They’re selling postcards of the hanging They’re painting the passports brown The beauty parlor is filled with sailors The circus is in town Here comes the blind commissioner They’ve got him in a trance One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker The other is in his pants And the riot squad, they’re restless They need somewhere to go As lady and I look out tonight, from Desolation Row
Cinderella, she seems so easy “It takes one to know one,” she smiles And puts her hands in her back pockets, Bette Davis-style And in comes Romeo, he’s moaning “You Belong to me, I believe” And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place My friend, you better leave” And the only sound that’s left after the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up on Desolation Row
Now the moon is almost hidden The stars are beginning to hide The fortune telling lady Has even taken all her things inside All except for Cain and Abel and the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love or else expecting rain And the good Samaritan, he’s dressing He’s getting ready for the show He’s going to the carnival tonight on Desolation Row
Now Ophelia, she’s ‘neath the window For her I feel so afraid On her twenty-second birthday she already is an old maid To her, death is quite romantic, she wears an iron vest Her profession’s her religion, her sin is her lifelessness And though her eyes are fixed upon Noah’s great rainbow She spends her time peeking into Desolation Row
Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood With his memories in a trunk Passed this way an hour ago with his friend, a jealous monk He looked so immaculately frightful as he bummed a cigarette As he went off sniffing drainpipes and reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him But he was famous long ago For playing the electric violin on Desolation Row
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world inside of a leather cup But all his sexless patients, they’re trying to blow it up Now his nurse, some local loser She’s in charge of the cyanide hole And she also keeps the cards that read “Have mercy on his soul” They all play on the penny whistles, you can hear them blow If you lean your head out far enough from Desolation Row
Across the street they’ve nailed the curtains They’re getting ready for the feast The Phantom of the Opera, a perfect image of a priest They’re spoon-feeding Casanova To get him to feel more assured Then they’ll kill him with self-confidence After poisoning him with words And the Phantom’s shouting to skinny girls “Get outta here if you don’t know Casanova is just being punished for going to Desolation Row”
Now at midnight all the agents and the superhuman crew Come out and round up everyone that knows more than they do Then they bring them to the factory Where the heart-attack machine Is strapped across their shoulders and then the kerosene Is brought down from the castles by insurance men who go Check to see that nobody is escaping to Desolation Row
Praise be to Nero’s Neptune, the Titanic sails at dawn And everybody’s shouting, “Which side are you on?” And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain’s tower While calypso singers laugh at them And fishermen hold flowers Between the windows of the sea where lovely mermaids flow And nobody has to think too much about Desolation row
Yes, I received your letter yesterday About the time the doorknob broke When you asked me how I was doing Was that some kind of joke? All these people that you mention Yes, I know them, they’re quite lame I had to rearrange their faces And give them all another name Right now, I can’t read too good Don’t send me no more letters, no Not unless you mail them from Desolation Row
Guest Poem: Songwriter: Bob Dylan
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edenbray comments:~
ALAN GINSBERG STATED BACK IN THE 60’s/70’S THAT DYLAN WAS THE ONLY TRUE POET OF THE 20TH CENTURY – PERHAPS HARSH ON QUITE A FEW OUTSTANDING WRITERS THAT COME TO MIND FROM THAT PERIOD – BUT THEN AGAIN IN PIECES LIKE ‘DESOLATION ROW’ – DYLAN IS AT HIS MOST ACCOMPLISHED – POURING OUT VITRIOLIC METAPHOR AND ROMANTIC AFFECTION WITH THE SAME BREATH WHILE APPLYING SURREAL MAD-HATTER STYLE SATIRE WITH RELENTLESS, COMIC VICISSITUDE –
AT THIS STAGE OF HIS LIFE – DYLAN WAS INDEED ‘CENTRE-STAGE’ AND LOVING EVERY MEANINGFUL SECOND OF IT – THE WORDS JUST TUMBLE OFF HIS TONGUE LIKE SMOOTH, BURNING OIL – HE IS ALL THAT GINSBERG SAID HE WAS, MORE ACTUALLY AND A TROUBADOUR TO BOOT! – HEART-WARMING SATIRE THAT REEKS OF ORWELL’S – CLERGYMEN’S DAUGHTER, KEROUAC’S – ‘ON THE ROAD’ WITH MAYBE JUST A SLICE OF CLOCKWORK ORANGE ON THE SIDE – A VERITABLE COCKTAIL OF HAND-GRENADE LINES!
🍊they don’t make them like that anymore – except that you ignore MOZ at your peril! #Morrissey
We watched the fields burning The sky turning black then gold We saw the dark birds fleeing Smart animals running crazy-free
I, am not embarased by my honesty Like a bloody steak laying on a cold plate Like a mysterious line from Hemmingway Like a centre-page from Spick and Span
If we were prisoners of the Bolshoviks If we were sought by Gestapo puppets Trained by the rigours of excess hatred Trapped and snared by Delia’s thorny bush
The river still flows eastward muddy The snow-peak falls still tumble bloody I watch the fires burn and sweat anguish I’m a sentinel, a watchman, a torrid tale
And here is a bloodied child alone Confused like us rest – searching Broken, bleeding with no meaning? Shame and frailty – cover the child!
The question in his voice kind of riled me. “A’ course he’s a singer, fool!”
I kinda’ liked Bob Dylan. He said things in a way I liked.
“Well, what of him anyways?”
“Bob Dylan said, ‘The times they are a’ changin’ and that is true now.”
“Come gather ’round people, Wherever you roamAnd admit that the waters, Around you have grown.” I couldn’t help my self from interjecting a little more substance to the conversation.
“Yes, that’s right, it’s an anti-war song I think.”
“Aha, yes I surely heard a’ that bastard song! Yes, I have.”
“Well, then you oughta know what he says later in that same song. ‘And don’t criticize what you can’t understand, Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command, your old road is rapidly agin’.”
“Yes, I heard that song, I surely did.”
Melvyn and Caleb would dis-cuss matters in this way quite frequently. I was used to these kinds of discussions, so I was not troubled too greatly by it.
“So then, don’t.”
“Don’t what? What am I supposed to have done anyhow?”
“Well now, I wonder?”
“Don’t criticize what you c ‘ain understand, fool!”
I didn’t like to say, ‘Don’t call me no fool in anger, man.”
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