The found banjo, the story and the happening,
A few of us saw it.
I believe that you were wearing a raincoat
and your eyes went away wet.
I could not even stand to look,
So I had to turn around.

He takes a look around and
Says, "This is rough country,
This is where trails are born."
Says, "Goddamn got a right to,"
Pulling a deed from his back pocket,
And I signed the thing over to him.

a voice: “self-help . . . self-involved . . .
. . . a pattern of getting it wrong.”



Close-ups shot in passing headlights,
home video
and found sound.

A scene in the middle of nowhere,
"it's very nowhere, this scene."

“We are looking for El Stinko,
La Stinka,
over here in the Sigh Factory Outlet.”

We hunt through caves,
comb the countryside,
intercept and misread signals.

“the body is telling you that something is not right.”



B-movie actor/truck driver, Jefferson Jefferson,
a union man and a man with hands, resolve.
A burning in his gastro-intelligence
told him that he needed to make a change.

Put finger in the eye, Shakey,
Our cake is dough on both sides.

In his favorite interview
Warren Oates is said to say,
"This sure beats working,"
and a smiling Ben Johnson agrees,
"It does. It sure beats working."

"quick, quizzical half moves...
Tharp's language for the working class." [j. acocella]



(He dreamt last night of salted peanuts
and today he ate salted peanuts.
He was a free thinker,
He never charged a dime for what he did!
He led orchestration in a thing called the Monster Symphony.
(I will write a lot more about him later.))



I lost an ad campaign and
my family had to foot the bill—

Blind-sided,
Spun round,
Paralyzed. (Paralyzezed)

I put my high heels on,
For it was the year of the blue jeans.
I rode my horse into town,
the mile of 18 above the ground.
I dug around,
I got ‘em big rig-rounded,
I put you down,
And I put myself down.

It was the year of the blue jeans
and beauty queens.
Angelic dreams.



To the tired teachers of Doug Lipscomb:
When You Don't Need Me I'll Be In The Recovery Room
A big, empty high school gymnasium—
now that is art.
And when Doug walked slowly across it, his chin on his chest,
it was sublime.

Arms and legs akimbo
in New Missouri.

Learn to keep your lip down,
and your face coherent,
and the sky may not fall.



(in a barely audible home video sound)
“Think yer pretty smart, don’t you?”
“You are making yourself old.”
“You are a bum.”
A silhouetted shape wades into the picture,
preaches from pools of glistening emotion
a kind of thick sadness,
almost like you could grab it in your hands and break it.
“The eyes hurt.”

“I am sorry that I shortened our time together by 20, 30 years . . . “
“ . . . more . . .”



Cute Devil and Cute Devil—
Theirs was a finely calibrated series of eye contacts.

I had said to the arresting officers that I was “the sober chaufeur.”
Bathed in flashing blue and red siren lights,
The bunch of them thought that was pretty hilarious!
And it was, really.


Seis de Mayo—
La Seisa, we call it,
the day after. . .
dang
dang
dang
dang