Absurdist Media

. . . Ain't Dead Yet.

If I were Woody Guthrie I would yell at you with my shanty slurred scream that "I ain't dead yet." I would grab you by your firmly starched and pressed lapels and fist-force you into an unseasonably humid-hot New York night and show you a populace buried beneath 40 years of "progress." If I were Woody Guthrie you would see a downtown skyline before there were no towers to say aren't there and proclaim anti-prophetic truths to no one in particular. I would jar your caffeine eyes and keep them as a kind of warmth.


If I were Woody Guthrie I'd let my shirttails fall asunder and you would have to do the same. Wandering Village streets you've never crossed I will tell you of dust bowl lives in this dust bowl world and pave your way with dust bowl dreams. If I were Woody Guthrie my voice's drawl will outwit them each and every time and you will smile quietly to yourself in a face-flush-red kind of way. If I were Woody Guthrie I would out finger pick every well-to-do and seemingly vibrant young man at McSorley's on a Friday night and tell them that this land was meant for their mothers and fathers.

If I were Woody Guthrie I would cunningly contemplate your fascist mind and inspire a thousand younger and thinner wild haired singers. If I were Woody Guthrie I would live in rooms with no windows and low ceilings and unstifle situations with a single breath one drunken epiphany at a time. I would stare at you with a stone sober stare as if to say, "darling you really needn't bath today." If I were Woody Guthrie you would dance down Mermaid Avenue arm and arm with no one but yourself and yell "He has risen" over and over at the condos where Dreamland once stood as steam ships inexplicably pass noisily on their Atlantic bound arcs.

If I were Woody Guthrie none of this would matter anyway. Money wouldn't buy the train-tracked passage west. This machine wouldn't have to kill anyone.

If I were Woody Guthrie.

-tedd-

Labels: Absurdist Media Kills Fascists, Hard Travelin', This Land is Yr Land

posted by Anonymous @ 12:00 PM