Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan

"Tarantula"














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  This odd book includes writings mainly from 1966, but wasn't published until 1971. The words baffled his critics, and left fans scratching their heads...like so many things Dylan seems to do...but nontheless it is an entertaining read.

 

 

Guns, the Falcon's Mouthbook
&
Gashcat Unpunished


arethacrystal jukebox queen of hymn & him diffused in
drunk transfusion
wound would heed sweet soundwave
crippled & cry salute to oh great particular
el dorado reel
& ye battered personal god but she cannot she the leader of
whom when ye follow, she cannot she has no back she
cannot . . . beneath black flowery railroad fans & fig leaf
shades & dogs of all nite joes, grow like arches & cures the
harmonica battalions of bitter cowards, bones & bygones
while what steadier louder the moans & arms of funeral
landlord with one passionate kiss rehearse from dusk &
climbing into the bushes with some favorite enemy ripping
the postage stamps & crazy mailmen & waving all rank &
familiar ambition than that itself, is needed to know that
mother is not a lady . . . aretha with no goals,
eternally
single & one step soft of heaven
/ let it be understood that
she owns this melody along with her emotional diplomats
& her earth & her musical secrets

 

      the censor in a twelve wheel drive semi
      stopping in for donuts & pinching the
      waitress/ he likes his women raw & with
      syrup/ he has his mind set on becoming
      a famous soldier

 

manuscript nitemare of cut throat high & low & behold the
prophesying blind allegiance to law fox, monthly cupid &
the intoxicating ghosts of dogma . . . nay & may the boat-
men in bathrobes be banished forever & anointed into the
shelves of alive hell, the unimaginative sleep,
repitition
without change
& fat sheriffs who watch for doom in the
mattress . . . hallaluyah & bossman of the hobos cometh
& ordaining the spiritual
gypsy davy camp now being infil-
traded by foreign dictator, the pink FBI & the interrogating
unknown failures of peacetime as holy & silver & blessed
with the texture of kaleidoscope & the sandal girl . . . to
dream of
dancing pillhead virgins & wandering apollo at
the pipe organ/ unscientific ramblers &
the pretty things
lucky & lifting their lips & handing down looks & regards
from the shoulders of adam & eve's minstrel peekaboo . . .
passing on the chance to bludgeon the tough spirits & the
deed holders into fishlike buffoons & yanking ye erratic
purpose . . . surrendering to persuasion, the crime against
people, that be ranked alongside murder &
while doctors,
teachers, bankers & sewer cleaners fight for their rights
,
they must now be horribly generous . . . & into the march
now where tab hunter leads with his thunderbird/ pearl
bailey stomps him against a buick & where poverty, a per-
fection of
neptune's unused clients, plays hide & seek &
escaping into the who goes there? & now's not the time to
act silly, so wear your big boots & jump on the garbage
clowns, the hourly rate & the enema men & where junior
senators & goblins rip off tops of question marks & their
wives make pies & go now & throw some pies in the face &
ride the blinds & into aretha's religous thighs & movement
find ye your nymph of no conscience & bombing out your
young sensitive dignity just to see once & for all if there
are holes & music in the universe & watch her tame the sea horse/ aretha, pegged by choir boys & other pearls of
mamas as too gloomy a much of witchy & dont you know
no happy songs

 

      the lawyer leading a pig on a leash
      stopping in for tea & eating the censor's
      donut by mistake/ he likes to lie about
      his age & takes his paranoia seriously

 

the hospitable grave being advertised & given away in
whims & journals the housewife sits on. finding herself
financed, ruptured but never censored in & also never flush-
ing herself/ she denies her corpse the courage to crawl -
close his own door, the ability to die of bank robbery &
now catches the heels of old stars making scary movies on
her dirt & her face & not everybody can dig her now. she
is private property . . . bazookas in the nest & weapons of
ice & of weatherproof flinch & they twitter, make scars &
kill babies among lady shame good looks & her constant foe,
tom sawyer of the breakfast cereal causing all females pay-
ing no attention to this toilet massacre to be hereafter
called LONZO & must walk the streets of life forever with
lazy people having nothing to do but fight over women
. . . everybody knows by now war is caused by
money & greed & charity organizations/ the housewife is
not here. she is running for congress


      the senator dressed like an austrian
      sheep, stopping in for coffee & insulting
      the lawyer/ he is on a prune diet &
      secretly wishes he was bing crosby
      but would settle for being a close
      relative of edgar bergen


passing the sugar to iron man of the bottles who arrives
with a grin & a heatlamp & he's pushing "who dunnit"
buttons this year & he is a love monger at first sight . . .
you have seen him sprout up from a dumb hill bully into a
bunch of backslap & he's wise & he speaks to everyone as if
they just answered the door/ he dont like people that say
he comes from the monkeys but nevertheless he is dull & he
is destroyingly boring . . . while Allah the cook scrapes
hunger from his floor & pounding it into the floating dishes
with roaring & the rest of the meatheads praising each
other's power & argue over acne & recite calendars & point-
ing to each other's garments & liquid & disperse into seg-
ments & die crazy deaths & below farce mortal farm vomit & why for Jesus Christ be Just another meathead?
when all the tontos & heyboy lose their legs trying to frug
while kemosabe & mr palladin spend their off hours remain-
ing separate but equal & anyway why not wait for laughter
to straighten the works out meantime & WOWEE smash
& the rage of it all when former lover cowboy hanging up-
side down & Suzy Q. the angel putting new dime into this
adoption machine as out squirts a symbol squawking &
freezing & crashing into the bowels of some hideous soap
box & even tho youre belonging to no political party, youre now
prepared, prepared to remember something about some-
thing


      the chief of police holding a bazooka
      with his name engraved on it. coming in
      drunk & putting the barrel into the face
      of the lawyer's pig. once a wife beater,
      he became a professional boxer & received
      a club foot/ he would literally like to
      become an executioner. what he doesnt know
      is that the lawyer's pig has made friends
      with the senator


gambler's passion & his slave, the sparrow & he's ranting
from a box of platform & mesmerizing this ball of
daredevils to stay in the morning & dont bust from the fac-
tories/ everyone expecting to be born with whom they love
& theyre not & theyve been let down, theyve been lied to
& now the organizers must bring the oxen in & dragging
leaflets & gangrene enthusiasm, ratfinks & suicide tanks from
the pay phones to the housing developments & it usually
starts to rain for a while . . . little boys cannot go out &
play & new men in bulldozers come in every hour deliver-
ing groceries & care packages being sent from las vegas . . .
& nephews of the coffee bean expert & other favorite sons
graduating with a pompadour & cum laude - praise be & a
wailing farewell to releasing the hermit & beautifully ugly
& fingering eternity come down & save your lambs $ butchers & strike the roses with it’s rightful patsy color. . .
& grampa scarecrow's got the tiny little wren & see for your-
self while saving him too/ look down oh great Romantic.
you who can predict from every position, you who know
that everybody's not a Job or a Nero nor a J. C. Penny . . .
look down & seize your gambler's passion, make high wire
experts into heroes, presidents into con men, turn the even-
tual . . . but the hermits being not talking & lower class or
insane or in prison . . . & they dont work in the factories
anyway


      the good samaritan coming in with the
      words "round & round we go" tattooed on
      his cheek/ he tells the senator to stop
      insulting the lawyer/ he would like to
      be an entertainer & brags that he is
      one of the best strangers around, the
      pig jumps on him & starts eating his
      face


illiterate coins of two head wrestling with window washer
who's been reincarnated from a garden hoe & after once
being pushed around happily & casually hitting a rock once
in a while is now bitter hung up on finding some inferior.
he bites into the window ledge & by singing "what'll we do
with the baby-o" to thirsty peasant girl wanting a drink
from his pail, he is thinking he is some kind of success but
he's getting his kicks telling one of the two headed coins
that tom jefferson used to use him around the house when
the bad stuff was growing . . . the lawrence welk people
inside the window, theyre running the city planning divi-
sion & they hibernate & feeding their summers by convers-
ing with poor people's shadows & other ambulance drivers,
& they dont even notice this window washer while the fam-
ilies who tell of the boogey men & theyre precious & there's
pictures of them playing golf & getting blacker & they wear
oil in the window washer's union hall & these people con-
sider themselves gourmets for not attending charlie stark-weather's funeral ye gads the champagne being appropriate
pagan & the buffalo, tho the restaurant owners are vague
about it, is fast disappearing into violence/ soon there will
be but one side of the coin & mohammed wherever he
comes from, cursing & windows washers falling & then no
one will have any money . . . broad save the clean, the
minorities & liberace's countryside.


      the truck driver coming in with a carpet
      sweeper under his eyes/ everybody says
      "hi joe" & he says "joe the fellow that
      owns this place i'm just a scientist. i
      aint got no name" the track driver hates
      anybody that carries a tennis racket/ he
      drinks all the senator's coffee & proceeds
      to put him in a headlock


first you snap your hair down & try to tie up the kicking
voices on a table & then the sales department people with
names like Gus & Peg & Judy the Wrench & Nadine with
worms in her fruit & Bernice Bearface blowing her brains
on Butch & theyre all enthused over locker rooms & vege-
tables & Muggs he goes to sleep on your neck talking shop
& divorces & headline causes & if you cant say get off my
neck, you just answer him & wink & wait for some morbid
reply & the liberty bell ringing when you dont dare ask
yourself how do you feel for God's sake & what's one
more face? & the difference between a lifetime of goons &
holes, company pigs & beggars & cancer critics learning
yoga with raving petty gangsters in one act plays with
V-eight engines all being tossed in the river & combined in
a stolen mirror . . . compared to the big day when you
discover lord byron shooting craps in the morgue with his
pants off & he's eating a picture of jean paul belmondo & he
offers you a piece of green lightbulb & you realize that
nobody's told you about This & that life is not so simple
after all . . . in fact that it's more than something to
read & light cigarettes with . . . Lem the Clam tho, he
really gives a damn if dale really does get nailed slamming
down the scotch & then going outside with Maurice, who
aint the Peoria Kid & dont look the same way as they do in Des
Moines, Iowa & good old debbie, she comes along & both
her & dale, they start shacking up in the newspaper & jesus
who can blame 'em & Amen & oh lordy, & how the parades
dont need your money baby . . . it's the confetti & one
george washington & Nadine who comes running & says
where's Gus? & she's salty about the bread he's been making
off her worms while dollars becoming pieces of paper . . .
but people kill for paper & anyway you can’t buy a thrill
with a dollar as long as pricetags, the end of the means &
only as big as your fist & they dangle from a pot of golden
rainbow . . . which attacks & which covers the saddles of noseless poets & wonder blazing & somewhere over the rain-
bow & blinding my married lover into the ovation maniacs/
cremating innocent child into scrapheap for vicious con-
troversy & screwball & who's to tell charlie to stop & not
come back for garbage men arent serious & they gonna get
murdered tomorrow & next march 7th by the same kids &
their fathers & their uncles & all the rest of these people that
would make leadbelly a pet . . . they will always kill gar-
bage men & wiping the smells but this rainbow, she goes off
behind a pillar & sometimes a tornado destroys the drug-
stores & the floods bring polio & leaving Gus & Peg twisted in
the volleyball net & Butch hiding in madison square garden
. . . Bearface dead from a piece of grass! I.Q. - some-
where in the sixties & twentieth century & so sing aretha
. . . sing mainstream into orbit! sing the cowbells home!
sing misty . . . sing for the barber & when your found
guilty of not owning a cavalry & not helping the dancer
with laryngitis . . . misleading valentino's pirates to the
indians or perhaps not lending a hand to the deaf pacifist in
his sailor jail . . . it then must be time for you to rest &
learn new songs . . . forgiving nothing for you have done
nothing & make love to noble scrubwoman


      what a drag it gets to be. writing
      for this chosen few. writing for any-
      one cpt you. you, daisy mae, who are
      not even of the masses . . . funny thing,
      tho, is that youre not even dead yet . . .
      i will nail my words to this paper,
      an fly them on to you. an forget about
      them . . . thank you for the time.
      youre kind.
             love an kisses
            your double
            Silly Eyes (in airplane trouble)
 
 

 

Having a Weird Drink with the Long
Tall Stranger


back betty, bready blam de lam! bloody had a baby
blam de lam! hire the handicapped blam de lam! put him on
the wheel blam de lam! burn him in the coffee blam de lam!
cut him with a fish knife blam de lam! send him off to col-
lege & pet him with drumstick blam de lam! boil him in the
cookbook blam de lam! fix him up an elephant blam de lam!
sell him to the doctors blam de lam . . . back betty, big
bready blam de lam! betty had a milkman, blam de lam!
sent him to the chain gang blam de lam! fixed him up a
navel, blam de lam (hold that tit while i git it. Hold it right
there while i hit it . . . blam!) fed him lotza girdles, raised
him in pnuemonia . . . black bloody, itty bitty, blam de lam!
said he had a lambchop, blam de lam! had him in a stocking,
stuck artichokes in his ears, planted him in green beans &
stuck him on a compass blam de lam! last time i seed him,
blam de lam! he was standing in a window, blam de lam!
hundred floors up, blam de lam! with his prayers & his pig-
foot, blam de lam! black betty, black betty blam de lam!
betty had a loser blam de lam, i spied him on the ocean with a
long string of muslims - blam de lam! all going quack quack
. . . blam de lam! all going quack quack, blam!


    sorry to say, but i'm going
    to have to return your ring.
    it's nothing personal, excpt
    that i cant do a thing with
    my finger & it's already
    beginning to smell like an
    eyeball! you know, like i like
    to look weird, but nevertheless,
    when i play my banjo on stage, i
    have to wear a glove. needless
    to say, it has started to affect
    my playing, please believe me.
    it has nothing whatsoever to
    do with my love for you . . .
    in fact, sending the ring back
    should make my love for you
    grow all the more profound . . .
                say hi to your doctor
                love,
                Toby Celery

 

 

(Pointless Like a Witch)

 

trip into the light here Abraham…what about this boss

of yours? & don’t tell me that you just do what you’re told!

i might not be hip to your sign language but i come in peace.

i seek knowledge. in exchange for some information, i will

give you my fats domino records. some of his or hers towels

& your own private press secretary…come on. fall

down here. my mind is blank. i’ve no hostility. my eyes are

two used cars lots. i will offer you a cup of urn cleaner-we

can learn from each other/ just don’t try & touch my kid

 

got too drunk last nite. musta drunk

too much. woke up this morning with

my mind on freedom & my 

head feeling

like the inside of a prune/ am

planning to lecture today on police

brutality. come if you can get away.

see you when you arrive. write me

when you’re coming

                                                                                    your friend,

                                                                                    homer the slut

 
















"Bob Dylan freed your mind,
like Elvis freed your body."

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