dance

It wasn't paradise, I know

still we acted like it was

and you took me disappearing

down your back roads.

Now all that's come tumbling down

we're caught in misery and strife

And I'd sell off everything I own

to buy a different kind of life

and if there was a bus

I'd take it

If there was a train

I'd get on board

But there's nothing here but us

and the absence of the Lord,

the absence of the Lord.

A Blues for Coyote

(Vaguely to It Takes a lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry)

Song w/o Music 2

A BLUES FOR COYOTE

He's a coyote, baby                       

            out lookin' for a thrill                       

Just a trickster, honey                                   

            sittin' on top of the hill                       

He stays up all night                                   

            singing coyote songs                       

Travels through time                                   

            brings his friends along           

He's a coyote, baby                                                           

            out lookin' for a thrill                       

He's always been here

            ain't nothin' that he hasn't seen

Yeah, he's always been here

            standin' just betwixt and between

He's a rambler and a roamer

All around the universe

He might be greeted with a prayer

            might be greeted with a curse

He's always been here

            ain't nothin' that he hasn't seen

Now I met him in Jerusalem

I met him in old Santa Fe

We been in situations

            where we didn't want to stay

I seen him in a nightclub

I seen him in a church

I seen him in a hotel room

            and places much much worse

He's everywhere, baby

We even had a drink in Paris, France

He's a hungry critter

            he never gets his fill

He's a varmint, babe

            circlin' 'round the kill

He might be hunting

            'cause he's starving

Might be hunting

            'cause he's bored

If he's in your dreams, honey

            better try to find the door

'Cause he's hungry, baby

            he never gets his fill

He's a coyote, baby                                   

            out lookin' for a thrill                       

Just a coyote, honey                                   

            sittin' on top of the hill                       

He stays up all night                                   

            singing coyote songs                       

Travels through time                                   

            brings his friends along           

He's a trickster, baby                                                           

            out lookin' for a thrill.