freewheelin'

FREEWHEELIN’


Freewheelin, and unrecognizable
to those who think they know just how I look,
disrespected, and derisible,
I put some of my thoughts into a book,
but more are in my poems, which I’m willin’
to have interpreted as songs like those
that have the imprimatur of Bob Dylan,
celebrity who, like me, no one knows.

Unlike Felix in the Hebrides––
not the black cat somewhat like Obama,
but Felix Mendlessohn––celebrity’s
a fate for which I am a poor programmer,
without the skill Bob Dylan demonstrates
for decades without interruption, since
my own freewheelin’ discombobulates
my meanings making all my readers wince

Unlike Bob, I carry an ID
wherever I may be, but men are still
suspicious, since they think that I may be
delusional, distracted by molehill
when I should really focus on a mountain;
a wife, some family and friends will vouch
for me, but while on all of them I’m countin’,
I cause them pain, though they don’t cry out “Ouch!”

Unrecognizable, freewheelin’, like
Bob Dylan, I press on regardless, writin’
the sorts of poems that sometimes outpsych
my readers, though I think they rock like Brighton.
Without the sort of music Bob composes
they may not hit you in the gut until
you more influence of Prophet Moses,
than Moses Mendlessohn’s ascetic skill.

Inspired by a news item in the NYT, August 17, 2009, complied by Rachel Lee Harris “The Freewheelin’, Unrecognizable Bob Dylan”:

“How does it feel?” Bob Dylan wondered back in 1965, to be on your own, “like a complete unknown.” Now he knows. Two police officers in their 20s asked Mr. Dylan, 68, to provide identification as he took a stroll through Long Branch, N.J., last month, The Associated Press reported. The officers were responding to a report from residents that an “eccentric-looking old man” had wandered into their yard, according to ABC News. Mr. Dylan, right, who said he was looking at houses to pass some time before that night’s show with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, was not carrying identification, so the officers accompanied him back to his hotel, where concert workers vouched for him. “I’ve seen pictures of Bob Dylan from a long time ago, and he didn’t look like Bob Dylan to me at all,” Officer Kristie Buble told ABC News. “We see a lot of people on our beat, and I wasn’t sure if he came from one of our hospitals or something. He was acting very suspicious. Not delusional, just suspicious.”

© 2009 Gershon Hepner 8/17/09