The lovely heroes rode together—vanished down the highway then the highway vanished as well—truth went down a wishing well & came back all wet & refreshed—the important moments bookshelved the torrent—the music as usual carried the day—life became livable during the flash—hi jinks—proud dancers—unafraid to stand & deliver—(as a highwayman would say)—my make-up has shifted—hope (I’m not dying but I’m not as charged up in the old places—maps & origins thrilled me once—gatherings of heroes—who I mostly see now not as truth tellers but as easy riders)—that’s fine but what still matters are the songs—& their ability to mesmerize—levitate—that scene where the young woman weeps after the show—& Sam Shepherd talks about the inspiration that was passed on—“a feeling of exhilaration…of being alive” —(he says “sounds corny but it’s true”) –the poets practice precise verbal alchemy—the musicians—not the sidelong glances but the full-eyed performances—Jack Kerouac’s Mexico City Blues read on his grave—Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish read at a Mah Jong parlor—Bob Dylan’s songs as rocking declaimed poetry in that lineage–Patti Smith’s punk rock in rhythmic language—Joni Mitchell’s soaring moment in the film steals the show then gives it back—Coyote —she studies her own newly written words—then, the story of Hurricane Carter–the audiences turning out young & vulnerable—where is that assembly of like-minded listeners today? –after metal & mush-mouthed rock—the masks save us from the performer’s ego—which today engulfs every possibly similar discourse—Ginsberg talks about “the poets & artists working alone” as Dylan the shooting star explodes in a fountain of light—then,

“You, who saw it all, or who saw flashes and fragments, take from us some example, try and get yourselves together, clean up your act, find your community, pick up on some kind of redemption of your own consciousness, become mindful of your own friends, your own work, your own proper meditation, your own art, your own beauty, go out and make it for your own Eternity”  —Allen Ginsberg’s message at the close of The Rolling Thunder Revue—A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese.