“Just bite down on that metal bit, I’ll saddle ye up in a minute, good boy!”
*
SO….
first he makes a Superbowl TV commercial for cars, then he gets a medal from the Prez. A Facebook friend posted a picture from this ceremony recently which prompted me to recall a quote I attributed to Jean Cocteau but now can’t seem to find any mention of despite doing quite a bit of Internet searching. I always end up with a similiar but actually completely different quote from Ghandi.
(*Any readers who recognize my paraphrase and know the correct attribution, do get in touch.)
It goes something like this:
“There are three ways the establishment tries to suppress the revolutionary artist: first they ignore him, then they ridicule him, and when all else fails they heap him with honours.”
If it was Cocteau, then he probably didn’t use the word “establishment”, that’s a rather 60s terminology, but then again, particularly apropos in the given context.
So coincidentally, just a few days later, while doing a bit of poetry archaeology (otherwise known as randomly digging through boxes of old journals in search of surprises) I came across this “Ode to Dylan” written back in 2006. Not really a poem, more of a polemic really. It’s tempting to revise it, edit it, make it better, but I resisted and not just out of laziness, but because I thought the subject and the content matched the “rough draft spew” feel o the piece.
Had no memory of ever having written such a thing and don’t know what prompted it. I don’t think about Bob Dylan a lot really.
*****
Ode to Bob Dylan (09/04/06)
Of all the many things
that have been written or said about Dylan
Very little has been spoken or writ
about how fucking lucky he was
genius? sure so what
don’t genius scrub floors every day
trying to milk a meal
from an eked-out wage?
Dylan was lucky
he was the boy with the goods
who happened to stumble into the marketplace
on the day all the other sellers had the same old merch
but today
oh today
could it happen again?
could some wild balladeer
break past the empty-headed
superficial McDonna infested
crapburger emporium of glitzy shit
of gilded gem-encrusted rancid turds
could milk and honey ambrosia
ever sate the twisted appetite
of hordes raised on sour poison curds?
i think not
i’m sorry
i’m a bummer
do i bore you?
well forgive me and remember
there’s always t.v.
which you can switch on and off
unlike, i’m sorry, me
others were 21 and precocious once
but culture didn’t give em
their Dylan chance
and the poets i knew
who inspired with the deep grey expanse
of their knowing eyes
have mostly died
or moved to Amsterdam
to slyly disintegrate or at least disappear
better than bowing to the man
i guess
but what sweet caressses were
in their wayward words
their ways / their weird
their woes
i heard it all
and i say
Dylan was fucking lucky
that he got listeners
for the poet with no receptive ears
is like a stag with no deers
like a frog with no pond
a palm tree with only a trunk
and no fronds
to wave
it’s like half an equasion
an evasion
an incomplete…
and it has driven poets mad
(why do you think so many of em
sleep / in the street?)
this is a crass age
an aeon of fakes
a full-time temporary circus
of freaks
Food Fat millionaires broadcast
televised plastic surgeries
and run contests to find their next
disposable stooges
Eat Eat Eat Eat Eat Eat Eat
then let ‘em cut away your meat
flog it on eBay
be notorious for a day
oh Dylan
Dylan
Dylan
I love you
but seriously
you didn’t have to deal with this shit
my man!
those were innocent times
when your innocent rhymes
could blow people’s minds
what’s your angle
your gimmick
your marketing strategy?
no they never asked those of the holy thee
did they?
no they sold you
as is
you were free to
express
i think you may even have dressed
yourself
what no stylist?
Leaping Lizards
call an ambulance!
No you were left
to be yourself
and never to my knowledge
past the age of 20 anyway
did you have to wait tables
i keep slipping into the 2nd person
when I want to stay in the third
I meant to say “he”
and not “you”
because Dylan isn’t listening
after all these years of being heard
inaccessible
in a crystal castle
encased in a legend
sculpted in marble
emblazoned with the honour brand
that stamped him as
ARTIST
the irony is of course
that now
Dylan is not among us
His friends, his heirs
even I would venture
some of his superiors
are all kept securely
behind the barriers
of fame
that special distance
people crave and hate
it is the mark of success
and the curse of this same fate
once you reach the spotlight
hit centre stage
You can’t turn around
and be friends with the rough trade
the people on whose floors
once you kipped
are nonentities now
and not unless you slip
back into obscurity
will you even remember the old phone numbers of these
old nobodies
Cruel aint it?
well so then don’t go for it
oh but baby you know you want it
want to have it / so you can despise it
Maybe Dylan wasn’t so lucky after all
Amen
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