“…what a long, strange trip it’s been…”

don’t get up I’m not staying

          born between the feces & the urine : 

                        a clown of nihilism, a merry prankster :

(how young I seem : I am exceptional)

 

in & out of institutions

         what tedium, what blaze, who 

                       searches out the Ideal god-whore who 

reminds me of my mother

 

a jazzed-up air, a way of speaking

              standing naked in the window, nothing

                            but a transistor radio nailed to the 

genitals, music playing heartbreak

 

steady on, old pal, I hum a short blues

            if I’m not loud enough, say, I’ll be louder

                       this is my face, this is my form, disappearing

through an eye of Camel smoke

 

a ghost of lesser noises & a pest

             a flicked cigarette arcs the speeding window 

                           on a tree branch a girl sits & combs her black hair

 a balance which simultaneously suggests & disturbs

 

dead? they told you I was dead, what?

               well, maybe… a little, let’s do a hoedown, 

                           gal, I mean, it’s a hard, hard world, in any case

& not many of us ever get out alive