Sam Shepard-Indian Summer

Tonight I’m pushing everyone away. I did it all day but tonight I’m vicious about it. I’m camped out by my favorite window and no amount of harmonica playing, rattle of dishes, laughter of voices from other rooms deep in this house can draw me out. The fading light is what I really crave. Cars with their headlights just coming on. Owls testing the fields. This mean streak slowly fades as the real black night rolls in.

I always get weird around Indian Summer. I’ve noticed this before. My whole organism feels tricked. Just as the body starts to fall in love with flying golden Poplar leaves. The smell of burning Madrone. The wild lure of Fall gets cut to the bone by Indian Summer.

I don’t want to be walking around peeling my shirt off these days. I want deep layers of Canadian blankets and fire. Red eye and fire. And dogs. And cold cold nights.

Santa Rosa, Ca.

22/9/80

from "Motel Chronicles" 

Sam Shepard-The Tooth of Crime

Look at me now. Impotent. Can’t strike a kill unless the charts are right. Stuck in my image. Stuck in a mansion. Waiting. Waiting for a kid who’s probably just like me. Just like I was then. A young blood. And I gotta off him. I gotta roll him or he’ll roll me. We’re fightin’ ourselves. Just like turnin’ the blade on ourselves. Suicide, man. Maybe Little Willard was right. Blow your fuckin’ brains out. The whole thing’s a joke. Stick a gun in your fuckin’ mouth and pull the trigger. That’s what it’s all about. That’s what we’re doin’. He’s my brother and I gotta kill him. He’s gotta kill me. Jimmy Dean was right. Drive the fuckin’ Spider till it stings ya’ to death. Crack up your soul! Jackson Pollock! Duane Allman! Break it open! Pull the trigger! Trigger me! Trigger you! Drive it off a cliff! It’s an open highway. Long and clean and deadly beautiful. Deadly and lonesome as a jukebox… Alone. That’s me. Alone. That’s us. All fucking alone. All of us. So don’t go off in your private rooms with pity in mind. Your day is comin’. The mark’ll come down to you one way or the other.

from "The Tooth of Crime", first performed in 1972

Wendell Berry-3 Poems

The Real Work


It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.


The Peace Of Wild Things


When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.


Like Snow

Suppose we did our work
like the snow, quietly, quietly,
leaving nothing out.

Sam Shepard-Cowboy

                               photo by Annie Leibovitz, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1984

The Rodeo Association made the suicide Grip illegal in somethin’ like 1959 but that didn’t stop no bull rider I knew from usin’ the damn thing. First off you take the glove on your grip hand and pull the fingers loose by about three quarters of an inch and wrap them around the rigging so it’s like the glove is tied down with your hand stuck inside. Then you pound yer fist shut on the rope with yer free hand ‘til you stop the blood from runnin’. When that chute opens boy you hang on like epoxy to wood. This bull I drew was called The Twister and boy he did just that. Circles. Like he was dancin’ on a dime. Didn’t even have time to mark him once before he had me up against the fence. Never knew eight seconds could be so long. A cowboy knows when he’s got a good ride. Soon as he comes out he knows. If it’s good he don’t even listen for no bell he just rides. If it’s good everything’s in one place. You just flap with the bucks like you was an extra piece a skin on that bull’s back. If it’s bad he’s got you all crooked and prayin’ for balance. Achin’ for the bell. This time I knew I was hurtin’. He kept slammin’ my legs up against that damn fence and each time I heard a board crack I heard a bone to go along with it. I saw the whole arena ziz sagging like a roller coaster ride. The ten gallon hats and American flags. That bullhorn squawkin’ about Levis and popcorn and ferris wheels and “here comes Billie Joe Brody from Thunder Creek, South Dakota on The Twister! Look at this boy ride. Watch out there! Watch out Billie Joe!” Then he had me sideways. My whole body snapped clean across his back.  All except that hand. That grip hand stuck in there for dear life. First thing I thought was, “Now they know I’m a cheater. Now they know. They can all see my glove stuck underneath that riggin’ rope. Coast to coast T.V. Mom and Pop back in Thunder Creek. Down at the bar. Only T.V. in the whole damn town. Now they know.” I felt it come loose at the shoulder. Right where the ball fits into the socket. A cowboy gets to know about anatomy after all them years. Nothin’ but flesh and muscle holdin’ me onto that bull now. He keeps whippin’ me around like a dish towel or somethin’. Slam into that fence. Slam! Somethin’ breaks loose. All bloods and strings comin’ out. All I want is to be free a them hooves. Down he comes  straight on my back. Everything breaks. I can feel it. Like my whole insides is made a glass. Everything splinters and shatters. I see the face a the clown. He’s got a terror mask on.  Usually calm and cool as you please. Now he’s wavin’ that bandana like an old fish wife chasin’ off the neighbors’ kids. That bull don’t move from me once. Not one inch. He’s mad. Mad at me. Mad as all hell and he ain’t lettin’ me go. Not never. He’s got me this time and he knows it. I ain’t never gonna get up again. He’s makin’ me part a the earth. Mashin’ me down.  Pulverizin’ my flesh. Sendin’ me back  where I  come from. Then he’s gone. Straight at the crowd, all  screamin’ and yellin’. Half fear, half ecstasy. They got more than a buck’s worth this time out. The gates open on the far end of the arena and I can see this Cadillac comin’. A big black car. Can’t tell if it’s a hearse or an ambulance. Don’t much give a damn. The ground tastes like earth.

written for the Open Theatre 1969

Red Shuttleworth-Two Poems

Concluding Winter

The boy watches the men

near the warped-boards corral sharpen

knives, did snuff, judge girlfriend snapshots.

The wintered bulls are trailered,

except for a cancer-eyed Hereford.

The men’s coats and jackets

are draped on corral posts

and a light south wind ruffles

them toward the Dakotas.

The boy owns two words,

Yep and Nope. He rides sheep

to prepare for broncs and bulls.

He wears a hand-me-down Resistol

battered by work and weather.

One man notes the promise of a spring

of slush and mud. The others nod, spit tobacco juice,

and a burly one joshes about a girl gone-to-town.

The men agree... sooner or later everyone

Bleeds: thumbs lost to rope-crush saddlehorns,

Driving on Kessler’s Whiskey to the tune of lost-woman,

Prom night fights... And do you remember

that Keya Paha kid who got the earring ripped off?

The boy watches the men stand, stretch,

and shake their heads at the bull,

good for one season,

now bound for hotdogville.

from the chapbook "The Beef State" 

In Deep Bourbon Cover

No one wants to be

tracked down like 35-pounds

of rapid coyote.

I want something luminous-blue...

magical moon or plaid snap shirt,

Bowie knife or edgy horse.

I kick into oblivion hotels,

strapped to jet-black

notebooks of frostry hindsight.

Locate me at the edge

of a a West where no revelation lasts

longer than Great Basin rainwater.

from the chapbook "The Silver State"

Jack Kerouac-Bowery Blues

The story of man
Makes me sick
Inside, outside,
I don't know why
Something so conditional
And all talk
Should hurt me so.

I am hurt
I am scared
I want to live
I want to die
I don't know
Where to turn
In the Void
And when
To cut
Out.

New York City, March 29, 1955

Tom Waits-Heavens To Murkatroid

Tom Waits Interview on Letterman (July 9, 2012)

Tom Waits performs "Chicago" on Letterman (July 9, 2012)

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Tom Waits performs "Raised Right Men" on Jimmy Fallon (July 10, 2012)