When I first got to town I went to demarks swing club
They had them shimmy dancers – and them Shakespeare plays
0.
When I got to that town
I found me a home
Glad but I found
the twilight zone
Not a horrible one
It cheered the late bloomer
An offbeat episode
With droll black humor
In a halfway house
Stuck halfway
The sun in the morning
was a big red flame
i.
In the land of trees
where there are no leaves
trucks and mystics
and misfit knees
The tie-dyed streets
All looked inviting
I wore some shades
To adjust the lighting
Wandered like a sailor
with a self-distain then
so I left Goldwater
for the golden plain.
ii.
The heater I had
would freeze and die
the girls down that way
walked streets on the side
People half-smiled
Didn’t know their M-O
When I started to talk
Their heels turned to go
Chased a shimmy dancer
In a Shakespeare play
I left that town
For Fortuna way
Why'm I heading for Fortuna?
Why'm I talking to myself?
Where's the girl I left in Boston?
In the fog? how’s your health?
iii.
the moon was a sliver
the stars were a wonder
Half-standing, half-sleeping
I heard Freddy Fender
Piensa en mi
think of me in my sorrow
a log flat floating
held a bishop with his bowwow
the caffeine and nicotine
like rich vicuna
they’d fall off their stools
and I’d split Fortuna.
iv.
No mightnight special
Just headlights on a Ford
They pulled the wings off hope
prayed long lord god
lumber trucks rolled
to the seaside nightly
all in my sleep
I was stumbling and groaning
I left that town
Id pack and go
Tracing my tracks
Too old sleepy hollow yeah
y.
Are you going to a funeral?
yes in a way
Spooned a hippie sufi dancer
And met Robert cray
Playing ov wright
Waiting for the night
the coastal highway played a
Hand of pure spite
Had to leave there daddy
Away I’d heave
To the notated music
To the dreamland sea
v.
I met sallie moss beach
And to No surprise – she broke my heart
But she was easy on the eyes
Clipping art from my sorrow
Catching glimpses of my woe.
Winding down the road
Like I got somewhere to go
To pick casabas
to go to Niagara
I’d slowly turn
under dark ladders.
vi.
I liked it in the zone
Moved on nonetheless
But I left those towns
On a peter pan bus
I heard a blues
Found a physics text
I got god smacked
And I got god blessed
God damn I was goin
With my hair still curling
One day to shake hands
With old Rod Serling.
x.
Oh Fortuna don’t you lie to me
Don’t say Thomas Pynchon was just baking beans
Brooming the salvation store army fine
Rolling and tumbling a dream concubine
Goldwater’s gone but no not me
On the golden plain to the dreamland sea………
I left that town
Cause it bothered me.
===
Ok well. We could spend years on this, just as well as weeks or days. I think we have spent years on this actually, from the chatter in the e-mails I'd say. Recall as well: The MeisterBrau Super Quart and the poesy in the Saturday night kitchen. Which seems to be the same story as here to me. Just a couple of pointers: Dave and I drove from S.F. up to Arcata-Eureka in 1977. Paul gave us a cabin where he was staying, where the rumor was, Thomas Pynchon had once stayed. We eagerly checked through his books, which were like yard sale college texts. No particular insight, although I have been buying such books at yard sales ever since, trying to catch up with Tom. Dreamland Sea was a song whose sheetmusic I found in Eureka-Arcata in 1976, and cut up to include in a little mimeo poster for Paul's
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