A night of dreams with Tom O'Bedlam

By a knight of ghosts and shadows I summoned am to tourney Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end

2024 is a confluence of many past moments of man creating many present moments, a whirlpool inside vortexes of enigmatic and unknown lives, there can never then be one past - nor one common present - nor one future. The future is an area of particular expertise as I learned fully about it at 6 when my father had his first stroke while we fished at a Trout Resort far from home in PA. Fully informed about full catastrophe living at this tender age I was encouraged by my tastes in reading and by public schooling. I could as in La Strada run away and join the circus and become an Artiste devoted to Excellence. And so I did so. Well, you know, we all were once young, no one in my family, no one in my neighborhood, no one I possibly could have known could teach me, not to go my own idiot savant way, the incorrect way in fact from the original goal but “Momma Tried,” I did too. It is hard to fail upwards. It really is. Still 37 years precariously perched in SF. This year one payday loan at a time in the 6 month darkness of no job. To while a way the time one day living here I was reading a list of books Henry Miller recommend and the Letters of Lord Chesterfield to his ward was one and so I did so immediately. Lord Chesterfield’s educational ideas of personal development and tutoring can be one school at a time be inexpensively and exactly adapted to the mileu we moderns live. The decision otherwise but to spend on futility makes it worse. Nixon ironicially saw futility in bombing North Vietnam. The Pentagon did not and considered a coup. Woodward fails to reveal this story because he is an Op. The imbecility from the highest wealth rungs even in the 1740’s was present among men of affairs but not accepted as correct behavior.

Now today after Covid dogmatics and Science Militant we also see the rise not of Leviathan but some Not Governmentality but post post modern Frankenstein monster that is not gentle in the good night but an ogre. A supremely decadent debauched demonic Duke say or a movie star or mayhap film maker or poet or politician or anyone without center dining on human flesh for fun.

This I told Tom. I told Terence McKenna who had popped in for a visit on his way to Esalen. I told Brother Pseudo-Plotinous. I told Swami Beyonda Ganja and Adam Kadaman the Krishna lawyer from Santa Cruz all denizens of Cafe LA Boheme. All of us gathered to consume some China Cat Sunflower and listen to some rare tapes Tom brought.

Tom looked at me wildly. Jacked up. He was holding his 1620 miracle ticket in his hand and spake shaking as the dose of Sunflower he had consumed was somewhat excessive

I said Tom, it’s all good man, you’re just having a vision thing because the sunshine is shining and Tom tripping balls shuddered and twitched to the sound of the Grateful Dead tape PROJECTING the show in 3-D and this tape but a pale image of feeling every note

From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
And the spirit that stands
By the naked man
In the Book of Moons, defend ye, [a book of astrology]
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from
Your selves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon.

    While I do sing,
    Any food, any feeding,
    Feeding, drink or clothing?
    Come, dame or maid,
    Be not afraid,
    Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been
Three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd [durance = confinement]
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, [bracelets = handcuffs]
Sweet whips, ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty.

    And now I sing,
    Any food, any feeding,
    Feeding, drink or clothing?
    Come, dame or maid,
    Be not afraid,
    Poor Tom will injure nothing.

With a thought I took for Maudlin, [Maudlin = Mary Magdalene]
And a cruse of cockle pottage,
With a thing thus tall,
Sky bless you all,
I befell into this dotage.
I slept not since the Conquest, [England's defeat in 1066]
Ere then I never wakèd,
Till the roguish boy [Cupid]
Of love where I lay
Me found and stripped me nakèd,

    And now I sing,
    Any food, any feeding,
    Feeding, drink or clothing?
    Come, dame or maid,
    Be not afraid,
    Poor Tom will injure nothing.

When I short have shorn my sow's face
And swigged my horny barrel,
At an oaken inn
I impound my skin
In a suit of gilt apparel; ["gilt" may be a pun on "guilt"]
The moon's my constant mistress,
And the lowly owl my marrow; ["marrow" suggests "mate" and "semen"]
The flaming drake
And the night-crow make
Me music to my sorrow.

    While I do sing,
    Any food, any feeding,
    Feeding, drink or clothing?
    Come, dame or maid,
    Be not afraid,
    Poor Tom will injure nothing.

The palsy plagues my pulses
When I prig your pigs or pullen, [prig = steal, pullen = chicken]
Your culvers take [culvers = pigeons]
Or matchless make
Your Chanticleer or Sullen. [i.e., leave your rooster without a mate]
When I want provant, with Humphry [provant = food]
I sup, and when benighted,
I repose in Paul's [St. Paul's Cathedral in London]
With waking souls,
Yet never am affrighted.

    But  I do sing,
    Any food, any feeding,
    Feeding, drink or clothing?
    Come, dame or maid,
    Be not afraid,
    Poor Tom will injure nothing.

I know more than Apollo,
For oft when he lies sleeping
I see the stars
At bloody wars
In the wounded welkin weeping. [welkin = sky]
The moon embrace her shepherd, [the Moon loved Endymion]
And the Queen of Love her warrior, [Venus loved Mars]
While the first doth horn
The star of morn,
And the next, the heavenly Farrier. [Venus cuckolded Hephaestus, the smith god]

    While I do sing,
    Any food, any feeding,
    Feeding, drink or clothing?
    Come, dame or maid,
    Be not afraid,
    Poor Tom will injure nothing.

The Gypsies, Snap and Pedro,
Are none of Tom's comradoes,
The punk I scorn, [punk = prostitute]
And the cutpurse sworn, [cutpurse=pickpocket]
And the roaring boy's bravadoes.
The meek, the white, the gentle,
Me handle, touch and spare not;
But those that cross
Tom Rynosseross
Do what the Panther dare not.

    Although I sing,
    Any food, any feeding,
    Feeding, drink or clothing?
    Come, dame or maid,
    Be not afraid,
    Poor Tom will injure nothing.

With an host of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear
And a horse of air
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to Tourney;
Ten leagues beyond
The wide world's end:
Methinks it is no journey.

    Yet will I sing,
    Any food, any feeding,
    Feeding, drink or clothing?
    Come, dame or maid,
    Be not afraid,
    Poor Tom will injure nothing.

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