Cerrada Medellin Blues (First Solo) [1st Chorus]

- 1922-1969
Even when I was a little boy
I was always alone
                with my guardian angel

Playing Tarzan
An icicle fell on me
       & cut my arm
I had a rope around my neck
I was hanged in Innifree
Had my hand cut off in Perfidee
Never had my fill
                     of Thee

  ST MICHAEL IN THE CORNER, 
         NINE FEET TALL

One Flower

One flower
   on the cliffside
Nodding at the canyon

In Vain

The stars in the sky
In vain
The tragedy of Hamlet
   In vain
The key in the lock
      In vain
The sleeping mother
      In vain
The lamp in the corner
         In vain
The lamp in the corner unlit
            In vain
Abraham Lincoln
                        In vain
The Aztec empire
                           In vain
The writing hand: in vain
(The shoetrees in the shoes
         In vain
The windowshade string upon
            the hand bible
   In vain—
   The glitter of the greenglass
         ashtray
In vain
The bear in the woods
         In vain
The Life of Buddha
         In vain)

Mexico City Blues [113th Chorus]

Got up and dressed up
      and went out & got laid
Then died and got buried
      in a coffin in the grave, 
Man—
      Yet everything is perfect,
Because it is empty, 
Because it is perfect
      with emptiness, 
Because it's not even happening.

Everything
Is Ignorant of its own emptiness—
Anger
Doesn't like to be reminded of fits—

You start with the Teaching
      Inscrutable of the Diamond
And end with it, your goal
      is your startingplace, 
No race was run, no walk
      of prophetic toenails
Across Arabies of hot
      meaning—you just
      numbly don't get there