AN ORIGINAL POEM: AS THO UNTIL NOW SUCH A MUSIC IMPOSSIBLE,
WITH A COMPARISON OP BRC77NING' S "A'BT VCGLER" AND ALLEN
GINSBERG'S "TRANSCRIPTION OP ORGAN FUSIC"
APPROVED:
essor V
suiting Professor
Jhairman of Graduate Studies in English.
l)eanK-&T the Graduate School
VilV.
Poster, Donald Allen, An Original Poem: As Tho Until
Now Such a Music Impossible, with a Comparison of Browning's
"Abt Yogler" and Allen Ginsberg 1 s "Transcription of Organ
Music." Master of Arts, December, 1972, 65 pp., bibli-
ography.
The basic theme of the long poem is the gradual self-
destruction of the city of Denton—as well as of the
Southwest—with no apparent hope for a rebirth. The poem
is interwoven with recurrent motifs: the music mentioned
in the title, John B. Denton as a misguided seer, the
highway as a symbol of both expansion and escape, Ever's
Hardware Store as the final link to the past, fame as a
means of escape, and Sam Bass as the conscience of the city.
The poem builds to the all-important final passages
involving Sam Bass, John B. Denton, and Jesse James, by
gradually gathering together the various motifs. Fame is
the first underlying motif and is used to link escape from
the city with the creative forces, mentioning various figures
from Denton's past—those who have escaped via fame and
those who attempted to do so but could not. None of these
figures Y ere able to "sing," to introduce the music necessary--
the music of the heritage of John B. Denton and Sam Bass,
as well as of the land itself—into the mainstream of Denton.
The narrator of the poem then, in an effort to reach
some valid conclusions about the city, begins a tour of
Denton—past and present. He discovers that the city not
only is in the wrong hands at the present but that it
may never have been in the proper hands. And although
the city is indeed "the hub of the universe," it is, none-
theless, a stifled city—unconcerned about its past,
merciless with its modern creative figures. The narrator,
to reach this conclusion, uses several allusions to various
poems, songs, movies, and people.
The poem culminates with three major figures: Sam
Bass, reborn to act as a chorus; Jesse James, a mere handy
man in the modern world; and John B. Denton, the inveterate
seer still preaching his gospel of expansion. Bass symbolises
the past that still lives, that can be reborn yet; Jesse
James represents the transitional figure, a man with a name
as famous.as that of Bass but who is lost in the modern
world, unable to understand the messages around him; and
John B. Denton, unchanged, representative of the men in
control who expand territories at any cost.
To augment the poem, a short study of two other poems
is included. The conclusions reached by the'two poems—that
music is able to summon the heavens—somewhat correspond
to the positions put forward in the long poem preceding
the study. The original poem concluded, as did the poems
in the study, that only certain men are called to create.
But the narrator of the original poem more pessimistically
concludes that such creators are ignored and are replaced
by visionless men in power.
AN ORIGINAL POEM: AS THO UNTIL NO?J SUCH A MUSIC IMPOSSIBLE
WITH A COMPARISON OP BROWNING'S "A3T YOGLER" AND ALLEN
GINSBERG'S "TRANSCRIPTION OP ORGAN MUSIC"
THESIS
Presented to the Graduate Council of the
North Texas State University in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
By
Donald Allen Foster, B. A.
Denton, Texas
December, 1972
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
PART I. AS THO UNTIL NOW SUCH A MUSIC IMPOSSIBLE 2
PART II. A COMPARISON OF BROWNING'S "ABT VOGLER" AND
ALLEN GINSBERG'S "TRANSCRIPTION OF ORGAN
MUSIC 60
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........... i 66
PART I
AS THO UNTIL NOW
SUCH A MUSIC IMPOSSIBLE
febb insists on the 98th meridian
as the turning point, as the gateway
which swings open like a bardoor
"between the plains and the eastern
hills—what then Denton, on the 97th,
a clue to its dynamics--a different
dynamic from that advertised on absurd
billboards outside town—home
of the winds; they gobble in old hide-
outs, change their skins and shake
their moneymakers to different degrees—
the 98th as the true dividing line,
the true magnet, then Denton on its
very outskirts, the magnetic pull slightly
less—this then the cause of growth—
once here impossible to leave--the pull
of the 98th—this keeping the populus
safe within its grounds—beyond, all
points out, the trouble begins—mountainous
cold--flat deserts—California insanities
originally caused by fever—or to the north,
northeast—swamps—open cold, straining
cities—and on both sides the water
inviting the sailors on out to the end—•
Denton a stop then, a true settling,
beyond which there is no reason to search--
Williams it took
two hundred pages and more
and it was only beginning
Olson nearly two hundred
that not 'finished either
the life rechanneled
from the obvious universal,
red wheelbarrow, kingfishers,
to the particular,
the homecity as the universal
within the poems
but no farther than that
only to re-emerge stronger
on a higher level,
Desert Music, the variable foot
lordly and Isolate Satyrs
the open field
and Olson had the wrong city '
as he discovered too late
As tho until now
such a music impossible
rock and roll on, up and down
across, from, in and around
every room every porchstep
I960 and the Nomads
with Denton's plugged guitars
every man a rock and roil
David lunden nee Furche
football and Pontiacs—and yet
Where the Sky Meets the Sea
Fairpark, the Dallas bigtime
for those two weeks
over the radio
Bill Ham Dream On
Cry Cry My Darling but most
of all Big Lucas because,
on Dot records, it was
Pat Boone whistling to end
the three minute rumble
(Boone himself who briefly
attended a city college,
remembered in parades occasionally
with American Football League
heroes uncertain of the wind—
who opened his restaurant
and was given the royal screwing,
now a bank where the brown
gravy flowed once thick
as the Rio Leon—but
most important of all, who
in his noted year in school
introduced Roy Orbison to Sun
Records and Ooby Doobie
or John Cundiff and his
purple shirts and dyed black hair
You Can't Make Me Cry, in his
Hank Williams chest fever
b/w Mojo Workin' copped from
Lightnin' Hopkins—WRR Kats Karav-an
Ray Peterson who broke on through
kicked open the big time
one of the stringers for death
songs Tell Laura I Love Her
it settles into rock and roll
no matter how it's ground
but then it re-emerges in all forms
orchestrated and danced upon
(Giuffre practiced here in the
forties, still mentioned in music
appreciation classes by those who know
this then jazz in the legend
Lester Bowie once at the university
Bob Dorough it's rumored, M. Peterson
jamming with Fharoah Sanders
expands into rock and roll—Chessmen
Briks after the Beatles
tape loops "broken memories
Cindy's brother's group, the G-'s
cleancut as hell but unsaleable
from the rock cup dipped over
the swelling folk craze in the fists
of Dylan thrown flat against
the concrete—Suzanne on KDIT
local radio, tape of her two
songs—now midground with her
analyses of Bram Stoker, Herbie
Mann replacing Henske and the others
but Fromholz writing literate
Colorado-Texas songs from University
of Texas in exile—Frummox—
trilogies of Kopperl, Fort Worth
and Cleburne—evading Denton
as Moyers evades it, as McMurtry
evades it, Perskin admits it
to return with Shiva's Headband
to spread the armadillo word
from Austin, for no other reason
This "boiling for months
Thunderbolt cranked by soul
Crackling to get out
Housebroken on the, page
You get it
Not to imply, not to insist
on Denton as anything except
resting place for anonymity
a safe place to be killed
the moon thru the blinds
as honest as possible—it looks
the same here as in Killeen
maybe not San Francisco
Santa Barbara thru the fog
but still the Denton moon
father, son, and holy wimp
the music is incidental
in a state of music
blind lemon, lightnin', black ace,
ernest tubb, sir douglas,
fever tree, bruce channel,
rondels, freddy fender, mouse,
ornette, handy, stardust cowboy
the list of course endless
8
Rather, to breathe its air
As air, to fling it loose
To pop the eardrums like
Lost poetry from Teski-Zeiti
First mimeo sheet, political
Tie-ins, yet there at unexpected
Moments "before Dallas Kotes
Hawked on every sidewalk,
There, at that time, in that space
With Gino Clays, Spencer Perskin
Saint-Eden—they have all fled
In one way or another
They got out somehow or were
Caught in the hills and wasted
Sheldon the editor now wizard
In residence at headshop, there
In this time, with organic food
Communes, and busts--the rag
Sheets reappearing—blooms
With rust at the center—crap
Passed from gun to gun as
Poetry--nothing other than warmed
Over McCall's with certain words
Replaced by revolution while
The wages rot at $270 a month,
Breaking back and falling off
Production--no revolution here—
But the occasional flames
The pirate presses running
Unknowingly attended "by secretaries
Of English Department
Mysterious handouts with anonymous
G-ag lines for authors, titles
The streets do not burn
Every man a rock and roll
Johnson told Moyers to get his
ass in high gear "If you want
to amount to anything you'd
better shag it down to the university
of texas"—and he went
McMurtry alive and animate
in classes on badmen of the west
writing segments of Horseman
Pass By for student
publication—then leaving fast
for Kesey, U.T., and two
movies later has alienated old
professors for his criticism
of j. frank dobie and prescott webb
10
which brings it down, or closer, to
fame as an alien, as a divider
Haynes, Greene, Renfro, Shanklin
Garrett, Lockhart, Hamilton--athletes
or perhaps miss america bring
the boys back home but don't stop
the war if the president don't
want to, played to bacharach-david
raindrops, etc—you won't hear
no lennie tristano influence, just
good clean music
all meaningless
every man a rock and roll
every man a pop, a cult
cutout
figure
bringing it to this—or this--
Denton
the movie, blood on its face
wiped away with tearstained sleeve
as tho it were snot
on a winter afternoon
11
sliding down Plow Hospital hill,
yes
it comes to this
crime as the fame
highwaymen as the symbols
to put on the "billboards
to welcome tourists
not miss glowing america
Denton
as the fame itself,
hot with fever,
as a pivotal point
for yes international american
fame--bonnie and clydes
Denton housing its bandits well
pandering to their services
filling their green machines
with dreams
penn, beatty, dunaway
and co.
to open the world to Denton
distinctive getaways from Pilot Point--
12
the first death scene
bullet thru the window forehead
and the race across the fields
or the meeting with nomads
along Lake Dallas
or the interlude near the gravel
piles
the pictures pile up
but the machines stop
the hands wash up, go home,
the extras left behind
to carry on trade as usual,
to feed the horses, to pour
the cement
until held up
by the government again
its enemy agents
everywhere--
important—
scum
when compared to the standards
of most criminals
13
as tho until now
such a music impossible
computation, realization
of the harsh brittle
noises which flame
up like ignited paint
in the evening
when the sun goes down
the sun may look good
shining thru the trees
but the moon is better
its roaming light
where the brakeman
flags down the double e,
the midnight flyer
soon after midnight-
the noises of metal
animals colliding and
unlocking, moony
poets shuffling thru
the change of the yard
among the rails
captivated by boxcars
where guthrie froze
to get to the sweet
land, eulogizing
14
waiting, crazy about
a moonentranced
emotion—i just
want to ride that
morning railroad
perhaps i'll die
on that train—
put it that
simply—and the noise
is pure romance—
"but put it this
way santa fe
santa fe, damn good
woman she paid my
way--as Bass would
have had it and
the noise "becomes
noise--idle poets
beware there is
no romance in
machinery, no matter how
frantically it squeals
in a heartsick night
romance of the night
shattered like-a broken
airplane on a local
15
playground—the night
as the inhibitions
of the city loosened—
no faces, no distinctions—
mere unsought criminality—
the sudden thrust which
reddens the "backseat,
the twist which turns
wet grass to rust—
not even this—romance
in itself--"but rather
quiet beer calm with
television or cards
such a music
impossible—the romance *
is built in, rumors
carried on airwaves
of violent t. v.—
so that young men
kidnap local college girl
rape here in the country
and ineptly back over
her in such a hurry
to leave the romance
exposed as fraud :
16
there is nothing to 'it
just as easy
as eighteen-year-old
jilted lover taking his
pistol (Bass unloading
his only after trapped
during the last holdup)
as killing his lover
her family and himself
Maniacs—
the cowboy virility
is no guarantee
outside the arena
in the bible bedroom
no guarantee at all
here the trouble begins
we have burned
the wrong books?
blushing in doorways
of universities because
highschool girls have
made porno films
as tho until now such a music impossible
that it expands at will
the noises are overlooked in passion
after all pederasts who double
IT
as influential merchants, mate swapping
among the nouveau riche,
the mere workers screaming at themselves
when swearing desperately
at their wives, husbands
this is the romance of compatibility
the morning turns cold
in a hurry
and blows dead over #•
misty hills
music rebounds in the forest
grows violent
and emerges wet
and useless as babies
the streets bump
with graveyard ghosts
jiving over the last
meat on the bones
of the southwest
girls in grim masks
drag corpses of horses
around the courthouse
sacrifices to the sexual
god john b. denton
13
a man took up television
time to explain
that sleep should be regular,
lest the dreams be stillborn
or worse, stifled
into one long night
of uncontrolled nightmares
when we reach for the pills
and the easy way out
no worries here, the sleep as
regular as the 5:30
shutdown of the city
"they roll up the streets
at six" but the dreams
long ago aimed in a single
direction—growth, progress
for the sake of technology
DENTON WILL BE 01TLY 12 MILES
FRO If THE ENTIRE vTORLD
after the municipal airport,
the highways more rapid
easier 30 minute drives
to dallas, fort worth, across
the red river in half an hour
and from there to the woody
mountains—ironic, that in all,
19
the growth., the progress
(the pride of achievement)
has as essential goal
a way out of this foresaken
land, ironic, but not to he
laughed over with the city fathers
the dream is false,
manufactured, don't kid yourself,
denton is not new york
or los angeles or even dallas—
their roads lead in, not out
try a bus from denton to dallas
simple, try a bus from waco
to dallas, simple; try a bus
from denton to killeen—
no way, stops in dallas
and waco, layovers--the small
town (and despite the 40 thousand
on the city limits signs
denton is a small town
a commuter city of frantic
highways) is dying, nothing
to hold anyone here except
a stunted growth—thus even
salinger cannot be taught
in the highschools—"impressionable
20
minds"—110 sh.it—let them
do their fishing with pippa
passes or milton—one taste
of that poetry as taught
"by halfassed education majors
(matthews eyes light up)
and they'll be glad to work
in the bodyshop, they'll be
glad to discover the new
world thru sensory impressions
of television
they'll be glad to roll over
and play doggie,
they'11 be happy to marry
to sing of perdition
swinging an axe and
dropping ashes in the pool
catching the autoshow
after church
these banjoeyed, applecheeked
cherry, guys and gals,
as they say
on the texas news
caught in the furious
square dance of the southwest
21
trapped in the self-proclaimed
trinity of cities
dallas-fort worth
and at the top of the triangle
denton
these bellbottom
"beehive brainless wonders
selling insurance
taking off their clothes
and groaning on cue,
theatrically, as tho whitman
had been a stockbroker
a maker of player piano rolls
a grinder of glass
what does it mean . . . actually . . .
after all
whitman sang them too at times
once they are guilty
they are worth defending
caught
in the furious flow
squeezing children out of their loins
like seeds squirted
out of peaches
22
braving fogs, icestorms, sudden
showers dunking the city
in .froth, it all, to sell
the watchtower door to door
the violent flow
overflow and flux
of the prairie music
harsh as scrub pines
songs of the road #
of the stranded travelers
from bedroom to carport
intricate prison bigbeats
loud songs of the shortlived city
as community
All along the watchtower
Released to the hubble
Cries waft on air
Bury me not on the lone . . .
Keep my body out
Of the lone Star State
But to here they return
Instinctive as swallows
2 *2
Suave, debonair, undetected
the pederasts light up their fags
the streets sparkle with ice
and the whores hurry down oak
to work, more efficient than
the post office—no holidays
the urges then determine
which ports of call.
which "bergs to crash against
to he ruined for life
there is no mystery here then
only the deadhead urges
which explains the weekly
porno movies do.wntown
(followed by a disney.feature
later in the week)
and why Dorn is unknown
and as useless as dawn
to a dead man
the odor of fresh blood
highlights the midnight
rhythms in the rain
to the american radio
24
Big Tex peddles prophylactics
the Texaco john says
the dream don't kid yourself
there is no dream
sanitation department rattling cans
to irritate the dogs
carpenters pausing to drink
from large green cups
or to turn the dial
for the housepainters
as tho until now such a music impossible
the prairie singer pants "between syllables
to get in the long clumsy lines '
about youth, stumbling over the shorter
uncolored lines about Lake Dallas,
how it has risen fast and swollen
and just as suddenly turned slick
icy with the first hard freeze
"twenty years ago they drove cars
across it, sliding on the ice,
probably no more than one car at a time"
Williams it took into death
Olson too the telling
the unromantic comments
25
from wooden rooms with frozen windows
the way out not thru the doors
but thru the brain
the journeys looselimbed and lazy
down thru the unsuspecting city
courting it as one would a prairie woman,
outspoken,, loud, brash, histrionic, hick,
but lover nonetheless
the flesh must be torn away
exposed naked and raw, the maggots, vermin,
germs, fleas, the like
emptied out of the wound
and the sore washed out
in this case with dissenting images
You roam the rotting burnt streets
the ones uptown still wet
with manure from annual parades
the rebels, the confederates
still alive, the rebel yell
loud in the throat feeble in the mind
it hits hollows nonetheless
in pits of the stomach
and as a child you rise, stand
paralyzed in front of sears-roebuck
26
the entire southern structure
replacing the "bones, the skeletons,
moving on new soil, rebel earth
steaming with the precision answers-
the trees jump back in the wind
alerted, and salute crazily
loonies, halfwits, who weep in spring
and stand proud in winter
the city itself moves to the right
a hair, an inch, and a bench
is made vacant on the courthouse lawn
doorways welcome you, a dry county
from the sounds inside each five
and dime could be a saloon, a honkytonk
country and western music spilling out
splattering, staining the soul like blood
which will not wash off--bob wills
lefty frizzell little jimmy dickens
newly transformed november confederate
the street has now offered its vision
and it cannot be turned back
the pure streak, the natural streak,
inherited, the streak of the holdup man
black and white theirs and ours
streaks pure as honeysuckles
on back fences along the weeds
inborn or inbred, refined by the rebirth
>7
the reawakening of the southern foot
the southern metric of pure disaster
thrown over you like gasoline rags,
then the match dropped also, thrown
by the belles with the large breasts
whose western hats and white gloves
fatten on the eyes, become magnified
images of the southern sexuality
as pure southern funk, the confederate
and his lady born to raise yells
dialects proceed to pry open the shell
of the child and the gem inside
is stolen during one long filthy
story, replaced by scents of oil
and years later jacking up ramblers
in dirty garages you no longer
listen to the radio for anything
other than mobile news reports
of traffic fatalities or possible hail
It is all ground up, a secret chalk,
in those early parades carried thru
the streets high to the sun, ra,
blown into your eyes a potion which
destroys or at least wounds you for life
blinds you to certain particularities
the senses controlled by something :
28
far different from the "brain, an
undercurrent of backlash., a southern
instinct, a promotion of the police
department, the same as mace, it
does its job in the centennial year
and things are difficult to readjust
you find time stilled, the streets
enchanted with horses and wagons
men with overnight mustaches and derbies
women with calico and bonnets, piled hair
the city history printed between pages
of advertisements and pictures of amateur
actors believing themselves john b. denton
it gets beyond control, it grasps the inner
workings and you are listening to ancients
settle on parkbenches like dust telling
of driving teams thru the snow to get
to school for purposes never explained
except that even then the impulse was there
to burn the education shacks down
to the last crack and splinter and to replace
them with corncrops and field mice
women remembering clark gable saying damn
in denton county for the first time as tho
he were still thirty and it were perhap.s
still a shame and a private scandal
29
the "bible belt, the "bible belt
how they whip you with the bible belt
until the welts swell and burst
so that jonah could get in
and never get out without intervention
this, all this, from the simple parade
hitting every chughole on the way around
the square and back toward the college
in the years when tropic of cancer
was too hot for the local bookstore
and now de sade is easy pickings
this in the easy motion of pale
wrists of girls in strapless formals
throwing cellophane packs of bread
or balloons which say texas when
inflated—this in the grace of the legs
of highschool twirlers from nearby schools
named cowboys or broncos or mustangs
the easy identification of patriotic music
with the sound of thighs slapping
together, followed by the solemn offkey
offering of the eyes of texas
In one moment, one flash, the cocoon
has dropped its bottom out and the thing
30
which has flown out it, another creature
and it walks the streets alone
past the fraternity houses and chiropractic
clinics and is recognized as a new
spirit "but a kindred one by all the locals
You roam the rotting burnt streets
and have jumped back into your normal body
have shed the careless years
and are now someone else in an
unchanging but growing city—the days
pass by in brilliant colors like roman
candles and are as meaningful, burn
out as fast, explode in the air
and fall back as nothing, not even
debris, not even industrial waste
you become anonymous, an unknown,
a stranger with successive weeks
the goodwill clerks never recognizing
you from one purchase to the next
the busloads of football promoters
ready to put out your eyes
and the streets themselves become
strange altho still rotting
still unrepaired—but they seem
greyer, the fog shuffles and
settles more often, the rain tints •
31
the leaves with, heavier greens
Streets which Sam Bass may have walked
Which Clyde Barrow may have borrowed
For a pose, which the rest for certain
Walked to reach destinations beyond
The grasp of small-time money, small-
Time promotion on a local scale, streets
Which now grow red or yellow, brown
Perhaps, with November leaves, streets'
With the blood of its wounded veterans
Ground in with the shoptalk, the constant
Threat of another war among impassioned
Idiots, civilized streets poured out
Of a gunbarrel to lead to higher
Establishments or to surplus discount
Stores, streets which Bass may have walked
Indeed before they were streets, where
He plotted the holdups in the dirt
Streets which now lead nowhere, which
Give no clues, which contain no plots
Streets to the universities whose subsequent
Streets are blocked with cars, each
The shadow of the man Sam Bass
Kay have pulled on his boots here
Once but now only strings are pulled on
32
Tex Watson knew these streets at one
Time, Miss America knew them better ' '
But who is more famous, who had
More imagination, who resisted the strings
And their manipulators better, who will
Live thru the ages longer, Clyde Barrow
Or Bill Moyers—rightfully, it would be
Giuffre, McMurtry, but this is not where
The streets lead, into such blind alleys
Actually, it will be the criminals, the leg
And glamour girls, the pederasts with money
All like thick fog on contaminated rivers
Sinking into the quick bogs of mythic memory
"We don't want your money
put it away"
Bass telling the amputee
in the dark train
a direct source of the ballads
returning silver dollars
to passengers for their morning
meals--yet neglecting a stray
four hundred dollars here or there
casually hidden
35
by clever travelers—the real
travelers are those on the roads
of balladry—immediate history
"by unknown Greeks
disguised in the west as hoboes
traveling salesmen or fools
Sandburg years later asking to see
the tree Bass
supposedly fired a bullet into
this then is fame—forget jay gould
Bring the moon in closer
A tighter closeup of Pilot Knob
Tugging the higher branches, sucking
Sparrows into the gyrating wind
Rattlesnakes under every rock
Seen in the distance fences
On all sides, horses grazing
On cropped fields
Here Bass in song, in legend
In old men's memories, buried
His gold, leaving it for the boy
34
Scouts to find someday
Three Oaks now all but forgotten
Except by those who know—"my great
Uncle met him there every Saturday
Sight in the moonlight, covering
The next week's plans"
Therefore most probably.Sam Bass,
himself an alien refugee (same
as John B. Denton our courthouse
defender with pigeons on his sword)
from Indiana, who bet on horses
until he lost, forced into the
course of action
the theory being as described
by detectives of the southwest
that the civil war caused outcasts
too young to fight, outraged
by the post-war hoodlums in uniform,
directing their frustrations toward
mere thievery—average age
at death, early 20s—Bass .26 or 27
35
As tho impossible until now
this freedom descended from
maypole, this loosening of the belt
fanning of the night flames
tanning of the wilder animals
every man a wanted poster
which brings tears to the eyes
of old men on front porches
leaned back with their memories
stuck in their brains like their
fingers in their suspenders
"Sam Bass stopped at my father's
house one'time" the rest forgotten—
no memories of thousand dollar bills
found under his plate, just the memory
of the man himself—"it would be like
forgetting the moon or watching in the
wrong direction for the sun to come up
it's as simple .as that"
And if so—and why not—and if so—
why the hard way out to overpower
the boredom shared under the late
harvest sun—the four thousand plus
banditos bumping into one another in
escape routes across the savage
36
plains—four thousand plus because
one fourth of the state sheriffs too
lazy to answer the forms—G. T. 'T.
they said in those early days—gone
to texas and if a man didn't admit
readily to a dozen crimes he was
regarded as suspicious—therefore
a haven for the runners along
the backroads like runners of dried-up
watermelon vines—sifting down
and settling like dust from the north
to be bored farmers or shop owners
or barkeeps waiting for the once
in a lifetime chance of a Hickok
aces backing eights—Bass himself
wild with dreams of the cowboy,
finding only tedium of ranchlife—
quitting—moving to the town,
employed by Doc Egan, sheriff—
the money was there, regularly, Bass
a trusted employee by Egan,
earning the name Honest Bph, sent
into distant counties with large
sums, returning even with his
spending money "the dream was over
once he had seen the west"—
37
lounging on dark steps in dirty clothes
"he could have had better" disregarding
the matings in the streets, watching the stars
break up and blow away like clods of
prairie dirt—"the importance is in
the dreams not the loins" barely able
to read, unable to write except his name
as Sam B Ass as the lawyers would
point out altho never getting their money—
discovering the ponies in pastures,
not content with spectating, buying
the Denton Mare—and there the money
rolled, freely as in those particular
dreams of lost coins found in sand—
the Mare unstoppable, starting from
a mound dug by Bass for faster takeoffs
which could be observed 70 years later—
unbeatable even after hustling indians
and mexicans so that there were no races
left in texas
If, then, great men walked here bareheaded
Or with hats, hoods, adornments, where •
Is their influence, where are their pagan
Walls, their remnants, their urns, their sculpture
Their oral tradition, their written poetry
38
The "brilliance of the southwestern mind, where
Under what streets, "beneath which"churches '
Or "banks or more likely gasoline stations,
Where then are the artifacts of unrecorded
Time or is the soul of the plains like
The "blue northers, the southwesters, the very
Duststorms which drove the wandering
Artists to cherry wine and oranges "big
As heads of "babies—where then are the
Tracks of the possessed gods of myth
there are the texts, where is the audience
The.truth being of course there are no texts
And what if there were, there is no
Audience, the streets lead to cafes, to
Private clubs, to the extensions of Idiot's
Hill and beyond, to shopping centers which
Grow overnight, mostly in autumn or winter,
Because spring is a time of death when
The coffins come home—in winter the call
Is sent out the loudest—where then are our
Creators, our famous forebearers, our studs,
Where are they, who are they—they are not
The artists, the poets, there is no vision
In the southwest, merely the careful
Imitation of the cowboy painters, the sequined
Big D Jamboree auteurs singing of infidelity
To drunken midwives—who then are the heroes'
39
Not even those whose names are chiseled
In memorium in public "buildings—if not these
Even, who died for insane men with ideas
Of absolutes in the wasteland, in the plains—
If not these, who then—not John B. Denton
Who fell from his horse "before the prophecy
Was fulfilled, not the Wichitas, the Ionies,
The Keechies, the other Caddos who could
Not find the country habitable, Sam Bass
The Robin Hood, of the Cross Timbers who died
Because of the Denton Mare anticipating Hollywood,
Not these, too obvious in their daydreams
But perhaps the cat drivers who introduced
The wind by scraping the fields clean
Of vegetation—perhaps—but still more likely
The heroes of the city are the heroes- of *
Other cities as well-^the money men, the bank
Rolls, the sugardaddies with the sweet green
Teats which give as much nourishment as
Necessary and ho more—Jay Gould who
Financed the railroads, LBJ who in 1954
With Price Daniel defended Denton's right
To have Santa Pe track on the outskirts
Of town altho the train no longer bothers
To slow down on its way thru, Newton
Rayzor Enterprises which build schools •
For tax exemptions--these are the heroes—
40
The poetry is the signature at the bottom
Of the page on "the single straight line
The art the montage of Washington's face
Multiplied, a million times to appear infinite
Uo heroes, no inspirations, anywhere
to be ferreted out of the past
present or future
coming down Fry Street wrapped
in navy coat and muffler
anachronistic (or so it seems now
six years beyond the revolution)
incense burning the eyes
worse than the dry wind which .
is bad enough slapping like a knotted
rope, watching the occupants
(as anonymous, as dead, as
address labels) move about like
instinctive pavlovian mice—even
a peck order established, intruders
not to be trusted—and once the nest,
the city, has been abandoned
there is no returning—
coming down Pry, the organic food
store, the headshop, the boutique,
all interchangeable, community within
41
the community no better xhan
the community itself—the privileged
class on self-imposed poverty scale
stoned or lazy on Jesus
hype about the revolution—
no question about who would win
inevitably—nobody--the middle class
too fat-daddy lazy—these inherited
instincts—the working class too
television-stricken to move the ass
to lock the cop out--equated
with the phonograph album as cheap
substitute—
coming down Fry nothing matters
the wind gets harder every year
secondrate shops close faster
the university curriculum shovels
out Kafka Hesse and Mann
for a single semester then retreats
back into Thackery and Browning
it leans toward liberality
and the right wing lobby
moves in to puncture the dream--
Kamerick, ex-president, altho he denies
it kicked out like unpopular but
winning coach--and he only the Kennedy
42
dream 011 a minor scale, a mere
shadow of liberal arts for a lifeless
"university" pseudononymous with, jobcorps
the political return to Matthews
school of education absurdities,
a new team of politicians
playing Pilate to the regents—
if Matthews the perfect Eisenhower
then Nolen the mirror Nixon
coming down Fry, turning up Hickory
wondering where the community went
where solidarity disappeared, how
polemic got in the way of poetry—
a simple answer here "what does
it mean—i don't want to read no
poetry"—the Matthews-influenced
Denton county intelligence, the school
of education and its shrill narrowbrained
graduates "Steinbeck is one of America's
greatest writers"—thus polemic, naked
words--meat for the grist--intrudes--
to batter the watered brain, punch
holes in it, make it leak its recipes--
this another dream in itself
coming down Fry, turning up Hickory,
43
got a .44 frame, a heart full of misery
"blues for the top 40, "blues for the migrants,
blues for the blueprints which describe
the highways, blues for the worker
whose backbone is driven thru his brain
for small change and fast nights of sweat—
And yet the sweetmeat of the melon
is still there, the morning scent
of it everywhere, elusive among
the remaining trees, the ghost of Bass
at six riding horses the color
of Clear Creek across Pilot Knob
Lake Dallas suddenly one dawn
Docking an unpainted ship
Prom which the deportees of Mu
Atlantis, Gnossus,•stride in everyday
Clothes (as deportees they are
Questionable but still brilliant)
Walking up the private dock
Kicking the doors, locks and all,
Cff the hinges—pulling the chained
Lake behind them--they have
Come as the resident artists,
Only to end the morning writing
Their own names on the beaches,
44
Taking time to pick the burrs
Prom their boots, running to the trees
Or to the toilets—they are
Only sailors after all
Ho future is expected—and yet
The aroma is still there
The changed city the magic city
Slowly supernaturally reborn
Via mimeographed sheets, potato-
Printed designs, home movies
With futuristic implications
A dream, a rank dream
But the furniture trade is
Expanding—a demand for
Sanders, exterminators, bodyshops
What is it then that keeps
The city stable, which allows
For growth—the proximity
To Dallas-Port ¥orth--Denton
The keychain of the Southwest--
In the end—nothing—the soulless
City—fishermen, hunters, boaters
All leave for better grounds when
The season comes
What then did Denton envision
45
That the Indians did not
Crusty houses forming a hinge
To the spiraling southwest?
Village growth in rapid expansion
Into Norse's huh of the universe
Manmade rivers like ale, "bock beer
Thanks to the german community
Jimmy Rogers cherry wine as
A reality "beyond California
Slave labor for Christ and his
Speckled bird, bullets among the firs
And a wanton cry for escape
(That cry was already going up
Further south, closer to the Border)
It tortures the bra;in, Denton's vision
What was it other than the normal
Limited vision of the outside settler
Always content to organize
And to move on into other climates
Painfully, after all, it comes down to
The selfish dream, the Rand syndrome
As follows, in simple terms:
Take a group of people, make them
One via a characteristic peculiar
To them all—intelligence, religion
Anything—and convince them they
46
Are surrounded by enemies, morons.
Men with limited, narrow vision
Convince them that as a unit
They can control their small society,
By moving from the crowded, harebrained
East, to the wide-open, inviting
Plains, where outsiders are impossible
Who could find this spot, who would
Want to invade a community of friends
(Asking the Quakers, offering them guns
Or prisons and time to reflect)
We can control ourselves, teach
Our children the basic principles
The outright tenants of the proper Way
But what of the spirit of the outlaw
The flowering of the rebel, the thrusts
Of the gossips, of.the malingerers
We as a community of singular purpose
Have no such traitors among us
But what of national crises,
Of declared wars, of allout bloodletting
We are not a bellicose people
Nothing of the sort can happen
Thus Denton found the clearing, recognized
It as the plains he had dreamed
Brought his community out of the wilderness
47
Like creatures and introduced
Them to the new world thru the loss
Of his own scalp, a Christian
To the end, protecting his flock
The dream, the dream
It swings out in a surge
Describes a parabola, kicks
Pleads, vamps the mind
Induces the body to do foolish
Things in the name of the tribal
We are not a bellicose people
But we will fight for our worth
vVe are not an armored nation
But we will not forestall rebirth
Denton, out of the wilderness, into the clearing
At the mouth of the vision, wavering, thirsty
Under a rapidly-setting fog, his eyes clouding
As it all becomes clear, unique, his powerful
Trance overwhelming the entire man—there
Cut of the trees like a high flying bird
That imperfect vision
The city swings out, all lights and graded hills,
Threatening semicircular expansion
48
Power lines, police cars on duty,
Manor homes and tread trucks,
Idiot's Hill, bowling alleys
The two universitiesj, the two
Skyscrapers (dormitories)
The backroad where the coed was raped
And murdered, the hollows and caves,
Bushes, close grass and holes
Where Sam Bass ducked the law
Doc Egan for amusement
Denton, the minister, the Indian fighter,
The upholder of bold dreams, the hero,
Did not envision such tamperings,
Saw only wooded houses, natural trails,
And little wealth for the searchers
But Bass, hired by Egan
But lost to the horses,
Uneducated, cavalier
In the tradition
(Each victim robbed
allowed one dollar for the next
meal down the line)
Had the vision of the slicker
Of the city as it would be
Of the gathering of the wealth
49
"All I did was for the farae
The picture on the trees as
Tho it belonged there—fame
After all that which establishes
The peck order—I walked among
You a simple man but far greater
But it was you the crowd the city
Which brought me fame—nothing
I did was a tinker's dam—
So easy, so easy, feigned
Assurance, an easy smile, a spectacular »
Plan which fails, anything
And you are impressed--you
Study a woman's body and give
Her education for the privilege
An asinine country humor and that
Is the vision, something Denton
Himself could not understand dying
With honor for another piece of land,
The vision of the extreme humor
Of the situations, crazy humanity
With its fixation for trinkets
And appearance, whereas its real
Heroes die in haunted hotels
Drunk to the end on utopianism
But enough--I return wiser
A mist among you delicate as
so
The fog lingering over the gold
I hid on Pilot Knob, yet
Substantial also—as substantial
As John B. Denton's courthouse lawn
Statue—Things disintegrate around
Me, smoke and then burn out--
Walking in the late hours along
The square I watch as Ever's
Hardware Store licks the still
Morning with flames--oldest
Building in the city perhaps
1884 it said in the concrete near
The attic where the priceless surrey
Also blazed--our artifacts are ashes
For coming time travelers—all they
Will find will be Denton beating
The pigeons off him, grim as ever
Unable to do a damn thing, even to
Stride across the street and watch
In these years, recent years, beyond
Time the Pat Boone restaurant has
Closed and returned another bank
The Dream Theatre has given way
First to t. b. patch tests, then
To another five and dime--the Bardot
Movies no longer bare their breasts
51
Sly Stewart has risen from beyond
The railroad tracks to fringed jackets
And "back again to another oblivion
Orbison's time has run out, Ann
Sheridan is long dead—yet Brockett
Smiles across the swimming pool
In McMurtry's picture show
And the circle is unbroken
But the difference is in the leaving
Whereas Boone returned, back across
The Chisholm Trail, to re-establish
His fame and lost, Sly will
Never return—perhaps not even Brockett—
Certainly not Mclurtry
And why should they—the fame
Y/ashes them clean of the clinging
Y/ind and dust from the razed' soil
Already the city limits creep closer
To Port Worth—highways spurt
Out of the graded hills in furious,
Frantic directions—coliseums spring up
Out of bored college pockets
Like fast-gro weeds in the rain
The radio station changes hands
Drops the farm report, sunday services,
52
Foreign language programs and spans
The sun and moon distances for the first
Time—to no avail--still dull--
All this and still the city
By five thirty is television, just t. v.
I walk among you spitting and swearing
An honest man with a quick tongue
And lightning anger, bleeding in my
Very soul for the improper strides
I recognize you no longer
I wander the Old Alton cemetery
Stopping at confederate graves
Thinking maybe they, the rebels,.were
The cause of the fever in the city
Would we have built our empire
On drive-in hamburger stops, gasoline
Pumps, plaster huts, carwashes
More likely on slave labor
And either way we lose imagination
Our vision sterile, the struggle
The mere cruise into fatcat
Complacency—endless television
And sacks full of poptop can"
The demons rush in, rush in, rush in
53
Swallow the nights salty as haddock
The beds sleep only amputees, fixers
And as open as the snapped bell pepper
The dawn bangs suddenly on the porch swing
Grand gray horses with reins of bones
Are whipped thru tongueless twists, turns
Of remembered streets by lost John the junkman
Build this to a crescendo, waves splattering
Planes crumbling in the atmosphere like
Hammersjold's body, an amazing morning commerce
And out of the uproar of the violent working
Bodies waking to unchanged shades and stems
Jesse James winds the green alleys, hat
low, pushing his lawn mower as lovingly
As a carriage of gold, odd jobbing his way
Thru the dream humming the songs heard
Drifting down from high windows or jukeboxes
"The king steps out from the shadows"
He stops to watch for the confirmation
But nothing happens—a farmer, he might have
Expected wooly heads of cotton swaying
In the concrete—but as a day-to-dayer
He expects maybe a light and a miracle
And he wanders on, dreams on, taken higher
And higher by shattered daylight scattered
Bit by bit over select lawns and plots
Drawn uptown by a disturbing phrase
54
Heard from an apartment complex
"The man in the big hat is dying"
Wondering what it means, drawn into public
Again to discuss it perhaps at the goodwill
Already he is late and the fun has begun
John B. Denton has climbed down from his
Watch over Ever's, having seen it spitting
Fury to the dippers, having failed even
In that duty as watchman over a single
Building--not the whole town--he was
Constructed wrong for that chore
Or we would have been blown to Dallas
And back by the infamous fifties tornadoes
He has stepped up and is singing his blues
Friends--
I have witnessed the glory of the growing—
I have watched the spreading of the fat veins—
I revel in the city limits touching home
Bringing Pilot Knob and Bass' gold into the fold-
And now in a sadder hour I am forced
Out of my silence by the sacrifice to expansion
Ever's burns into vacant time, signalling
The death of the square as we remember it
Let us light our cigars and move on like
Migratory birds—but not far, friends, rather
In all directions—let the spirit glory
55
In your brains—expand, reach out, think
Bigger, "become as large as New Orleans music,
Mardi G-ras thru an immediate future
Touch home and be healed—shred the hills,
Crumble them into facilities, uncover Bass'
Fortune and rebuild—become free, reach
The pinnacles, surrender your fears, immune
Yourselves to everything but the pioneer prerogative—
Learn to wear rattlers and water moccasins
As beads of a new age—touch home,
Friends, touch home and find yourselves
A true place to settle, away from bounty
Hunters and their pelts of illusions, away
Prom honky tonk temptations, and into
The healing glorious life of loving
Colonies of kindred spirits—touch home, friends-
Faces have caught fire
And sparkle like spring water
Laughter crawls thru the crowd
Like a serpent uncoiling
Agreement passes from eye to eye
As tho until now such a music
Impossible, the throng resuscitated
After mad years in local
Neighborhoods among unwanted
Saints, demons, outcasts, fools
And poets with appetites
For loud music and dirty "books
To the wagons, to the wagons
They seem to "be saying
Like Siegal's snatched "bodies
Jesse James pushes the mower
Out of the crowd and up
Another "block, confused
But certain that things
As they are will change
And already he has devised
Schemes for cutting and
Transporting logs if that's
What is needed, for
Transporting anything needed,
But he has no worries.,
His maintenance techniques
As old as the forest
Under Lake Dallas—
And he is very well-known
Among all circles, he
Is as famous as Hewton
Rayzor and Rayzor
Does not even bother
With Denton except to send
Money for schools or
57
Dormitories in his name--
Jesse James is on one
Level or another on speaking
Terms with half the town
And he has never read
McMurtry nor has anyone
Else—all he can read
Is the sky for rain
And he is uncannily accurate
Red wolves crawl the cat's streets
The stars as they cruise
Seem like Crockett's dying words
The town turns gray and drifts
Along with the darkness, tangled
Apparitions jerk in barbed wire
Dancing on J. B. Denton's soil,
Shamelessly, unbuckling, the bible belt--
It tightens here too—and letting
It fall with the disappearing
Whine of an ambulance—cigarette
Smokers stare from holes in the Bible Nook
58
Stamping their feet to keep their
Bodies alive--once asleep, in this
Town, adrift from flatbed to flatbed,
It is easy to awake, one of
Siegal's snatched "bodies—best
To slap leather, practice on shadows
As they dart across showcase
Windows of western shops, speeding
Red wolves with missions
Yes it is best to be prepared
As a grifter on the loose in
Polite competition with the curfew
Best to have at hand simple names
Of heroes who failed but who-
Haunt thin pages of history
Best to invoke memories in
Public places to keep the minds
Idle and off the obvious lack
Of grace—remind them the guitars
Have played, the fiddles have spoken,
The food has settled, as has night
59
Therefore free after camaraderie to
Sleep at their prosperous tables
Surrounded by posters of Denton's last hanging
60
PART. II
A COMPARISON OP BROWNING'S "ABT VOGLER" AND
ALLEN GINSBERG'S "TRANSCRIPTION OP ORGAN MUSIC"
Allen Ginsberg, in 1955, although probably unintention-
ally, proved that Abt Vogler's desires as put forward by
Browning in 1864 were not all impossible. The two poems
concerned, "Abt Vogler" and "Transcription of Organ Music,"
are remarkably parallel. To begin, Vogler, while extemp-
orizing upon the organ, reached a god-like state in which *
he wished to bring forth supernatural creatures:
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
•Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk . . . 1
But not only does he want to equal Solomon's achievement,
he wants to bring forth Creation and to reincarnate the
dead, as seen in lines 33-40.2 These beings will live into
the future because of Vogler's creative force: "Purnished
for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow."3
Music, for Vogler, is the superior art--is in fact the
only art capable of Creation. Poetry and painting are not
1W. E. Houghton and G. R. Stange, editors, Victorian Poetry and Poetics (Boston, 1968), p. 279.
^Ibid., p. 280.
5Ibid.
61
equal to extemporized music because they are unable to
produce the numerous simultaneous effects of music:
For think, had I painted the whole,
Why, there it had stood, to see, nor the process so wonder-worth:
Had I written the same, made verse—still, effect proceeds from cause,
Ye know why the forms are fair, ye hear how the tale is told . . .4
A few- lines later, he makes the point even clearer:
But here is the finger of God, a flash of the will that can,
Existent behind all laws, that made them and, lo, they are.5
Vogler's extemporized music at one point becomes so
gratifying for him that he feels he can commune with heaven,
that his music can reach up to heaven and be felt there.
But not only does he believe that music has the capabilities
of reaching God, he also feels that it will cause heaven
to commune with earth:
And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach earth,
As the earth had done her best, in my pas-sion, to scale the sky . . .6
The reason for such a spiritual communion is made obvious
by Volger in the following line: "All through music and me!
^Ibid.
5lbid., p. 281.
6Ibid., p. 280.
7ibid.
62
As the music begins to descend, Vogler believes that
evil has been made a little better, even perhaps has been
"nulled."® He implies that although the music is now coming
to an end, it will be heard again at another time "when
eternity affirms the conception of an hour,"9 He realizes
that his gift is a special one given to him by God:
But God has a few of us ?/hom he whispers in the ear;
The rest may reason and welcome: 'tis we musicians know.10
But he also realizes extemporized music is his only way
of communing with God. .Once the music descends and dis-
appears, he is forced to live the mundane life offered him
by the earth. He is forced to play commonplace chords and
to return to the everyday life around him:
for my resting place is found,
The C Major of this life: so now I will try to sleep.11
Ginsberg's "Transcription of Organ Music" is quite
similar to Browning's poem, except that it is written
from the point of view of the poet rather than of the
musician. Obviously, Ginsberg feels that music—and par-
ticularly, in this case, organ music—is a superior form
of art. He, as a poet, is lifted to a higher plane of
existence when he hears organ music. During, and after,
8Ibid.
9Ibid., p. 281.
l°Ibid.
11Ibid., p. 282.
63
the experience, he attempts to explain the effect of the
music on him—just as Vogler had attempted to explain his '
experience while he played and after he had finished'.
Ginsberg confirms Vogler's contention that music is capable
of Creation. Like Vogler, he has a mystical experience
because of the music. • He expects to confront God, while
heaven and earth meet:
The room closed down on me, I expected the presence of the Creator, I saw my gray painted walls and ceiling, they contained my room, they contained me
as the sky contained my garden . . . ^
As the music plays, it seems to bring new life to
evex*ything around the poet:
The rambler vine climbed up the cottage post, the leaves in the night still where the day had placed them, the animal heads of the flowers where they had arisen
to think at the sun^
Such personification of nature on Ginsberg's part seems to
prove Vogler's belief.in the creative power of music. In
fact not only is there a new birth given to nature, but
the poet himself feels a rebirth, so that he believes he
is at one with his garden.14 Thus man and nature have
combined, perhaps symbolic of Vogler's belief that heaven
and earth could be combined, as further seen in line 17 of
Ginsberg's p o e m . 1 5
l^Allen Ginsberg, Howl and Other Poems (San Francisco, 1957), p. 25.
l^lbid.
14Ibid.
l^ibid., p. 26.
64
The poet also confirms Vcgler* s line concerning the
superiority of music because the forms of the music can
be seen and heard: "I had a moment of clarity, saw the
feeling in the heart of things, walked out to the garden
crying."16
As the music descends, the poet has the same response
as the musician. He feels the purging of evil and the
presence of the love of God:
The music descends, as does the tall bending stalk of the heavy blossom, because it has to to stay alive, to continue to the last drop of joy.
The world knows the love that's in its breast as in the flower, the suffering lonely world.
The Father is merciful.17
And finally, as the music ends, the poet, like Vogler,
returns to the commonplace world. As Vogler had described
the common world of the musician in. terms of music, the
poet describes the commonplace world of the bard, as being
one of memories and familiar objects—in other words, the
tools of his trade.18 But in the last two lines of the
poem, he too realizes he has found his place in existence-
just as Vogler realized he had found his:
I want people to bow as they see me and say he is gifted with poetry, he has seen the presence of the Creator.
l6Ibid.
17lbid.
l®Ibid.
65
And the Creator gave me a shot of his presence to gratify my wish, so as not to cheat me of my yearning for him.19
19Ibid.t p. 27.
66
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ginsberg, Allen, Howl and Other Poems, San Francisco, City Lights Books, 1967.
Houghton, W. E., and G. R. Stange, editors, Victorian Poetry and Poetics, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co,, 1968.
