Tarantula

Bob Dylan

• Publisher: Scribner
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9781439107669
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE Music legend Bob Dylan's only work of fiction—a combination of stream of consciousness prose, lyrics, and poetry that gives fans insight into one of the most influential singer-songwriters of our time. Written in 1966, Tarantula is a collection of poems and prose that evokes the turbulence of the times in which it was written, and offers unique insight into Dylan's creative evolution, capturing the stream-of-consciousness preoccupations of the legendary folk poet and his eclectic, erudite cool at a crucial juncture in his artistic development. It has since been welcomed into the Dylan canon, as Dylan himself has cemented his place in the cultural imagination, inspiring Todd Haynes's acclaimed 2007 musical drama I'm Not There, selling more than 100 million records, and winning numerous prizes, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2017.In his acceptance speech for the Nobel, Dylan acknowledged the early influence on his work of Buddy Holly and Lead Belly as well as of wide-ranging classics like Don Quixote, All Quiet on the Western Front, and Moby Dick. Tarantula is a rare chance to see Dylan at a moment in which he was still deeply connected to his country roots and a folk vernacular while opening himself up to the influence of French 19th-century Surrealist writers like Arthur Rimbaud and the Comte de Lautreamont. A decade before the confessional singer-songwriter who would create the 1975 epic, Blood on the Tracks— which was just optioned by filmmaker Luca Guadagnino—here is Dylan at his most verbally playful and radically inventive.Angry, funny, and strange, the poems and prose in this collection reflect the concerns found in Dylan's most seminal music—a spirit of protest, a poetic spontaneity, and a chronicling of the eccentric and the everyday—which continue to make him a beloved artist and cultural icon.

Guns, the Falcon’s Mouthbook
& Gashcat Unpunished

aretha/ crystal jukebox queen of hymn & him diffused in drunk transfusion wound would heed sweet soundwave crippled & cry salute to oh great particular el dorado reel & ye battered personal god but she cannot she the leader of whom when ye follow, she cannot she has no back she cannot … beneath black flowery railroad fans & fig leaf shades & dogs of all nite joes, grow like arches & cures the harmonica battalions of bitter cowards, bones & bygones while what steadier louder the moans & arms of funeral landlord with one passionate kiss rehearse from dusk & climbing into the bushes with some favorite enemy ripping the postage stamps & crazy mailmen & waving all rank & familiar ambition than that itself, is needed to know that mother is not a lady … aretha with no goals, eternally single & one step soft of heaven/ let it be understood that she owns this melody along with her emotional diplomats & her earth & her musical secrets

the censor in a twelve wheel drive semi
stopping in for donuts & pinching the
waitress/ he likes his women raw & with
syrup/ he has his mind set on becoming
a famous soldier

manuscript nitemare of cut throat high & low & behold the prophesying blind allegiance to law fox, monthly cupid & the intoxicating ghosts of dogma … nay & may the boatmen in bathrobes be banished forever & anointed into the shelves of alive hell, the unimaginative sleep, repetition without change & fat sheriffs who watch for doom in the mattress … hallaluyah & bossman of the hobos cometh & ordaining the spiritual gypsy davy camp now being infiltrated by foreign dictator, the pink FBI & the interrogating unknown failures of peacetime as holy & silver & blessed with the texture of kaleidoscope & the sandal girl … to dream of dancing pillhead virgins & wandering apollo at the pipe organ/ unscientific ramblers & the pretty things lucky & lifting their lips & handing down looks & regards from the shoulders of adam & eve’s minstrel peekaboo … passing on the chance to bludgeon the tough spirits & the deed holders into fishlike buffoons & yanking ye erratic purpose … surrendering to persuasion, the crime against people, that be ranked alongside murder & while doctors, teachers, bankers & sewer cleaners fight for their rights, they must now be horribly generous … & into the march now where tab hunter leads with his thunderbird/ pearl bailey stomps him against a buick & where poverty, a perfection of neptune’s unused clients, plays hide & seek & escaping into the who goes there? & now’s not the time to act silly, so wear your big boots & jump on the garbage clowns, the hourly rate & the enema men & where junior senators & goblins rip off tops of question marks & their wives make pies & go now & throw some pies in the face & ride the blinds & into aretha’s religious thighs & movement find ye your nymph of no conscience & bombing out your young sensitive dignity just to see once & for all if there are holes & music in the universe & watch her tame the sea horse/ aretha, pegged by choir boys & other pearls of mamas as too gloomy a much of witchy & dont you know no happy songs

the lawyer leading a pig on a leash
stopping in for tea & eating the censor’s
donut by mistake/ he likes to lie about
his age & takes his paranoia seriously

the hospitable grave being advertised & given away in whims & journals the housewife sits on. finding herself financed, ruptured but never censored in & also never flushing herself/ she denies her corpse the courage to crawl—close his own door, the ability to die of bank robbery & now catches the heels of old stars making scary movies on her dirt & her face & not everybody can dig her now. she is private property … bazookas in the nest & weapons of ice & of weatherproof flinch & they twitter, make scars & kill babies among lady shame good looks & her constant foe, tom sawyer of the breakfast cereal causing all females paying no attention to this toilet massacre to be hereafter called LONZO & must walk the streets of life forever with lazy people having nothing to do but fight over women … everybody knows by now that wars are caused by money & greed & charity organizations/ the housewife is not here. she is running for congress

the senator dressed like an austrian
sheep. stopping in for coffee & insulting
the lawyer/ he is on a prune diet &
secretly wishes he was bing crosby
but would settle for being a close
relative of edgar bergen

passing the sugar to iron man of the bottles who arrives with the grin & a heatlamp & he’s pushing “who dunnit” buttons this year & he is a love monger at first sight … you have seen him sprout up from a dumb hill bully into a bunch of backslap & he’s wise & he speaks to everyone as if they just answered the door/ he dont like people that say he comes from the monkeys but nevertheless he is dull & he is destroyingly boring … while Allah the cook scrapes hunger from his floor & pounding it into the floating dishes with roaring & the rest of the meatheads praising each other’s power & argue over acne & recite calendars & pointing to each other’s garments & liquid & disperse into segments & die crazy deaths & bellowing farce mortal farm vomit & why for Jesus Christ be Just another meathead? when all the tontos & heyboy lose their legs trying to frug while kemosabe & mr palladin spend their off hours remaining separate but equal & anyway why not wait for laughter to straighten the works out meantime & WOWEE smash & the rage of it all when former lover cowboy hanging upside down & Suzy Q. the angel putting new dime into this adoption machine as out squirts a symbol squawking & freezing & crashing into the bowels of some hideous soap box & it’s a rumble & iron man picking up his “who dunnit” buttons & giving them away free & trying to make friends & even tho youre belonging to no political party, youre now prepared, prepared to remember something about something

the chief of police holding a bazooka
with his name engraved on it. coming in
drunk & putting the barrel into the face
of the lawyer’s pig. once a wife beater,
he became a professional boxer & received
a club foot/ he would literally like to
become an executioner. what he doesnt know
is that the lawyer’s pig has made friends
with the senator

gambler’s passion & his slave, the sparrow & he’s ranting from a box of black platform & mesmerizing this ball of daredevils to stay in the morning & dont bust from the factories/ everyone expecting to be born with whom they love & theyre not & theyve been let down, theyve been lied to & now the organizers must bring the oxen in & dragging leaflets & gangrene enthusiasm, ratfinks & suicide tanks from the pay phones to the housing developments & it usually starts to rain for a while … little boys cannot go out & play & new men in bulldozers come in every hour delivering groceries & care packages being sent from las vegas … & nephews of the coffee bean expert & other favorite sons graduating with a pompadour & cum laude—praise be & a wailing farewell to releasing the hermit & beautifully ugly & fingering eternity come down & save your lambs & butchers & strike the roses with its rightful patsy odor … & grampa scarecrow’s got the tiny little wren & see for yourself while saving him too/ look down oh great Romantic. you who can predict from every position, you who know that everybody’s not a Job or a Nero nor a J.C. Penney … look down & seize your gambler’s passion, make high wire experts into heroes, presidents into con men. turn the eventual … but the hermits being not talking & lower class or insane or in prison … & they dont work in the factories anyway

the good samaritan coming in with the
words “round & round we go” tattooed on
his cheek/ he tells the senator to stop
insulting the lawyer/ he would like to
be an entertainer & brags that he is
one of the best strangers around, the
pig jumps on him & starts eating his face

illiterate coins of two head wrestling with window washer who’s been reincarnated from a garden hoe & after once being pushed around happily & casually hitting a rock once in a while is now bitter hung up on finding some inferior. he bites into the window ledge & by singing “what’ll we do with the baby-o” to thirsty peasant girls wanting a drink from his pail, he is thinking he is some kind of success but he’s getting his kicks telling one of the two headed coins that tom Jefferson used to use him around the house when the bad stuff was growing … the lawrence welk people inside the window, theyre running the city planning division & they hibernate & feeding their summers by conversing with poor people’s shadows & other ambulance drivers, & they dont even notice this window washer while the families who tell of the boogey men & theyre precious & there’s pictures of them playing golf & getting blacker & they wear oil in the window washer’s union hall & these people consider themselves gourmets for not attending charlie stark-weather’s funeral ye gads the champagne being appropriate pagan & the buffalo, tho the restaurant owners are vague about it, is fast disappearing into violence/ soon there will be but one side of the coin & mohammed wherever he comes from, cursing & window washers falling & then no one will have any money … broad save the clean, the minorities & liberace’s countryside.

the truck driver coming in with a carpet
sweeper under his eyes/ everybody says
“hi joe” & he says
“joe the fellow that
owns this place. i’m just a scientist. i
aim got no name” the truck driver hates
anybody that carries a tennis racket/ he
drinks all the senator’s coffee & proceeds
to put him in a headlock

first you snap your hair down & try to tie up the kicking voices on a table & then the sales department people with names like Gus & Peg & Judy the Wrench & Nadine with worms in her fruit & Bernice Bearface blowing her brains on Butch & theyre all enthused over locker rooms & vegetables & Muggs he goes to sleep on your neck talking shop & divorces & headline causes & if you cant say get off my neck, you just answer him & wink & wait for some morbid reply & the liberty bell ringing when you dont dare ask yourself how do you feel for God’s sake & what’s one more face? & the difference between a lifetime of goons & holes, company pigs & beggars & cancer critics learning yoga with raving petty gangsters in one act plays with V-eight engines all being tossed in the river & combined in a stolen mirror … compared to the big day when you discover lord byron shooting craps in the morgue with his pants off & he’s eating a picture of jean paul belmondo & he offers you a piece of green lightbulb & you realize that nobody’s told you about This & that life is not so simple after all … in fact that it’s no more than something to read & light cigarettes with … Lem the Clam tho, he really gives a damn if dale really does get nailed slamming down the scotch & then going outside with Maurice, who aint the Peoria Kid & dont look the same as they do in Des Moines, Iowa & good old debbie, she comes along & both her & dale, they start shacking up in the newspapers & jesus who can blame ’em? & Amen & oh lordy, & how the parades dont need your money baby … it’s the confetti & one george Washington & Nadine who comes running & says where’s Gus? & she’s salty about the bread he’s been making off her worms while dollars becoming pieces of paper … but people kill for paper & anyway you cant buy a thrill with a dollar as long as pricetags, the end of the means & only as big as your fist & they dangle from a pot of golden rainbow … which attacks & which covers the saddles of noseless poets & wonder blazing & somewhere over the rainbow & blinding my married lover into the ovation maniacs/cremating innocent child into scrapheap for vicious controversy & screwball & who’s to tell charlie to stop & not come back for garbage men arent serious & they gonna get murdered tomorrow & next march 7th by the same kids & their fathers & their uncles & all the rest of these people that would make leadbelly a pet … they will always kill garbage men & wiping the smells but this rainbow, she goes off behind a pillar & sometimes a tornado destroys the drugstores & floods bring polio & leaving Gus & Peg twisted in the volleyball net & Butch hiding in madison square garden … Bearface dead from a flying piece of grass! I.Q.—somewhere in the sixties & twentieth century & so sing aretha … sing mainstream into orbit! sing the cowbells home! sing misty … sing for the barber & when youre found guilty of not owning a cavalry & not helping the dancer with laryngitis … misleading valentino’s pirates to the indians or perhaps not lending a hand to the deaf pacifist in his sailor jail … it then must be time for you to rest & learn new songs … forgiving nothing for you have done nothing & make love to the noble scrubwoman

what a drag it gets to be. writing
for this chosen few. writing for anyone
cpt you. you, daisy mae, who are
not even of the masses … funny thing,
tho, is that youre not even dead yet …
i will nail my words to this paper,
an fly them on to you. an forget about
them … thank you for the time,
youre kind.

love an kisses

your double

Silly Eyes (in airplane trouble)

Having a Weird Drink with the Long
Tall Stranger

back betty, black bready blam de lam! bloody had a baby blam de lam! hire the handicapped blam de lam! put him on the wheel blam de lam! burn him in the coffee blam de lam! cut him with a fish knife blam de lam! send him off to college & pet him with a drumstick blam de lam! boil him in the cookbook blam de lam! fix him up an elephant blam de lam! sell him to the doctors blam de lam … back betty, big bready blam de lam! betty had a milkman, blam de lam! sent him to the chain gang blam de lam! fixed him up a navel, blam de lam (hold that tit while i git it. Hold it right there while i hit it … blam! ) fed him lotza girdles, raised him in pneumonia … black bloody, itty bitty, blam de lam! said he had a lampchop, blam de lam! had him in a stocking, stuck artichokes in his ears, planted him in green beans & stuck him on a compass blam de lam! last time i seed him, blam de lam! he was standing in a window, blam de lam! hundred floors up, blam de lam! with his prayers & his pig-foot, blam de lam! black betty, black betty blam de lam! betty had a loser blam de lam, i spied him on the ocean with a long string of muslims—blam de lam! all going quack quack … blam de lam! all going quack quack. blam!

sorry to say, but i’...