What The Culture Drug In, Patchenesque* Poem by Warren Falcon

*After Kenneth Patchen

Take this song and stuff it up your culture. - Leonard Cohen


For the last 200 years what
the culture drug in:

Now, asks one of the patrons at
the Hoi Poloi Pub in Rosenkrantz,
that lovely hamlet famous for its
bluebird meat patty melt,

What the hell is a Dammerung?

One ventures a guess,

A Volkswagen for the blind and deaf.

Another,

A carpet sweeper what sorts spare
change from string while it sings,

My Bonny lies over the ocean,
Da Dammerung-rung-rung,

My Bonny lies over the sea,
Da Dammerung-rung-rung,

My Bonny lies over the ocean,
Da Dammerung-rung-rung,

O bring back my Bonnie to me,

Da Dammerung-rung-rung,
Da Dammerung-rung-rung.

The town genius just gets up, gets
busy, throws down a dance combining
the moves of James Brown with those
of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.

The mayor of the town alone at a
corner table beside the tinted blue
window removes his wooden denture,

says,

Yeah, you got it, Einstein.
Now hand me that gun will you?
I've got to kill me something. And fast.