drama of exile

can you follow me _she utters in song

set in rock and oblique with innuendos

she addresses the sunrise on the deep self

it arises from under a deluge of keyboard

dissonance disparate and unyielding

_a summons to one who made her his own_

to the lawns of dawns then anon in marble

where a child had a spree in the wild thus

the grain of backwoods outlands deserts

in songs declaring the absence and naming

the absent well known legends as her own

who would not follow your call certainly

we had our fill of distress and caresses

with good times and warnings roped high

in the wind blowing through hearsay road

blocks milestones beyond hill and ravine

we trickled to the pool the record shops

the passes where did all begin and end

a journey with roses from koln to the sun of

ibiza _mirth birth reverie in her own words

it was an unfortunate play to begin to know

the shadows on your smile as if bitter shrouds

and yet ready to become a debutante in rock

with a script mirrored in your own memoir

how was it devised among kilikini nadett and

you to sell the drama as a chore paid for

in advance and have it ended a royal foul up

with a double score _a strange device of sorts

i read about the cover shot being on the stairs

ascending somewhere in the paris subway 
loaded

her eyes witness the unremitting exile _
the stage awaits heroes and the end is most certain

The "remake" released on Invisible Records_   
https://mega.co.nz/#!MtIRVDzS!LrA9bMODFIpSnTGxyabp2ElhOqlSz_spuV6lU3V7F8s

Re:  The Classic Years  (1998)

                                                                                                                

When did I begin to be moved by your songs, and with no reason apparent.  I was living in Buffalo when someone turned me on to that album with the banana cover and all those songs marked  ‘forever’. Suddenly you were fixed within my walls -a loadstone- with only three songs you made us believe you.  That was all, there was no more about you.  And it was albums galore in the milk crates, with the most imaginative covers and there were comings and goings plenty, but no one knew about you.  We didn't even know Chelsea Girls existed.  The Marble Index was not available, so we had to send for it to some place in San Luis Obispo, California.  Yeah, we were down.  And  I still didn't know your name, well, you were just Nico.  The action kept growing hot.  I used to hang out in the West Side and all around.  I was happily surprised when the Kevin Ayers live album came out and you appeared, and then thrilled with The End release.  We were so down.  And finally when I found out about Desertshore, it was nowhere to be had.  I got it at long last at Record Theatre as an import around 75, and that was my take of the Classic Years.

Recently I tried to get the link for the music on the CD of the same title.  I was successful. I’m aware of the many Live recordings that have surfaced after her death.  I imagine they call for mandatory listening.  In the meantime I rest in the shade of YouTube and muse on an occasional memory. Like when I walked on Elmwood Avenue just short of the Buff State campus and went into ``Play it again, Sam`` where they had them Roir casettes and discovered Nico live in Europe 82-83 ( and Johnny Thunders Live and Television with the Little Johnny Jewel cut ), all of which I brought to south america and lost, with everything else, in the flood.  It's kind o'late, maybe tomorrow I'll dig out Drama of Exile and give it a reading (I know it needs some dusting off).  Like I said, she's been an inspiration since the banana...                                                                                                                              

father...are thou in the cavern

if the almighty father knew

what this moment is for me and you

he’d be the prince that slew

the dragon in the dragon’s lair

and placed upon his tongue of fire

the hand that wisdom cast

on blood and flesh and passion

to feel the burn of time

scorch the monster’s head

who sparked up all the novas

of the universe’s thread

but god’s a captive in this minute

that time has spun on rock and sinews

and in the lion’s den he stands a single

man to feel this dawn’s first rays

spurting from the beast’s fangs

with tongues we are made to taste

each time with crimson tears

of brick and steel (love concrete)

the person foretold to become will be up next

keeping the hour of engagement without fail

_coincidence or a lottery could explain best_

doubtless we learn the score in a lone move

to pass through the doors aglow and dead

-here music…preferably The WASP (Texas 

Radio And The Big Beat) by The Doors-

we know the score 
we can take the heat

the guardians of our circumstance

holders of our keys 
(sponsors of our dreams if you may)
deal our portion by chance fortune 
or misfortune _tell you a fib

i shot my darling when our angel

turned against us lovers 
we had placed our emotions in a bid

to ride the wheel spinning our hearts

on a tread of faith set to live 
the given play with our own will 
and failed

eighteen months later 
i was cursing the land of the free

and the one of cockaygne riding
a penitentiary van on a saturday morning

with muzzi meisner and hollywood 
from east side buffalo aka cocaine

_remember the set_ the skies grey

and everyone quietly playing the current

take of the foolhardy knight’s tale

the one to steal the show gets the most time

in jail _we remember little else 
and we say in virtue of the fruit taken

for eden’s sake don’t forgive us we're threats

light burns oblivious of that first breath

blowing sparks to no end only to fail you

when your heart has stopped

‘the poets down here don’t write nothing at all

they reach for their moment and try to make

an honest stand’ _quote on the wall of a ny jail

everyone is gifted with fear and faith

everyone is gifted with fear and faith

in its breath to live through its earthly

inheritance along plain memory and hope

in the mist of alternative shootouts

(when in the queue or elsewhere

 _better make it a rule -just

 anywhere- mind the telling

 gestures signals ground writings

for in due time we all get the call to be

in the game and we must be affixed

with a pledge in spite of any handicap

or ability

hardest is to be picked out as fisherman

or tax collector _no head role's welcome_
(the outcome's well known and the cross)

but the question is how to achieve the will

for holiness while trapped in cosmic flesh

and blood and with the universe inherited

as a mental block...and one toils to strike

a mark to see justice on the score though

at long last one couldn’t expect to be

remembered at all

so while on the road we meet at rest-stops

over proverbial cheeseburgers and coke

sometimes one’s too weak (not that the soda

is too strong) and they have to take down

the water-closet door to drag you out

harboring in the myth

he can think not

his rolls and waves as if beating wings

flashflood the blood vessels

turning his eyes blind his ears ringing

his head dumb until his will

quits reaching and gropes darkness

wanting like the ostrich he believes

to hole-in the panic

and it gets deeper surely

all is at ease underground

his senses blind him fooldigger

ready to go down on truth

over his head and believe

anything thereafter unreal

love story (of wine and roses)

i love you i love you like i never
loved before love is all verses in bloom
banging oblivious the walls of time hard 
and blinding the sensical redolence
of flesh on flesh flood waters colored
with reflections expectantly sudden
of neon lights flushing indistinct 
the dregs of sweat in crevices where brews 
the seed of jets to a finish in and out of
love and gain flesh and pain fire and rain

when passion smolders bare in the hay
and sheets flame up to cover burned out
remains of wanton thirst i don’t ask you
to scratch my back i just reach where i can


"...and everybody says i don't care
  i'm just trying to remember the days..."

feeling milky way

if we were ever to succeed
we should walk to encounter life
primed and willin _no small feat
after a long haul through the south
west and mexico the cargo
customary cigarettes booze
and illegals_ though unsteady
and blearyeyed but confident
with the perspective of weed wine
and whites and dallas alice last
after every headlight it'd make
sense to hope for glee at long last
to befall the lands of greed grown
in every seed to venom all
but those with good will and resolve
you could begin embracing love
(and the gift of being yourself)
and begin enjoying life fit
with the wink of time at the vile
and the nod of heavens with signs
wondrous and far observed by some
instantly turned to salt never
to return in the endless ride
except perhaps as a verse dark
in the dream of a burned-out gal
sleeping in the cab of a semi
off the road one august night