Pull My Daisy (Collaborative Poem)

AG: And another one of the similar.. well, of a similar theme, just a crazy (crazy).. – the mad song?  you know, just the idea of the madman’s song?, was – “Pull My Daisy”,  (which began as a little lyric that I wrote, “Pull my daisy/tip my cup…”) – “Pull my daisy/tip my cup/Cut my thoughts/for coconuts...” – (Well I heard, at some point, about Christopher Smart, actually) –  “When I think of death/ I get a goofy feeling/Then I catch my breath/Zero is appealing/Appearances are hazy/Smart went crazy/Smart went crazy” – (Christopher Smart, I meant with that – and also “smart”, Mr Smart, the smart guy went crazy)  -“Smart went crazy/Smart went crazy” –  And I thought the rhythm was interesting – “Smart went crazy/Smart went crazy”.  (You know, awkward, but punning).

And then Kerouac took that and made (it) into a stanza – “Pull my daisy/tip my cup/all my doors are open“. – (No, actually,)   “A flower in my head/Has fallen through my eye;/Someday I’ll be dead:/I love the Lord on high,/I wish He’d pull my daisy./Smart went crazy,/Smart went crazy“. – “I love the Lord on high,/I wish He’d pull my daisy”.  And then Kerouac wrote, “Pull my daisy/tip my cup/all my doors are open”. Then I wrote, “Pull my daisy/tip my cup/Cut my thoughts/for coconuts” –  So then we made a whole little poem of that. And then we adapted his form, “Pull my daisy, tip my cup..”,  da-da da-da da-da, “all my doors are open“. And then we both contributed stanzas to make a longer thing in the same rhythm  – datta-da-da  da-da-da datta-da da-da da

“Pull my daisy/tip my cup/all my doors are open/Cut my thoughts/for coconuts/all my eggs are broken/  Jack my Arden/gate my shades/woe my road is spoken/Silk my garden/rose my days/now my prayers awaken./ Bone my shadow/dove my dream/start my halo bleeding/Milk my mind &/make me cream/drink me when you’re ready/Hop my heart on/harp my height/seraphs hold me steady/Hip my angel/hype my light/lay it on the needy./ Heal the raindrop/sow the eye/bust my dust again/Woe the worm/work the wise/dig my spade the same/  Stop the hoax/what’s the hex/where’s the wake/
how’s the hicks/take my golden beam..…” – (“how’s the hicks” was (Neal) Cassady’s contribution – he was working in a parking-lot and Kerouac and I were walking along  the street trying to figure funny lines – “Stop the hoax/what’s the hex/where’s the wake – and we got up to Cassady, who was in the parking-lot, and we said to him, “Stop the hoax/what’s the hex/where’s the wake” and he said to Kerouac and me, “how’s the hicks?”)

Stop the hoax/what’s the hex/where’s the wake/how’s the hicks/take my golden beam/Rob my locker/lick my rocks/leap my cock in school./  Rack my lacks...” (“Rack my lacks”, that was from.. we were trying to figure out  (Shakespeare’s)  “and leave not a rack behind”,  We were discussing the word “rack”, (and)  Kerouac thought that  “the rack”, you know, was. like, the rack you put on the wall, like a coat-rack? – there won’t be anything… that Shakespeare meant there, there won’t be anything to hang anything on. (So it had taken a while or two. He was kidding .So we thought, what’s good?),  So he said “rack my lacks” – (also “rack” as in a pool hall, where you “rack up” the score)

Student: What’s the other  word?

AG: Oh, L-A-C-K , my lack,, things I lack. – “lack my want.”. – “Rack my lacks”  – where I am unfinished rack up the score of what I have not done, or what I’m..   of my sins…. rack up my sins-score, score of sinsshift my sins?

“Rob my locker/lick my rocks/leap my cock in school./  Rack my lacks/lark my looks.. “(you know, “like to a lark at morn, like “to a lark at break of day.”. what is it? Shakesperae’s line – yeah , “Like to the lark that sings at break of day with heaven’s dawn arising…”[Editorial note from Sonnet 29 “Like to the lark that sings at break of day“]  “Lark my looks”,  ( you know., hah!),  “jump right up my…” – well…

“Rob my locker/lick my rocks/leap my cock in school./  Rack my lacks/lark my looks/ jump right up my hole/Whore my door/beat my boor/eat my snake of fool./ Craze my hair/bare my poor/asshole shorn of wool/say my oops/ope my shell/Bite my naked nut...”   (“say my oops” comes from a little poem we wrote –“the time we went to China to lead the Boy Scout troops,/ they sank my ocean liner and all I said was oops!” –  and that was in the line, “all I said was “oops!”.  Like, the earth ended, or the bomb fell, and all I said was oops! –  And that was out of Laurel and Hardy, probably, or out of the Marx Brothers, or Laurel and Hardy, so,  ” the time we went to China to lead the Boy Scout troops,/ they sank my ocean liner. and all I said was oops!” – so –“say my oops” – like,  say my prayer, say my oops”) –  “say my oops/ope my shell/Bite my naked nut…” – (“ope my shell”, so “(B)ite my naked nut”)  – “Roll my bones/ring my bell/call my worm to sup/Pope my parts..” – (that is “pope“, you know, crown my. prick, pope parts – “the Pope’s parts” is the Elizabethan word for genitals) – “Pope my parts /pop my pot/raise my daisy up..”  “Poke my pap” – (you know, in other words, poke me in the ribs) – Poke my pap/pit my plum/let my gap be shut,”

So that was alright. so, it is… the idea, though, was coming from the idea of the mad Tom. which…

[Audio for the above can be heard here , beginning at approximately thirteen-and-a-quarter minutes in and concluding at approximately eighteen-and-three-quarters  minutes in]

 

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