Iguana Dreams--Another Fragment
by Baron
Astoria 1971
|
Johnny Wright, the poet, I met him in Astoria back in '71 when he moved to town driving a hippie Volkswagen van and sporting a new wife. Johnny was a 32 year old scraggly haired poet and Lila was a Jewish princess from LA who was into painting and song... We partied hard on Lila's daddy's money, drinking Almaden wine eating dinners I brought home from the drag boat I was working on... the Trask. Shelly O'Leary, a 5-8 Irish girl from Montana from Missoula Montana was Lila's best friend, and Johnny claimed to have got both of them in bed together once, but I don't know. Johnny was a magician, and Astoria was a magic place back then... the salmon and albacore were running...the canneries were still running it was before the canneries were shut down and the town was ruined for the likes of me.
I did some things back then but it seemed that life just kept running away from me... You don't have to read this, you can turn on the tube and fry your brain with mundane insipidity... if you really don't want a life or to even know what it's like for people who go out seeking. And that's what we were doing... We were seeking the truth... hoping against hope that some magic talent would propel us out of stark poverty into fame fortune or even harder to find a beautiful relationship that lasted a lifetime. That was going by, free love was all over, there were no AIDs... the worst thing you could get from fucking could be cured with a shot and gas was 30 cents a gallon and we thought we had it tough. We had it better than we ever would we just didn't know it yet You know, it's a funny thing, the children don't play hide and seek anymore... I can remember every evening being out playing in the blackberry patches of the Columbia River playing hide and seek with all the neighbor kids. Then it would start to get dark and mothers would start calling us in for dinner. You know, people don't do that anymore... back then everyone did. Kid's got it the worst they get packed into day care centers that are magnets for pedofiles. If you were a pedofile where would you look for work? You don't even need a teaching degree and you'll be charged with children in their most vulnerable age...oh I should get off this... I just miss the good old days. These days the kids they're all in front of the tube... the tube... computer or TV, really doesn't make much difference, they're just as numbing. Me? Yeah, I'm staring into one right now, this damn computer... and I feel numb... numb... numby.
Unbridled, I forged outward and
found,
in the structure of Poe, laments
beautiful, exposing the soul.
Lenore a symbol of truth,
youth departed, and the death of hope; Others came rapidly, Williams, and Yeats, Dickinson, Khyam, Emerson, too. I read for pleasure on winter nights. Dallying with Childe Harold, on sweet Albion's shore, and raging against darkness with Dylan Thomas in meter and rhyme, whiskey and wine. Ezra Pound was out of St. Elizabeth's angry and old, whipping out Cantos against the politics and gold. But, most, I found his translations sublime, Li Po, Confucius, eyebrows painted green are a beautiful sight in young moonlight, the fish hawk saith. The modernists by Ferlengetti led at City Lights a rebel band, of Duncan, Ginsburg, Bukowski and ilk proclaiming the rights of man, transparent and harsh silk, lashing savage songs straight to the gut-indiscreet.
Ultimately, I'll do what I must,
uncap the pen and chip off the rust,
for the music I hear He asked me if I was a registered voter and I replied that I was... We agreed that we didn't want anybody who wanted to enforce the "law" as Sheriff. First of all what law... big city law? We don't need big city law out here in the wilderness. Things have been running fine in the county without a new interpretation of the law. Of course, it is big city slickness to remind everyone that there is security in the "law". I feel more secure already. Anyway, poverty sucks. And I can't sell my magazines on the Ferry docks without signing a contract with Marriot, who takes a cut, who pays a fee to the state for the right. So I'm paying the state for the right to free enterprise... I don't call that free... free means no cost right, without some dog bite taking a cut... that's how Great Britain was squeezing the American Colonies. That ain't free enterprise. Poverty sucks. Should smoke be legalized? You bet your sweet ass smoke should be legalized and we just don't mean tobacco. Hell we believe one of the reasons this society is so screwed up is because hemp is thought of as rope. First of all, Why is marijuana illegal. It wasn't illegal right up until 1938... That's right in the old days smoking pot was fine,smoke if you wish. But why are the Republicans so wildly afraid of a harmless herb. What does getting mellow on a little smoke have to do with breaking the law? It doesn't make sense. When was the last time somebody who was stoned on pot caused a fight in a bar because they'd smoked to much, when was the last time somebody who was smoking pot raced down the highway at 95 miles an hour weaving wildly out of control, mowing down hapless children and nuns.
|
|
|
