MIXIN' UP THE MEDICINE...
"‘Ill let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours’-- I said that.” -Bob Dylan
of your work in sophomore English:
you Talkin’ World War III Blues,
thereby inadvertently ‘bending’ my life…
me, a ray of light passing through
dark water… you, so deep and cool
blanching my Johnny Cashred neck
to a lighter shade of sunburn… turning
my sun from yellow to chicken and
putting Johnny in the basement
mixin’ up the medicine— you, yet another
gateway ‘drug’ on my cosmic down-the-rabbit-hole
treasure hunt leading me on a breadcrumb trail
When ya gut nuthin’ ya gut nuthin to lose…
to Joplin, Cohen, and then… Ferlinghetti and that
dark existential phase I had to go through
on the way to the big enlightenment
of COOL and SPIRITUALITY...
and three long years later, lost in the lonely
limbo of college culture shock… my ears
suddenly perk to some far-off strains of
‘Desolation Row’ wafting down the dormitory
Hallway, and I follow these breadcrumbs
to someone’s closed door and knock… and
when the door cracks open and a gaunt
youthful face masked in a speakeasy challenge
peers out of the smoke, I can only blurt out
“You’re… you’re playing Dylan!”
and (open sesame!) ...he steps aside
and I step in… behind ‘the Green Door’