AN AMERICAN PRAYER
Unofficial
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Awake
Shake dreams from your hair
My pretty child, my sweet one.
Choose the day and choose the sign
of your day
The day's divinity
First thing you see.
A vast radiant beach in a cool jeweled
moon
Couples naked race down by it's
quiet side
And we laugh like soft, mad children
Smug in the wooly cotton brains
of infancy
The music and voices are all around
us.
Choose they croon the Ancient Ones
The time has come again
Choose now, they croon
Beneath the moon
Beside an ancient lake
Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
Come with us
Everything is broken up and dances.
Indians scattered on dawn's highway
bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's
fragile eggshell mind.
Me and my -ah- mother and father
- and a
grandmother and a grandfather -
were driving through
the desert, at dawn, and a truck
load of Indian
workers had either hit another
car, or just - I don't
know what happened - but there
were Indians scattered
all over the highway, bleeding
to death.
So the car pulls up and stops. That
was the first time
I tasted fear. I musta' been about
four - like a child is
like a flower, his head is just
floating in the
breeze, man.
The reaction I get now thinking
about it, looking
back - is that the souls of the
ghosts of those dead
Indians...maybe one or two of 'em...were
just
running around freaking out, and
just leaped into my
soul. And they're still in there.
Indians scattered on dawn's highway
bleeding
Ghosts crowd the young child's
fragile eggshell mind.
Blood in the streets in the town
of New Haven
Blood stains the roofs and the
palm trees of Venice
Blood in my love in the terrible
summer
Bloody red sun of Phantastic L.A.
Blood screams her brain as they
chop off her fingers
Blood will be born in the birth
if a nation
Blood is the rose of mysterious
union
Blood on the rise, it's following
me.
Indian, Indian what did you die
for?
Indian says, nothing at all.
gently they stir, gently rise
The dead are newborn awakening
With ravaged limbs and wet souls
Gently they sigh in rapt funeral
amazement
Who called these dead to dance?
Was it the young woman learning
to play the ghost song on her baby
grand?
Was it the wilderness children?
Was it the ghost god himself, stuttering,
cheering, chatting blindly?
I called you up to anoint the earth
I called you to announce sadness
falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well
To glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray
Can we resolve the past
Lurking jaws, joints of time?
The Base
To come of age in a dry place
Holes and caves.
My friend drove and hour each day
from the mountains
The bus gives you a hard-on with
books in your lap
Someone shot the bird in the afternoon
dance show
They gave out free records to the
best couple
Spades dance best, from the hip.
Black Polished
Chrome
The music was new
black polished chrome
And came over the summer
like liquid night.
The DJ's took pills to stay awake
and play for seven days
They went to the studio
And someone knew him
Someone knew the TV showman
He came to our homeroom party
and played records
And when he left in the hot noon
sun
and walked to his car
We saw the chooks had written
F-U-C-K on his windshield
He wiped it off with a rag
and smiling cooly drove away
He's rich. Got a big car.
My gang will get you
Scenes of rape in the arroyo
Seduction in cars, abandoned buildings
Fights at the food stand
The dust
the shoes
Open shirts and raised collars
Bright sculptured hair.
Hey man, you want girls, pills,
grass? C'mon...
I show you good time.
This place has everything. C'mon...
I show you.
Angels and sailors
rich girls
backyard fences
tents
Dreams watching each other narrowly
soft luxuriant cars
Girls in garages, stripped
out to get liquor and clothes
half gallons of wine and six-packs of beer
Jumped, humped, born to suffer
made to undress in the wilderness.
I will
never treat you mean
Never
start no kind of scene
I'll tell
you every place and person that I've been.
Always a playground instructor,
never a killer
Always a bridesmaid on the verge
of fame or over
He manouvered two girls into his
hotel room
One a friend, the other, the young
one, a newer stranger
Vaguely Mexican or Puerto Rican
Poor boys thighs and buttock scarred
by a father's belt
She's trying to rie
Story of her boyfriend, of teenage
stoned death games
Handsome lad, dead in a car
Confusion
No connections
Come 'ere
I love you
Peace on earth
Will you die for me?
Eat me
This way
The end
I'll always
be true
Never
go out, sneaking out on you, babe
If you'll
only show me Far Arden again.
I'm surprised you could get it up
He whips her lightly, sardonically,
with belt
Haven't I been through enough?
she asks
Now dressed and leaving
The Spanish girl begins to bleed
She says her period
It's Catholic heaven
I have an ancient Indian crucifix
around my neck
My chest is hard and brown
Lying on stained, wretched sheets
with a bleeding virgin
We could plan a murder
Or start a religion.
I'll tell
you this...
No eternal
reward will forgive us now
For wasting
the dawn.
Back in those days everything was
simpler and more confused
One summer night, going to the
pier
I ran into two young girls
The blonde one was called Freedom
The dark one, Enterprise
We talked and they told me this
story
Now listen to this...
I'll tell you about Texas radio
and the big beat
Soft driven, slow and mad
Like some new language
Reaching your head with the cold,
sudden fury of a divine messenger
Let me tell you about heartache
and the loss of god
Wandering, wandering in hopless
night
Out here in the perimeter there
are no stars
Out here
we is stoned
Immaculate.
The movie
will begin in five moments
The mindless
voice announced
All those
unseated will await the next show.
We filed slowly, languidly into
the hall
The auditorium was vast and silent
As we seated and were darkened,
the voice continued.
The program
for this evening is not new
You've
seen this entertainment through and through
You've
seen your birth your life and death
you might
recall all of the rest
Did you
have a good world when you died?
Enough
to base a movie on?.
I'm getting out of here
Where are you going?
To the other side of morning
Please don't chase the clouds, pagodas
Her cunt gripped him like a warm, friendly hand.
It's alright, all your friends are here
When can I meet them?
After you've eaten
I'm not hungry
Uh, we meant beaten
Silver
stream, silvery scream
Oooooh,
impossible concentration.
Curses, Invocations
Weird bate-headed mongrels
I keep expecting one of you to
rise
Large buxom obese queen
Garden hogs and cunt veterans
Quaint cabbage saints
Shit hoarders and individualists
Drag strip officials
Tight lipped losers and
Lustful fuck salesman
My militant dandies
All strange orders of monsters
Hot on the tail of the woodvine
We welcome you to our procession
Here come the Comedians
look at them smile
Watch them dance an Indian mile
Look at them gesture
How aplomb
So to gesture everyone
Words dissemble
Words be quick
Words resemble walking sticks
Plant them they will grow
Watch them waver so
I'll always be a word man
Better then a bird man
All hail the American night!
What was
that?
I don't
know
Sounds
like guns...thunder.
(Roadhouse Blues
cuts in here with Jim doing a little audience
participation section at the end.)
...Alright! Alright! Alright!
Hey, listen! Listen! Listen, man!
listen, man!
I don't know how many you people
believe in astrology...
Yeah, that's right...that's right,
baby, I...I am a
Sagittarius
The most philosophical of all the
signs
But anyway, I don't believe in
it
I think it's a bunch of bullshit,
myself
But I tell you this, man, I tell
you this
I don't know what's gonna happen,
man, but I wanna have
my kicks before the whole shithouse
goes up in flames
Alright!
The World on Fire...Taxi
from Africa...The Grand Hotel...
He was drunk
a big party last night back going back
in all directions
sleeping these insane hours I'll never wake up
in a good mood again I'm sick of these stinky boots
Lament for my cock
Sore and crucified
I seek to know you
Aquiring soulful wisdom
You can open walls of mystery
Stripshow
How to aquire death in the morning
show
TV death which the child absorbs
Deathwell mystery which makes me
write
Slow train, the death of my cock
gives life
Forgive the poor old people who
gave us entry
Taught us god in the child's praye
in the night
Guitar player
Ancient wise satyr
Sing your ode to my cock
Caress it's lament
Stiffen and guide us, we frozen
Lost cells
The knowledge of cancer
To speak to the heart
And give the great gift
Words Power Trance
this stable friend and the beast
of his zoo
Wild haired chicks
Women flowering in their summit
Monsters of skin
Each color connects
to create the boat
which rocks the race
Could any hell be more horrible
than now
and real?
I pressed her thigh and death smiled
death, old friend
death and my cock are the world
I can forgive my injuries in the
name of
Wisdom Luxury Romance
Sentence upon sentence
Words are the healing lament
For the death of my cock's spirit
Has no meaning in the soft fire
Words got me the wound and will
get me well
I you believe it
All join now and lament the death
of my cock
A tounge of knowledge in the feathered
night
Boys get crazy in the head and
suffer
I sacrifice my cock on the alter
of silence
Thoughts in time and out of season
The Hitchhiker
Stood by the side of the road
And leveled his thumb
In the calm calculus of reason
Hi. How you doin'? I just got back
into town L.A.
I was out on the desert for awhile
Riders
on the storm
Yeah. In the middle of it
Riders
on the storm
Right...
Into this
world we're born
Hey, listen, man, I really got a problem
Into this
world we're thrown
When I was out on the desert, ya know
Like a
dog without a bone
An actor
out on loan
I don't know how to tell you
Riders
on the storm
but, ah, I killed somebody
There's
a killer on the road
No...
His brain
is squirming like a toad
It's no big deal, ya know
I don't think anybody will find
out about it, but...
take a
long holiday
just, ah...
Let your
children play
this guy gave me a ride, and ah...
If you
give this man a ride
started giving me a lot of trouble
Sweet family
will die
and I just couldn't take it, ya know
Killer
on the road
And I wasted him
Yeah
A head, wisdom
And a bed
Troubled decree
Resident mockery
has claimed thee
We used to believe
In the good old days
We still receive in
little ways
The Things of Kindness
An unsporting brow
Forget and allow
Did you know freedom exists
in a school book
Did you know madmen are
roaming our prison
within a jail, within a gaol
within a white free protestant
maelstrom
We're perched headlong
on the edge of boredom
We're trying for something
That's already found us.
We can invent a Kingdom of our own
grand purple thrones, those chairs
of lust
and love we must, in beds or rust
Steel doors lock in prosoner's
screams
amd musak, AM, rocks their dreams
No black men's pride to hoist the
beams
while mocking angels sift what
seems
To be a collage of magazine dust
Scratched on foreheads of walls
of trust
This is just jail for those who
must
get up in the morning and fight
for such
unusable standards
while weeping maidens
show-off penury and pout
ravings for a mad
staff.
Wow, I'm sick of doubt
Live in the light of certain
South
Cruel bindings.
The servants have the power
dog-men and their mean women
pulling poor blankets over
our sailors.
(And where were you in our lean
hour)
Milking your moustache
or grinding a flower?
I'm sick of these dour faces
Staring at me from the TV
Tower, I want roses in
my garden bower; dig?
Royal babies, rubies
must now replace aborted
Strangers in the mud
These mutants, blood-meal
for the plant that's plowed.
They are waiting to take us into
the severed garden.
Do you know how pale and wanton
thrillful
comes death on a strange hour
unannounced, unplanned for
like a scaring over-friendly guest
you've
brought to bed.
Death makes angels of us all
and gives us wings
where we had shoulders
smooth as raven's
claws.
No more money, no more fancy dress
This other kingdom seems by far
the best
until it's other jaw reveals incest
and loose obedience to a vegetable
law.
I will not go
Prefer a Feast of Friends
To the Giant Family.