1. Road House, Saturday Night, Momma Comes After Her Boy The Burly Bikerider, In Rambler American
Nobody hear her toot except him. He keep quiet, nobody know maybe. But he up and slam down bottle, Shout, Go home goddamn you Momma! He got sixteen inch biceps. He got black leather jacket with buckles. He got big black stomping boots. He got tattoes! Just shut up Burly Bikerider and nobody know! But she toot more, louder he shout.
Now why he do that, you reckon?
For all the boyscouts in the basements of Baptist churches.
For all the little league coaches and umpires.
For all the sheriffs in Florida.
For all the class presidents and parachutists.
For all the full dress Marine sergeants in post offices.
For all the poets and teachers and lonesome truckdrivers
coffee stops with magnetic dogs from the vending machine For all the drivers of souped-up GTO's named The Judge. For all the pro football fans. For all the Jewish doctors.
For all us who got our pictures in the paper, for all us who didn't*
We file out, form double line
From road house to Rambler American,
Raise cocks like sabers in ceremony, P^flS
And every time she toot we salute,
And every time he shout we salute,
And so there we are in tapestry forever, all us
Saturday night roadhouses lined up across America,
Wasting out substance in riotous living!
Presenting (tah dah!) a group of poems 'n pictures having to do with that ole sike-o-deelik dandy
brought to you by James Baker Hall
(and Percy P Cassidy)
2. Captain Kentucky Is A Bomb Scare In Palo Alto
In real life, Momma finally leave, and guess what,
The B.B. follow her right out of the parking lot
Into eternity yelling, Goddamn you Momma!
But in poem here he return to bar and grow long hair,
get freaky glasses, go off to college, join SDS,
And Momma back home puts pepsodent in the cookie box
To send her son the revolutionary, she buy black linens
For him and his chick at white sale, she demonstrate for peace,
She nurse the sick, and when he scream about being
Co-opted at every turn, she understands,
And lets him turn her on.
Now why she do that, you reckon?
For all the family albums with dates beneath the pictures
For all the women reading much read magazines at the hairdressers.
For all the gossips and gardeners and lady golfers.
For all the girl darkroom technicians.
For all the fat women named Norma.
For all the women in the liberation movement.
For all the secretaries named Mrs. Dubois.
For all the lady scholars in girls' schools.
For all the school teachers who take aspirin for arthritis.
For all the women who wear white socks to the supermarket.
For all those who took piano lessons, and all those who didn't.
So when she comes to see me
I paint over the graffiti in the John
But leave the American flag curtains,
And when she asks whether that's patriotic,
I say, well, Momma, either it is or it isn't!
I'm a man now, Momma, and I'm so happy!
blue-tail fly/15