As I turn back the years to the mid-nineties listening to Nirvana In Utero it occurs to me that the music held so dear today was invented - not handed down or given up � it was invented. There were rarely any hacks to show up on the American culture scene during the late 80�s through �till now. I�m not saying there weren�t any hacks, I�m just saying that the music that claims the soundtrack for modern living and wasted youth has been almost clandestined midst a backdrop of zombies.

In fact the number of bands that have totally changed the image of music, not to mention its perception bubble, have outnumbered those who were one hit wonders and hacks.

There are bands I�ve heard today on radio or seen on MTV and I wonder, why have all the muses forsaken us? Even here in my drab Midwestern home I can�t even score a single verse for a deadline.
So here I was, growing up in America with sounds of the Violent Femmes, They Might Be Giants, the end of Motley Crue rock n� roll, sobriety gives culture a lobotomy.

Radiohead has got to be the best rock band of the entire last two decades � The Bends � Amnesiac � Pablo Honey � my generation was raped spiritually by the negation of their honesty originality and longevity �
Not to mention the writing of Thom Yorke �

And the ability of the musical ability behind the play �

Stabbing wounds of madness reflecting
Like a kaleidoscopic paranoia
Running through my veins
You know how I always lose myself in this religion of her flesh - Christ shines in the corner staring at the wounds
Betrayed by a kiss
Our history has yet to be explored
Deep in �tween the diamonds guide
There once was a man from hell
Lurchin
Who was haunted by the urchins
Serenading night clashing with dawn
Breeding tiny monsters
crawling snail like
over
the skins
of backroads black
and blue
from time

Now the universe feels like slime because 50 story buildings just wont do it for a diving board that leads to the concrete bed below waiting for his insides to begin breathing and when he does she begins to cry -

Sundry lines will get you nowhere Mr. Waldon. Dreams are present tense. I am sitting at the kitchen table listening to Harvest - Neil Young - with a can of Top rolling tobacco, a cup of instant coffee (Nescafe), and glowing stream of light fluidly enveloping my mind as I wonder how the hell I ever began to breathe anyway.

And then I remember the Zyprexa , and Flee (Phil), and then I think about 2 Bit and Hatred � Stefan - that kid was a Charlie Parker laced with attention deficit disorder - and the oblivion of traveling was Ritalin - mad hipster - so cool with his thread san Francisco existence. Then I wish I had a cd of all the drum circles in Golden Gate Hippie Hill - instead there�s an ant hill only perchable by an old punk poet who played the jester way too long fell through time and woke up at 27 trying to figure out where the hell how he had missed out on 17 years of awareness funneling the river of Styxx looking for the boatman at the bottom of every single bottle. 2 coppers for the toll�I always carry at least two pennies in my right hand pocket everywhere I go - whether it�s to the toilet or to the store.

Just hope he takes American currency- I begin to contemplate this - cause there�s a lot of ghosts in this country -

Like limbo America, the drowsy penthouse whore stumbling up the stairs to the bedroom wishing the faggot would get up off the couch long enough to at least pretend like he loves her -

Amphetamines, antidepressants, antipsychotic, xanex heroin weed coca crank minithins coffee tea control jealousy madness is a ghost machine.

Hella funny memories of Appetite For Destruction, Patience, No Rain, overdoses in New Orleans cathouses.

Indiana lost boys singing their souls into the main vein of the subconscious weeping maidens of America�s youth blowing their brains out with a fully automatic police riot gun pump action without a sigh.

Lost tears of dreamers. White picket fences stained with empty houses.

Does the way Neil Young play guitar ever haunt you? What about the soft melancholy whisper of Jim Morrison?

Rock god? Cock dog? Madman?

INXS in excess the walls we�ve built in our slumbering motion have hidden the palace of wisdom.

And I cant believe that the Ancients are finally giving in - Middle East cradle of dream - Jeladdin Rumi - come back to us. Teach us the song of love. Show us how to rotate like distant galaxies around the unseen kiss of eternity!

We need you old tranquility. Come home, the mass confusion of our mortality is frighteningly hungry for our bones.

I�m beginning to believe us as American writers - these days - are spineless junkies of repetition. Thom Woodruff once told me - � fuck em, it�s good, Scott. They don�t understand the constantly evolving energy you embrace�.

Yeah. Thriving on madness, loneliness. The nightmare of never finding my umbilical cord.

Where are you, Bill Shields? Wake up - you�re not dead yet.

Remember - you said it never ends. Josh Hamilton, Phil Dobbins, Stefan, Tazzy, Austin, TX. Every night is a music-filled poesy trying to reclaim the stars that have fallen behind enemy lines melting into the frozen heart of darkness.

Where are we going, my friends? What are we dreaming about? Fuck the bomb - and the demons too! Fuck em all -

I�d rather stab this ink pen that never goes away into my frontal lobe to keep this country from asphyxiating poetry art real culture with a barbed wire and razor studded pillow.

Where are you when we need you, Ted Berrigan?