How I Blog

And How Much Longer

Maybe not long, but I figure some of you wonder how I write so often or how I write so well. (Some of you may not feel that I write particularly well, but that's your right. I say Fuck You and why are you hanging around here, if that's the case!) Well, the truth is I depend on old short stories and vignettes, old notebooks, old poems never seen or seen by few, old smart-aleck remarks scribbled down so many years ago I can't remember now why I wrote them or how I wrote them. Who were they aimed at, myself in an honest moment or some chickenshit bastard I knew? I can't always tell. I used to make fun of Bob Dylan for repeatedly denying that any of his song lyrics were about himself when it was obvious enough they were. I've certainly written "you" a great many times in my life and figured out later that I was talking to myself! (Of course, Bob said "Fuck you, who cares?" but you can't please everyone.) With some of my writings, the only thing I recall about them is when I copied them from old index cards and other scraps of paper into the computer. Even some of those files have been through two or three word processor programs. Some of them make sense to me now, some of them don't. Some of them get rewritten yet one more time before you see them, others I only correct the spelling and a few word choices. When these old sources have dried up entirely—they are running short already!—I guess I'll write less often and maybe less well. Or I'll include more old songs and other people's poems. I can't keep a blog successful very long like that, though. But maybe a bus will strike me down about that time and it won't matter, anyway. People can keep me alive a short while by asking each other, "Do you remember how Ron used to…" or "Did you suspect him of lying that time he said…" But that will pass, as all things do. We're here until we're gone, then we're just formaldehyde-flavored food for earthworms.

TO RAMONA
by Bob Dylan

Ramona, come closer,
Shut softly your watery eyes.
The pangs of your sadness
Shall pass as your senses will rise.
The flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike at times.
And there's no use in tryin'
T' deal with the dyin',
Though I cannot explain that in lines.

Your cracked country lips,
I still wish to kiss,
As to be under the strength of your skin.
Your magnetic movements
Still capture the minutes I'm in.
But it grieves my heart, love,
To see you tryin' to be a part of
A world that just don't exist.
It's all just a dream, babe,
A vacuum, a scheme, babe,
That sucks you into feelin' like this.

I can see that your head
Has been twisted and fed
By worthless foam from the mouth.
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin' and returnin'
On back to the South.
You've been fooled into thinking
That the finishin' end is at hand.
Yet there's no one to beat you,
No one t' defeat you,
'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad.

I've heard you say many times
That you're better 'n no one
And no one is better 'n you.
If you really believe that,
You know you got
Nothing to win and nothing to lose.
From fixtures and forces and friends,
Your sorrow does stem,
That hype you and type you,
Making you feel
That you must be exactly like them.

I'd forever talk to you,
But soon my words,
They would turn into a meaningless ring.
For deep in my heart
I know there is no help I can bring.
Everything passes,
Everything changes,
Just do what you think you should do.
And someday maybe,
Who knows, baby,
I'll come and be cryin' to you.


Copyright © 1964; renewed 1992 Special Rider Music

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