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Here’s a live stream version . . .
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for Andy Clausen
and all the poets of eternity
wrapping a present
of the past for the future
.
Sleeping three or four times a day,
An hour or two a shot;
Vivid dreams in shutdown streams —
Solo swimming in sunlight —
Surreality surfing in twilight
as Adventures soar
when the subconscious scores.
Stopped drinking
To go with stopped smoking;
But waking with muscles like I just chopped wood,
If a woodchuck could chuck
you know I would!
It’s all gone digital,
It’s all gone Dada;
Reality’s nada —
Keepin’ a Beat … when there’s none to hear!
Ran out of pot months ago,
Just when it became legal!
In the whole continent-wide Oh Canada I find myself locked in
— a big evergreen jail with the politest of prisoners
All holding the door open, but … no one leaving.
“Welcome to the Hotel Canada!”
That’s when I stopped smoking?!?!
Been hiding my stash for 40 years,
And now that it’s legal as 40 beers,
I don’t even bother ordering it from menus
With more pages than IHOP!
But keepin’ track of the dineros
Saved in sober scenarios,
As I watch movies with De Niros
About inspiring heroes
Gambling on truth
And regaining their youth.
In the upside down
Of the cockeyed clown
Running mad all over town
Telling us even the postman’s in on it.
No more gas in the car
No more cars On The Road;
No more peeps for a crew —
What would Cassady do?
The Twilight Zone
Is now my Real-Life Home
A desolate future right on cue —
What would Rod Serling do?
Now Doctor Fauci’s writing scripts
Of a future that used to be fiction.
Why are we here? . . .
And why aren’t we there?
And how long will it be
Our social cupboard is bare?
It was interesting for a week,
For a dream, for a Test,
But I’m not waking up
And I’m not getting dressed!
I’m also not drinkin’ . . .
Or puffin’ or snortin’
Or poppin’ or droppin’
Or mixin’ or fixin’
to die just yet.
The yellow flag’s flapping,
The time-keeper’s napping;
The frame’s been condensed,
Intermission’s commenced,
But nobody’s loading the reel.
So let’s get real
Get goin’, get down, get busy, get crazy,
“Get back to where you once belonged.”
In this big gift of time,
Never before and never again
Will we have all this space —
This lesson in Zen.
To sculpt our meaning
To write our work
To play our truth
In this cosmic quirk.
To paint our lives
On a canvas so big
You can’t even see the frame!
In a play so long
You can’t remember its name;
In a performance so rich
You’ll never be the same.
So take the baton
And conduct your song;
What could go wrong
If you play it long?
Now’s The Time
Bird Parker sang,
Now’s your chance
To spring your sprang —
You don’t need nuthin’
But the time you got,
And you don’t need others
Cuz you got a lot,
To paint with colors
And paint with light,
And check off dreams
And do ’em right.
It’s once in a lifetime
Lockdown lore;
Once in the nighttime
Fingers soar;
Life during wartime
Lions roar —
This is the time
You were born for.
So play your play
And write your rights,
Let’s make today
Your night of nights.
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Here’s some rockin’ Adventure Tales for your 2020 poli-lockdown — Blissfully Ravaged in Democracy: Adventures in Politics — 1980 – 2020 — including 100 pages of meeting every candidate in New Hampshire in the Before Times. 😉
Or here’s the book that kicked it all off — The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Jack Kerouac: The Adventure of the Boulder ’82 On The Road Conference — Finding Kerouac, Kesey & The Grateful Dead Alive & Rockin’ in the Rockies.
Or here’s the joy of the connection between the most fun cultural movements of the 20th century — How The Beats Begat The Pranksters & Other Adventure Tales from London to New York to Toronto to San Francisco and lots of other side Trips. 😉
Or here’s a whole multi-faceted portrait of the First Family of Beat — On The Road with Cassadys & Furthur Visions — which completes the sequentially written only-one-of-its-kind Beat Trilogy.
And of course there’s also the Epic Adventure of sneaking my van backstage at the big Woodstock ’94 festival — Holy Cats! Dream-Catching at Woodstock — the only Woodstock since ’69 that worked — including parking & living right behind the main stage for the entire weekend. The book peaks with a 100-page acid trip for the climactic Bob Dylan / Peter Gabriel night. 😉
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by Brian Hassett
karmacoupon@gmail.com — BrianHassett.com
Or here’s my Facebook account if you wanna join in there —
19 responses so far ↓
1 Ken Morris // Aug 31, 2020 at 1:38 PM
You operate with the assumption that the improbable will happen and you’ll always own that intersection.
“This Hall of Famer has made free falling an art form. Pranksterism? Just watch Brian. Period.”
2 Dale Topham // Aug 31, 2020 at 5:35 PM
Whoa! Great rap… must be lotsa caffeine in the absence of all that other stuff!
Lotta talk about the beautiful canvass of life and you keep framing the beauty behind you side to side and top to bottom, but you need to credit the artist! It makes the scene! Beauty!
3 Brian // Aug 31, 2020 at 6:49 PM
Thanks, Gubba Gubba Hey! You mean the big blue-ish map of America behind my head?
That’s Jasper Johns’ “Map” . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map_(painting)
4 Ashlee Rosko // Aug 31, 2020 at 7:25 PM
Soooooo Good! So Right On, Brother! This!!! Right Here! Yes!!!! You!!!!
So happy to share the circle of existence with you. I’m sharing this with my class!!!!
5 Kristi Waller // Aug 31, 2020 at 8:12 PM
“How long will our social cupboard be bare?” ……. love you, my friend!
6 Cynthia Johnston // Sep 1, 2020 at 11:21 AM
Well Dang. I dragged myself, cranky and skeptical, to these positive words with a “yeah, right, I’m so sure …” attitude. And don’t ya know, it turned my whole day around.
7 Charlotte Dance // Sep 1, 2020 at 6:52 PM
Brilliant! “It was fun for a while, for a test but I’m not waking up and I’m not getting dressed….”
Oh the truth of it all. I hope your canvas gets all the colours it needs, Brian.
Thank you for the truth and the positivity of it all today.
8 Julie O'Neal Buchanan // Sep 1, 2020 at 10:07 PM
Loved it, and subscribed to your YouTube channel.
9 Cynthia Johnston // Sep 2, 2020 at 12:11 PM
I just watched this again. Maybe today’s the day I paint my masterpiece. Or you. What about YOUR masterpiece? Need some inspiration? This blessed blissed out riff may do the trick.
10 Marcia Litman Greene // Sep 2, 2020 at 3:51 PM
Thank you, Cynthia, for sharing this delightful human being with me.
Crusty cynic that I’ve become, there’s nothing sweeter to me than witnessing the spark still alive in a fellow traveler.
I loved your poem, Brian. Keep ’em coming!
11 Cynthia Johnston // Sep 2, 2020 at 4:33 PM
Marcia — I could not love your comment more! I had the same experience. Talk about sunshine on a rainy day….
12 Laurie Jones // Sep 2, 2020 at 6:43 PM
I enjoyed this I would encourage you to keep doing more. I love poetry.
This reminded me the feeling I get when I’m listening to “The Night Before Christmas and all through the house . . . “
13 Kevin Buttrey // Sep 3, 2020 at 9:41 PM
Thanks for this. Very powerful message!
14 Fred Schrott // Sep 3, 2020 at 10:47 PM
Nice juke jiving rap.
15 Bunny Hudson // Sep 5, 2020 at 10:31 AM
Enjoyed the flow, my friend! Good words for my Saturday in isolation.
16 Thomas Kauertz // Sep 6, 2020 at 2:29 PM
It is always good to see you, and see you rocking, my man!
You should also publish this piece in the old way. Maybe you have more?
17 Norine Cook // Sep 7, 2020 at 12:29 PM
Great riffs Brian I have an annoying habit of categorizing the unfamiliar with stuff I already know, in this case, I detect some soundscapes of T.S. Eliot in this!
18 Brian // Sep 7, 2020 at 1:19 PM
Cool! And yep! He’s in there for sure.
And so’s a few other people.
. . . . . I like the way you’re hearing.
19 Bonnie Conklin // Sep 7, 2020 at 4:27 PM
This is adorable! tx!
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