Thursday, February 12, 2015

My Big Bob Dylan Fantasy


I wish I was Bob Dylan if I was Bob Dylan
Everyone would love me even if I was being
A total asshole most of the time and once made
Brian Jones cry
Why you ask why would you want to be Bob Dylan
That certainly wouldn’t make Bob Dylan happy
Even Bob Dylan’s not entirely happy being Bob Dylan
Are you up to the job? Can you write great poetry
And play the guitar no I can’t
Play the guitar but I can write great poetry
If I put my mind to it
I could even learn to the play the guitar
I could get a book telling me how to play the guitar
And go buy a guitar
And make sounds come out of the strings
Like filigrees of willow & studios of gold
Sparkling waterfalls ghosts & antiques
But which Bob Dylan would I want to be
The young Bob Dylan in suede & blue jeans
With Suze Rotolo on his arm or the Blonde on Blonde
Bob Dylan with his scarf & outrageous hair
Or the goofy Basement Tapes Bob Dylan
In which he resembles Harpo Marx
A clown in a basement with a weight lifter & a ballerina
Midget paper delivery guy & Rick Danko on accordion
Or the elder Bob Dylan with the tired sagging face
And the voice like a tractor pulling a weight
Of astonishing emotion bitter northern winds & rawhide
Afternoons long journeys with no resolution
Yes yes I say that Bob Dylan because I’m already old
And my desires are still young
And I’m still learning how to be the person I already am
Which has taken nearly seven decades
A handful of pharmaceuticals & an unfocused rage
And I’m still in that skin still in that cage
Warming the bed with my bones
And waking up to do it again and again until I don’t

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