Book of Blues

  A hard hearted old farmer

  hidin his wine in the cellar

  When he goes out he wears

  earmuffs

  He has a doublebitted axe

  sharp enough

  to shave shit

  His people are all buried

  in the same cemetery,

  which is located

  under the doorstep

  where the boy

  couldnt get through

  from the tomb

  41TH CHORUS

  If we do battle,

  Monsieur,

  And you lose,

  I gain nothing,

  And if I lose,

  you gain

  Satisfaction

  This is what the peasant said

  when the aristocrat

  challenged him to a duel

  Women move slowly

  but they dont stop

  Europe, weep in your gloomy

  rain

  I brought it to him

  so I could get you

  in Paradise

  42TH CHORUS

  Abraham, drinking water by the tents

  Pacing up & down the soft sand

  under the stars

  Worrying about Villages

  Wondering if your vision was real

  or just a foolish importunity

  in your mind.

  Yet moving on in the morning anyway

  with the rattle of pack asses.

  Abraham, the dew is in your beard

  Abraham my eyes are open

  You are weird

  Abraham they’ve brought you

  Your rooftops are mended

  Your women bend no more

  their heads under the sleepy

  tentflap, & goats dont yew

  & cry nomo in the singsong

  tentvillage night

  43RD CHORUS

  Abraham I didnt write this right

  44TH CHORUS

  Dont ever come to Florida

  A man was gettin up for work

  & reached under his bed

  in Kissimee

  and a coral snake

  bit him, February Florida

  (lookin for his shoes)

  A little boy playin in his yard

  was et by a alligator

  (true)

  And an old lady dyin in her bed

  was et up by fire ants

  which found her

  clean from the yard

  And my mother saw a lizard

  one foot long

  on the garbage pail

  that had big red eyes

  (The fire ants went in

  thru the mouth, man)

  45TH CHORUS

  There’s a middlewestern prurience

  about Greeks.—

  Your little earth-nut, O potato

  war, riots mama dears around

  papap’s paternal root

  Silkyboo

  (oo!)

  Found the Sound

  46TH CHORUS

  Hollywood boy sing dog song

  Dont be fooled by gun car

  Or shine in hat of Sheriff

  Cochise,

  or turn that dial,

  boy, you know whats happen

  to you when yard dog

  bit your fame

  Yair, & dont sweep any leaves,

  Watch me play basketball

  I guess—

  In Inverness, where I’sa

  played hogball since

  your pappy skinned

  —Okay, old

  suit, see

  ya more

  47TH CHORUS

  Airplanes dropping barrels

  of shit on the White House

  On Roosevelt’s very head

  What do the women know

  of the wood?

  All they gotta do is get drunk,

  Honorary Mayor

  Up sprang the butcher boy

  with the spring old man!

  Why’st the fool play thou?

  Because fools always follow.

  Followest what?

  Because fooly are always follying?

  Nay, Sire, it was forgotten

  in that body’s balconeer

  48TH CHORUS

  God ushered me into my house

  What a batting champeen

  honorable American Navy

  Sweetheart God is to us

  Japanese Rigour Girls

  Buy that, Moke!

  Dazz, I’ze innerested

  in drape fall circus

  and yo, yo got childrees

  pleak okomiko bonny

  sugar, ah, sweet,

  dont let Robert Burns

  burn that cigar of yours

  Or mice lay men

  to diamondshine

  your kittlepee poopoo

  Grace,

  Otherwise purd

  Hurt

  New Year

  49TH CHORUS

  Way out

  But not too way out

  Barefaced wretch—

  you’re a pretty nice

  barefaced wretch—

  as bare faced wretches

  go

  True Toy!

  Great day in the morning,

  Ugh-y!

  50TH CHORUS

  Hollywood, if you want

  little girls raped by sex

  fiends, dont hint with

  symbols, give it to me

  Straight

  Otto was pretty miserable

  He chased little girls

  to rape in sawdust

  apartments yet unbuilt

  He was a ugly big Otto

  but O when I was

  a little girl I loved

  all that

  The lovely maniac

  makes me smile

  51ST CHORUS

  Who is going to get rid

  of his discriminating mind,

  which is the way to

  heaven, when he is being

  eaten by crocodiles?

  By means of his extremely

  slow metabolism he was

  enabled to keep far

  on the father light,

  far from the energy

  particle of the mother

  Ah, it’s a depressing situation:

  we imagine that

  we live and imagine

  that we die, too bad,

  too bad

  Manly manly manly friend

  says the faggot on TV

  CERRADA MEDELLIN BLUES

  (FIRST SOLO)

  1ST CHORUS

  Even when I was a little boy

  I was always alone

  with my guardian angel

  Playing Tarzan

  An icicle fell on me

  & cut my arm

  I had a rope around my neck

  I was hanged in Innifree

  Had my hand cut off in Perfldee

  Never had my fill

  of Thee

  ST MICHAEL IN THE CORNER,

  NINE FEET TALL

  2TH CHORUS

  The Only One

  said Christ to me

  When you’re alone in Heaven

  with God

  Who is my Father

  and Thine

  You’ll know that y
our self

  you

  And your guardian angel,

  One,

  And the self of any

  Is

  The Only One—

  Sad Bent Head

  in “Cant-Get-Away

  From-That-Tnnisfree”

  3RD CHORUS

  I wonder what’s hiding

  in the Cross?

  Did Jesus free the world?

  Before him there were murders

  officially.

  From body to effigy

  went history.

  Emily Dickinson me that,

  Thomas Hardy.

  Roll me a pearl me

  that, O Big Sur Sea.

  And you, Ferlinghetti,

  how do you like that

  For rhyming free

  Free of a doctor’s degree.

  Jean Louee.

  4TH CHORUS

  When I drink Bénédictine

  I drink what the Holy

  Father

  Blessed

  I drink the blood of Christ?

  Naw!

  I drink Christ hisself—

  I say “Thank ye, God”

  and drink—

  And kiss the bottle

  With the Cross on it

  And D.O.M.

  the director of drinkers—

  The Heavenly Daiquiri?

  The troublesome Innisfree.

  5TH CHORUS

  What’s all this Innisfree

  Running straight thru me?

  Was Yeats invented it?

  Or O’Shawn the Yurner?

  Repetitive old rolling

  smoke balloons?

  Paul Newman’s mouth

  with Spanish ladies

  arguing?

  What?—Some truck?

  Some cigaree? Halles

  Market onions are free?

  My Guardian Angel’s

  About to tell me—

  6TH CHORUS

  Alone with my Guardian Angel

  Alone in Innisfree

  Alone in Mexico

  City

  Alone with Benedict,

  Cave is free,

  alone is alone,

  Thou Only One—

  Alone and Alone

  The song of the pree

  (Pree means prayer

  in English & Frenchie)

  Choose yr words lightly,

  shit on the world,

  Merton’ll die

  when he reads

  this from me

  7TH CHORUS

  I love Lax

  A regular Pax

  I love Lax

  not Ex Lax

  but

  you see

  Now Lax

  But’s teeth ne’er held

  The comedian so grand

  As them Lax horse teeth

  Held prayer

  to ground

  Lax is a singer

  Lax is a goner

  Lax is a gonna

  get mad onner

  8TH CHORUS

  My hand is moved

  by holy angels

  The life we are in

  is invisible

  Holy Ghost

  If you could see me,

  hoodlum,

  You’d be Saint

  Cant slash

  at a loser

  For Oy Yai O Paint

  —Those lies are for liars

  And me I’m a liar,

  So liars forget

  the handsome beget

  The ugliest pricks

  The angel beset

  9TH CHORUS

  But I stopped to think

  The angel dont care

  Nine feet tall

  Beside the wall

  Wants me cut out

  To do the rub out

  But I got fathers to care for

  Father Shoyer is one

  Father Gioscia is two

  That’s enough for you

  —Ah Lucien

  Al Jalisco

  Ah I’m drunk

  borracho

  10TH CHORUS

  Too drunk to write

  Cant see the light

  It’s a strange thing when nuts

  get together

  To form one cock—

  Young girls should shudder

  in that empty light—

  The holy of angels,

  I wonder what’s he think?

  Shd push pencils

  for agers, masagers,

  Masseurs and all?

  Oll? Lovely bedoodlers

  in Time’s Holy All

  Holiest Ghostliest

  ramified Hall

  11TH CHORUS

  And, said I to the Angel,

  that shall certainly do,

  And the Angel said:

  D you remember Gregory?

  Corso, the Way of Poetry?

  Orlovsky too?

  And Ginsberg O Shay?

  And Burroughs the Master

  speaks thru his teeth?

  And the writer of story

  the generous Honkey?

  And Lafcadio the Holy

  Innocent of Russia,

  the Patriarch, & Sebastian?

  And Lucien?

  And Neal Cassady?

  12TH CHORUS

  Move my hand Lord

  move my hand

  Tell Ray Bremser

  something calm him

  down

  Tell Leroi Jones

  & Diane di Prima

  tooo

  They dont know

  that Heaven

  which is waiting for them

  In the land of OO

  (SECOND SOLO)

  1ST CHORUS

  “You can think by yourself”

  says God from Heaven

  Talking to all 70 thousand

  Billion Four Thousand

  Eighty Two Trillions

  of Creatures in his Movie

  called “Creation”

  (pause)

  2ND CHORUS

  He means that all

  those sentient beings

  are free to think unimpeded

  —Only God is the Only One

  who knows that all the thinking

  going on

  is what the thinking going on

  is thinking

  And none of it ever happened

  SHTMIMK!

  Shtmimk?

  3RD CHORUS

  But like any other movie

  the thinking is gray

  but also big romances

  like Latin Love You music

  & all of it seems so golden

  steada gray.

  That’s because it’s a very strange

  movie

  It is strange as dulcet gray.

  Hey looka me Ma

  I’m writing like Yorkshire

  Pudding De-Headed Gray

  The proof is in the pudding

  they Bray

  Just like any other old Canaday

  4TH CHORUS

  The brain is a pudding

  with raisins in’t

  Hey looka me Ma I’m thinking

  like Otay—

  Okay, Mémo,

  Está bien, Mémo,

  Parandero.


  (That’s what they mean Espanish

  ‘Hey kiddy, dont hit

  the bars too much,

  chico.’

  Hey Baby dont yup at me

  in Azmetec!)

  Yair, Pard old Hoopard

  Hoomingway blew his head

  over Old I-day-o

  5TH CHORUS

  Hemingway Blues, is called.

  Me too Blues—You Blues

  —Thinkin Blues—Paris

  Blues and Blacks—

  Hurshy, move the tack!

  Dont bring me no le-mon

  chiffin, pie, man,

  I’ll break yore head in

  Head already broken in

  No chin

  Yes chin

  Soft Chin

  Northport Autumn

  falling leaves blues

  And winter white

  sailboat philosopher

  blues, on sand,

  Lois and Victor by name.

  6TH CHORUS

  All kindsa fine blues

  even this minute

  in Vera Cruz,

  Terre Haute,

  Montana,

  Golgotha,

  Heaven Door.

  All kindsa information rattlin

  back & forth

  Crazy old angel midnight

  world talkin singin

  rubbin antennaes

  High on antenni

  and go Mondadori’n

  in Italy for to see sweep

  of Gary Venice Door’s

  Venetian oar

  7TH CHORUS

  Or go Atyastapafi’n

  in other planets?

  Goo, what a gaw!

  And does wet boulders think?

  I see the face of Christ

  in the door

  after it has been the face

  of the Dog, the Owl,

  the Lamb, the Lion,

  Christ, the Dog again,

  the Collie then suddenly

  my God the Colleen!

  Her soft brown eyes,

  esperanza morena,

  Then it’s Christ again,

  this time in profile

  —This I just saw.