The way the bass line
Aligned with clipping-nipple guitar,
It slayed them all, the lions
In the dance halls of Rhodesia
And the Roman amphitheater circuit
From Syracuse to Biscayne Bay.
The surrender of the flames
Occurred most every day
When the beat had rested
To let the mess convey:
Turn the butt cheek over as
The beat of the heart enlarges
And overcomes your own.
The sacrifice of Sonny and his beatnik disciples
To the electrical equipment,
The stellar crosses and stars,
Saved your day, as you recited
The lyrics as real and incoherent
As being hit by a car
With someone else's journey
That seems to stop
At the same beery dives
As your own does,
But it never really
Stops, that is, for you,
Groupie to its nurture
Of harmony.
The blessed testimonies
Are pre-realed
For the delayed
Tape hiss effect
It has upon us:
The wanton dancing,
Exhausted hands
Giving it up,
Our lives,
For encores
That will echo like amplifiers
50 years on,
As if to save the messiah
And his headband benediction,
His salve of sequestered nickels thrown
At his blistered scribes by some force unknown,
Only the goombahs and the hangers on,
The martyred skeptics
And viper dreams on
The other side,
All one and the same
In maintaining it existed, the way,
The hope, the glory, in giving over
Your heart, your soul, your body
To what is not you and never would be,
A few notes strung together
Are pearls to web your cell
With what, someday, might be
The prison to which you will graduate,
With golden bars and unbreakable locks,
At the high end of eternity
To keep you safe like artillery
Pointed your way, just in case
You've remembered
You are free.
