“It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry”

The river calls, sleeping against the shadows and the world
beyond all those horizons and watchtowers
all those angels born on Harley bikes in Hell
Oh well, there you were exhibiting unusual humor & harmonies
like an atheist artist in a few bad dreams,
a reluctant figurehead of the American unrest
wild as an unclear nuclear weapon
reading Love and Theft and all the best
blessed and left over
from your metropolis Motorpsycho Nightmares
off the curb, off your shoulder
from the blood splattered on the railway tracks,
those runaway trains
those hurricanes
those heart attacks
and holidays, vodka drinks and unholy graves
you never claimed, as in the deep gravity
of your deepest deep set eyes,
to hide all the colours of irony;
waiting for the leaves to fall
waiting for the levees to break,
waiting for the deal from Jesus, Judas Priest or the Devil himself
when the night comes falling from the sky
tangled up in black and blue
(yea, you changed my life
from blues to paintings to Visions of Johanna:

“Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles”

Maybe I forgot how to smile, for awhile
but feeling sad somehow seemed alright
like some kind of cowboy, criminal or some other creature
of the night: one of those vampires
you became in the seventies
sucking blood or fucking Nirvana)

Yea, and there you were, 1964
the same year that I was born
already twenty years off the slide
Kennedy shot dead & Marilyn dying;
You landed up on the downtown side
and the past was always close behind
yea, she would never escape your mind;
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
when she bent down to tie the laces of your shoe.
So you drifted right on down to New Orleans
for a little bit of jazz
round about midnight
when you heard an angel had been killed;
I still hadn’t ever even heard of you...

Hell, I thought Jimi wrote that song everyone knows:
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke,”

The sun is bright,
still burning
still learning
still yearning,
all those rivers on the rise,
all those fires off the guise
and there you were
there you are, sleeping up against the side
of a junked up harmonica car on the top
of my old dusty slate-grey roof
passed out next to your pill-box hat and your bruised guitar
hot summer days, hot November stars
forty years later and there you still are:
the times gone and changed
become as modern as Jack Frost or Jack White
never tired of the never-ending night;
the back doors raining and all your women
are still complaining, but you don’t care
because the levee has already broke
like destiny in a new direction
never caring if you sung or spoke
you’ve become not just another stranger
like Johnny Cash or Elvis or even
Robert Allen Zimmerman; walking and just talking
from New York City’s East Village to Boston’s south side
you never cared for the Beatles or the Byrds
but you loved Joan in her Civil Rights downwards smile
they almost called you two the new Sonny and Cher
how horrible was that?

You fell into the denser metaphorical landscapes
like Ginsberg’s "chains of flashing images"
Freewheelin in the imagist stream-of-consciousness,
never just walking
never just talking, raised up like a saxophone
in those Dinkytown days, coming out
of a Dylan Thomas poem: was it Robert Allyn or Robert Dylan
and then there you were, out on those cold
concrete city sidewalks
then down at the Kettle of Fish down on MacDougal Street
above the famed Gaslight Café
in the James Baldwin and Jack Kerouac fifties
somewhere near Seventh Avenue
in the East and West Village shadows
where they actually let you play;
the hangout for aspiring bohemians
too tired to jump off the bridges
into the Harlem River.

Yea, you had written “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands"
with your mercury mouth, your eyes like smoke, your face like glass
at the Chelsea Hotel, on 23rd Street, between Seventh & Eighth
dreaming of Sara
sleeping in Radiant jewel, and mystical of Sara
waiting for that geranium kiss
Stayin' up for days in that Hotel
writing that song for her:
"Sara, oh Sara,
Glamorous nymph with an arrow and bow"
Did she ever go?

You went somewhere,
"It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls," how you prophesized
that the times would change
and you plugged in your guitar
like God waking up from a dream for just a little too long

Another side of your face, another Mr. Tambourine Man
from the Gates of Eden to
the Subterranean Homesick Blues
Suck cess as a cesspool on a cue card: LOOK OUT!
“Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine
I'm on the pavement
Thinking about the government...”
Don’t ever look back, kid,
we’re all stuck inside
we're all sticks inside
we all suck inside
and we're all seasons outside;
Standing on the highway, standing in the doorway
stage fright, slow trains and shooting stars’
signs on the window, signs on the cross
we’re all wounded men where the teardrops fall
these are the things you taught me
sitting alone in the back of my own car
playing the radio
or just staring up at the moon from my rooftop
in my nowhere town.

Never just walking
never just talking...
thunders on the mountain
and there's fires on the moon
and the writings on the wall
the sun will be here soon
“It's not dark yet, but it's getting there
There's not even room enough to be anywhere”
and maybe many of us were wrong
Hell, you even read Erica Jong!
Walking across the street just to get away
from a mangy dog
talking to yourself in a monologue

Yea, but still, it keeps on raining
the levee gonna break
“Some of these people don't know which road to take
Some people got barely enough skin to cover their bones”

So I sit and I listen to you, up on my roof
with the bats, the howlin' cats & the mosquitoes
that’s the place I know I’m a gonna go
it may not be paradise, but I don’t need a pair of dice,
just my CD player,
Dylan's Modern Times or Time Out Of Mind
and maybe a bottle of booze, a pack of cigarettes
for desire,
and the rest is all just the blues,
'cause a hard rain is always gonna fall...

Yea, you know, like Bobby says,
“It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry”
We all got troubles ahead
Bad luck not far behind
Just Rollin’ and Tumblin’
like Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
the songs never over
but this poem is pretty much done.

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