Some of us sitting around listening to static
and one says, That’s nothing compared to the sixties’ static.
What are you talking about? says another.
If you want real static you got to go way back,
to Memphis, like when Memphis was still
Egyptian, people still with both eyes
on one side of their nose like flounders
wandering around like wind-up toys
before anyone even knew what static was,
before even the wah-wah pedal as we know it,
bread like 2 cents a loaf, before shag carpet
and modern recording techniques
where you don’t like something just flick a number.
What we had back then was crawdad boil.
And rope.
And a couple guys at the crossroads
who sold their souls to a snake,
a fucking snake, man,
because they didn’t have nothing else
a snake could use and even if they did.
Absolutely no electric tuning forks,
no designer cowboy shirts,
no atom bombs small enough
to fit in a fucking suitcase, man,
a cerebral spark from knocking their heads
against a wall so long they were getting the idea
that the wall was just an idea, a concept
you could just pass right through
but then there’d be another wall
like when you get through childhood
and there’s puberty,
it’s walls all the way, man,
but they had this authentic buzz,
a hive in the hedgerows
and when a talking snake offers,
you deal, man, you don’t
zigzag prevaricate
because that’s the snake’s metier,
you just deal even if no one’ll ever know your name
except a few devotees,
oddball ex-cons, misfits with no gas money,
maybe only a couple on the planet at any one time
knowing the true static
behind this stepped-on, pooched-out
beep beep thunk thunk fluff
everyone’s plugged into now,
propagating like cellophane,
like it’s raining diamonds on the wedding parade,
like it’s god’s first thought
and they were around to hear it
and it didn’t grate their brains like cheese
which it would, man,
you’d hit the dirt,
everything ripping up your heart
like a horse that wants to head home
only home’s on fire and your mind’s the fire
so all you can do is rub dirt into the fire
which is your mind like I said.
And you’re telling me you ask
someone like that for identification?
No, man, you just know
or you don’t and if you don’t
you won’t ever. Imagine a frog
in your mouth, struggling.
Now imagine you’re that frog.