Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run with cobblestones falling down the riverbank when the willow's roots exposed from the dirt Uriah lifts a vase full of river water
with cobblestones falling down the riverbank tumbling through the lightshow vortex Uriah lifts the vase full of river water as Janis Joplin ascends the stage
tumbling through the lightshow vortex Patti Smith's Blake death mask print sits as Janis Joplin ascends the stage so does Timothy Leary's psychotropic sermon
When Patti Smith's Blake death mask print sits upon the Peace Eye Bookstore cash registers click so does Timothy Leary's psychotropic sermon tell Tuli Kupferberg a verse after his Brooklyn Bridge plunge
upon the Peace Eye Bookstore cash register Chuck Berry album so Ed sanders swims to the nuclear submarine tell Tuli Kupferberg a verse after his Brooklyn Bridge plunge when Diane Arbus' camera aperture blinks
So Ed Sanders swims to the nuclear submarine then down a green plain, leaping, laughing the Harpy face behind the rose when the willow's roots exposed from dirt
Uriah was one of the "mighty men" whom king David of Israel relied upon. David impregnated his wife and then arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle. Uriah Heep, however, was a British rock band formed in 1969, named after a villainous character in Charles Dickens' 1850 novel "The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)." One of the band's songs "The River" by Mick Box/Ken Hensley/ Trevor Bolder / Lee Kerslake / John Lawton:
River, rising to hide Across the midnight Wanderin' westward by daylight Take us and lead us to tomorrow As fast as you come and can flow
River, you're windin' An unending rhythm The sooner keep Movin' to warn him The spirit that keeps Us from sinking Guide us from going astray
Point us a way To a shoreline ahead Through the mist and the fog Of this valley of death Too many years we have Walked in a sleep Now we're awaken and ready to flee
Janis Joplin was a legendary blues singer of the 1960s who died of a heroine overdose in 1970. Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter wrote "Bird Song" as a tribute to her:
All I know is something like a bird within her sang All I know, she sang a little while and then flew on Tell me all that you know, I'll show you snow and rain
And you hear that same sweet song again, will you know why? Anyone who sings a tune so sweet is passing by Laugh in the sunshine, sing, cry in the dark, fly through the night
Don't cry now, don't you cry Don't you cry anymore Sleep in the stars, don't you cry Dry your eyes on the wind
Patti Smith, the "punk poet laureate," fused rock music and poetry in her work, as in "my blakean year."
In my Blakean year I was so disposed Toward a mission yet unclear Advancing pole by pole Fortune breathed into my ear Mouthed a simple ode One road is paved in gold One road is just a road
In my Blakean year Such a woeful schism The pain of our existence Was not as I envisioned Boots that trudged from track to track Worn down to the sole One road is paved in gold One road is just a road
Boots that tread from track to track Worn down to the sole One road is paved in gold One road is just a road
In my Blakean year Temptation but a hiss Just a shallow spear Robed in cowardice
Brace yourself for bitter flack For a life sublime A labyrinth of riches Never shall unwind The threads that bind the pilgrim's sack Are stitched into the Blakean back So throw off your stupid cloak Embrace all that you fear For joy will conquer all despair In my Blakean year
Before William Blake died in 1827 he suffered from "that sickness to which there is no name." In 1819 he began a series of deathmask-like sketches called "visionary" heads" based on historical figures who modeled for him.
Timothy Leary was a Harvard University psychologist who championed the use of psychedelic drugs. At the massive 1967 Human Be-In gathering in San Francisco he exhorted the 30,000 attendees to "turn on, tune in, drop out" (a slogan actually coined by language philosopher Marshall McLuhan); in promotional literature for his League for Spiritual Discovery, a religion with LSD as its holy sacrament, he explicated the phrase: "Drop Out – detach yourself from the external social drama which is as dehydrated and ersatz as TV. Turn On – find a sacrament which returns you to the temple of God, your own body. Go out of your mind. Get high. Tune In – be reborn. Drop back in to express it. Start a new sequence of behavior that reflects your vision." On the day in 1969 that the Supreme Court overturned his 1965 conviction for possession of marijuana he announced his candidacy for governor of California, for which John Lennon composed "Come Together" as a campaign song, which was recorded by the Beatles on "Abbey Road," their final album:
Here come old flat-top, he come grooving up slowly He got ju-ju eyeballs, he's one holy roller He got hair down to his knees Got to be a joker, he just do what he please
Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me, shoot me
He wear no shoeshine, he's got toe-jam football He got monkey finger, he shoot Coca-Cola He say, "I know you, you know me" One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together, right now Over me
He bag production, he got walrus gumboot He's got Ono sideboard, he one spinal cracker He got feet down below his knee Hold you in his armchair, you can feel his disease
Come together, right now Over me Right!
He roller-coaster, he got early warning He got muddy water, he one mojo filter He say, "One and one and one is three" Got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see
Come together, right now Over me
However, in 1970 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a 1968 arrest. Based on psychological tests he was given (including the "Leary Interpersonal Behavior Inventory" he had devised a decade earlier) he was assigned to work as a gardener in a low-security prison, from which he escaped with help from the Weather Underground Organization, a leftist terrorist group which took its name from a line in Bob Dylan's song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows). He was recaptured and sentenced to 95 years but was released in 1976.
Poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg founded the Fugs in 1964, named after Norman Mailer's euphemism for "fuck" in his 1948 novel "The Naked and the Dead." An FBI memo called the band the "most vulgar thing the human mind could possibly conceive." In 1944 Kupferberg he was seriously injured after he tried to commit suicide by leaping off the Manhattan Bridge, an act which was memorialized in Allen Ginsberg's 1955 poem "Howl": he was the one "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer." Ted Berrigan and Anne Waldman also wrote about the incident in their prose poem "Memorial Day 1971": "I thought that I had lost the ability to love.... So, I figured I might as well be dead. So, I went one night to the top of The Manhattan Bridge, & after a few minutes, I jumped off.... I landed in the water, & I wasn't dead. So I swam ashore, & went home, & took a bath, & went to bed. Nobody even noticed." Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore in New York in 1962; he was arrested on obscenity charges in 1966, leading to his being featured on the cover of "LIFE" magazine as "a leader of New York's Other Culture."
Diane Arbus was noted for her photographs of dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers, and others whose normality was perceived by the general populace as ugly or surreal. In 1971 she took an overdose of barbituates, wrote the words "Last Supper" in her diary, put her appointment book on the stairs leading up to her bathroom and slahed her wrists with a razor in her bathtub. The next year she became the 1st American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale, and the accompanying exhibition book, "Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph," is the best-selling photography monograph in history. Her brother Howard Nemerov was the nation's poet laureate in 1963 and 1988, and her sister Renee Nemerov Sparkia Brown was a noted sculptor/painter/designer.
Chuck Berry was one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. After serving 3 years as a teenager in a reformatory for armed robbery and carjacking he began performing in 1953 In 1955 his song "Maybelline" sold over a million records but was sent to prison in 1962 for taking a 14-year-old girl across state lines for illicit purposes. In 1979 he was jailed for tax evasion amd in 1990 he paid $1.2 million to 59 women who claimed he had installed a video camera in the bathroom of his restaurant. Although he continued to perform he stopped recording original material in 1979 until 2016 -- "Chuck" was released after his death in 2017.
Down a Green Plain
ReplyDeleteThen down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run
with cobblestones falling down the riverbank
when the willow's roots exposed from the dirt
Uriah lifts a vase full of river water
with cobblestones falling down the riverbank
tumbling through the lightshow vortex
Uriah lifts the vase full of river water
as Janis Joplin ascends the stage
tumbling through the lightshow vortex
Patti Smith's Blake death mask print sits
as Janis Joplin ascends the stage
so does Timothy Leary's psychotropic sermon
When Patti Smith's Blake death mask print sits
upon the Peace Eye Bookstore cash registers click
so does Timothy Leary's psychotropic sermon
tell Tuli Kupferberg a verse after his Brooklyn Bridge plunge
upon the Peace Eye Bookstore cash register Chuck Berry album
so Ed sanders swims to the nuclear submarine
tell Tuli Kupferberg a verse after his Brooklyn Bridge plunge
when Diane Arbus' camera aperture blinks
So Ed Sanders swims to the nuclear submarine
then down a green plain, leaping, laughing
the Harpy face behind the rose
when the willow's roots exposed from dirt
Uriah was one of the "mighty men" whom king David of Israel relied upon. David impregnated his wife and then arranged for Uriah to be killed in battle. Uriah Heep, however, was a British rock band formed in 1969, named after a villainous character in Charles Dickens' 1850 novel "The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (Which He Never Meant to Publish on Any Account)." One of the band's songs "The River" by Mick Box/Ken Hensley/ Trevor Bolder / Lee Kerslake / John Lawton:
ReplyDeleteRiver, rising to hide
Across the midnight
Wanderin' westward by daylight
Take us and lead us to tomorrow
As fast as you come and can flow
River, you're windin'
An unending rhythm
The sooner keep
Movin' to warn him
The spirit that keeps
Us from sinking
Guide us from going astray
Point us a way
To a shoreline ahead
Through the mist and the fog
Of this valley of death
Too many years we have
Walked in a sleep
Now we're awaken and ready to flee
Janis Joplin was a legendary blues singer of the 1960s who died of a heroine overdose in 1970. Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter wrote "Bird Song" as a tribute to her:
ReplyDeleteAll I know is something like a bird within her sang
All I know, she sang a little while and then flew on
Tell me all that you know, I'll show you snow and rain
And you hear that same sweet song again, will you know why?
Anyone who sings a tune so sweet is passing by
Laugh in the sunshine, sing, cry in the dark, fly through the night
Don't cry now, don't you cry
Don't you cry anymore
Sleep in the stars, don't you cry
Dry your eyes on the wind
Patti Smith, the "punk poet laureate," fused rock music and poetry in her work, as in "my blakean year."
ReplyDeleteIn my Blakean year
I was so disposed
Toward a mission yet unclear
Advancing pole by pole
Fortune breathed into my ear
Mouthed a simple ode
One road is paved in gold
One road is just a road
In my Blakean year
Such a woeful schism
The pain of our existence
Was not as I envisioned
Boots that trudged from track to track
Worn down to the sole
One road is paved in gold
One road is just a road
Boots that tread from track to track
Worn down to the sole
One road is paved in gold
One road is just a road
In my Blakean year
Temptation but a hiss
Just a shallow spear
Robed in cowardice
Brace yourself for bitter flack
For a life sublime
A labyrinth of riches
Never shall unwind
The threads that bind the pilgrim's sack
Are stitched into the Blakean back
So throw off your stupid cloak
Embrace all that you fear
For joy will conquer all despair
In my Blakean year
Before William Blake died in 1827 he suffered from "that sickness to which there is no name." In 1819 he began a series of deathmask-like sketches called "visionary" heads" based on historical figures who modeled for him.
Timothy Leary was a Harvard University psychologist who championed the use of psychedelic drugs. At the massive 1967 Human Be-In gathering in San Francisco he exhorted the 30,000 attendees to "turn on, tune in, drop out" (a slogan actually coined by language philosopher Marshall McLuhan); in promotional literature for his League for Spiritual Discovery, a religion with LSD as its holy sacrament, he explicated the phrase: "Drop Out – detach yourself from the external social drama which is as dehydrated and ersatz as TV. Turn On – find a sacrament which returns you to the temple of God, your own body. Go out of your mind. Get high. Tune In – be reborn. Drop back in to express it. Start a new sequence of behavior that reflects your vision." On the day in 1969 that the Supreme Court overturned his 1965 conviction for possession of marijuana he announced his candidacy for governor of California, for which John Lennon composed "Come Together" as a campaign song, which was recorded by the Beatles on "Abbey Road," their final album:
ReplyDeleteHere come old flat-top, he come grooving up slowly
He got ju-ju eyeballs, he's one holy roller
He got hair down to his knees
Got to be a joker, he just do what he please
Shoot me, shoot me, shoot me, shoot me
He wear no shoeshine, he's got toe-jam football
He got monkey finger, he shoot Coca-Cola
He say, "I know you, you know me"
One thing I can tell you is you got to be free
Come together, right now
Over me
He bag production, he got walrus gumboot
He's got Ono sideboard, he one spinal cracker
He got feet down below his knee
Hold you in his armchair, you can feel his disease
Come together, right now
Over me
Right!
He roller-coaster, he got early warning
He got muddy water, he one mojo filter
He say, "One and one and one is three"
Got to be good looking 'cause he's so hard to see
Come together, right now
Over me
However, in 1970 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a 1968 arrest. Based on psychological tests he was given (including the "Leary Interpersonal Behavior Inventory" he had devised a decade earlier) he was assigned to work as a gardener in a low-security prison, from which he escaped with help from the Weather Underground Organization, a leftist terrorist group which took its name from a line in Bob Dylan's song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows). He was recaptured and sentenced to 95 years but was released in 1976.
ReplyDeletePoets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg founded the Fugs in 1964, named after Norman Mailer's euphemism for "fuck" in his 1948 novel "The Naked and the Dead." An FBI memo called the band the "most vulgar thing the human mind could possibly conceive." In 1944 Kupferberg he was seriously injured after he tried to commit suicide by leaping off the Manhattan Bridge, an act which was memorialized in Allen Ginsberg's 1955 poem "Howl": he was the one "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer." Ted Berrigan and Anne Waldman also wrote about the incident in their prose poem "Memorial Day 1971": "I thought that I had lost the ability to love.... So, I figured I might as well be dead. So, I went one night to the top of The Manhattan Bridge, & after a few minutes, I jumped off.... I landed in the water, & I wasn't dead. So I swam ashore, & went home, & took a bath, & went to bed. Nobody even noticed." Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore in New York in 1962; he was arrested on obscenity charges in 1966, leading to his being featured on the cover of "LIFE" magazine as "a leader of New York's Other Culture."
Diane Arbus was noted for her photographs of dwarfs, giants, transgender people, nudists, circus performers, and others whose normality was perceived by the general populace as ugly or surreal. In 1971 she took an overdose of barbituates, wrote the words "Last Supper" in her diary, put her appointment book on the stairs leading up to her bathroom and slahed her wrists with a razor in her bathtub. The next year she became the 1st American photographer to have photographs displayed at the Venice Biennale, and the accompanying exhibition book, "Diane Arbus: An Aperture Monograph," is the best-selling photography monograph in history. Her brother Howard Nemerov was the nation's poet laureate in 1963 and 1988, and her sister Renee Nemerov Sparkia Brown was a noted sculptor/painter/designer.
Chuck Berry was one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. After serving 3 years as a teenager in a reformatory for armed robbery and carjacking he began performing in 1953 In 1955 his song "Maybelline" sold over a million records but was sent to prison in 1962 for taking a 14-year-old girl across state lines for illicit purposes. In 1979 he was jailed for tax evasion amd in 1990 he paid $1.2 million to 59 women who claimed he had installed a video camera in the bathroom of his restaurant. Although he continued to perform he stopped recording original material in 1979 until 2016 -- "Chuck" was released after his death in 2017.