The Ballad of Miss Victoria Minh

 

I was merry and sad and then sad and merry

When I got off the bus:  Downtown Tucumcari.

My friend Hunter had called just two weeks before.

“Come visit me Dooley I'm home from the war!”

 

He picked me up there and I said "What luck!"

Threw my old army duffle in his Ford Flatbed truck.

I asked "How'd you do it?" He said with a grin

"I guess you remember Miss Victoria Minh."

 

Miss Victoria Minh she had Saigon eyes:

Thousand yard stare and it was no surprise

That Thomas E. Hunter had Saigon eyes too

Like Victoria Minh's -- but his eyes were blue.

 

"Tell you what, Dooley do you remember that bar?

One of those places you don't want to know where you are."

"Yeah, it was there that you said "Let the Viet Cong win."

Then went into the back with Miss Victoria Minh."

 

"I thought just the usual whore and we went to the back

But I seemed to have lost my plan of attack.

You think you are dead then something else dies.

I couldn't stop looking at her Saigon eyes."

 

"You already know, Dooley, it was my second tour"

"Yeah, I already know what are you tellin' me for?"

"I didn't want to go back. But I thought there's something you owe

To all of those guys got killed at Pleih Troeh.

 

She told me she had a family got killed at Pleiku

Are you listening Dooley? I'm talkin' to you.

You think you are dead then something else dies.

She said she couldn't stop looking at my Saigon eyes."

 

She said, "You go right now and you have to pay."

She said, "You come see me tomorrow day. "

"The next day she gave me a phony passport

And I left Vietnam a hundred days short."

 

We were merry and sad and then sad and merry

We drove out to the desert outside Tucumcari.

Forgot all about all those usual dooms

Under the stars with those magic mushrooms.

 

I had my usual visions which consist in the main

Of a convertible Thunderbird in the desert rain.

American roadrunner chasing Wil. E. Coyote

I turned to Hunter said "That's good peyote.

 

"What are you seeing? I turned to him.

He said "Peace falling like rain on Victoria Minh."

Then he seemed to have found his plan of attack.

Walked out to the desert and never came back.

 

You better believe that this is an American song.

I won't admit we did anything wrong.

So put down your glasses once full to the brim

For Thomas E. Hunter and Miss Victoria Minh.

 

And then have a last drink to Victoria Minh

Who would help a guy out who wouldn’t go in.

Have a last drink to Miss Victoria Minh

Who would help a guy out who wouldn’t go in.

 

The Loneliest Ranger

 

Ronald Reagan Blues

 

Ronald Reagan got shot in Washington.

Got shot in Washington D.C.

Ronald Reagan got shot in Washington.

Got shot in Washington D.C.

They put him in the black car.

He didn't say "Oh, my. Oh, me."

 

Shot up in the black car

Old Ron made some jokes.

Fucked up in the black car

Old Ron made some jokes.

We'll never know. He'll never know.

We is all just folks.

 

Tired of the bullshit about him.

Tired of his bullshit too.

Tired of the bullshit about him.

Tired of his bullshit too.

The only thing I really know

Death comin' for me and you.

 

"Silly motherfuckers," I sd to my friend John.

"Silly motherfuckers. See how they babble on."

John sd "Why, you talking to me for anyways?

I got killed in Vietnam."

 

 

 Luftmensch

 

The out-of-work painter sketches the ghetto

emptied of its inhabitants,

The painting is filled with objects,

The absence of the living is only temporary

and hints at the most delicious mysteries.

The "somewhat overstocked zoos" of pre WWII Europe.

Zeppelins are required.  Liftships leave every day.

We all took pretty ponies up the golden stairs to the sun.

Extraordinary visions all last night

Along the lake of Silvaplana,

not too far from a certain powerful pyramidal rock near Suler

I was given the envelope.

Into the teacup, quickly, my friends!

The cup (as the mirror shows)

is indeed the cracked yellow one

Otto Frank is now holding in his trembling hands

as the Nazis march down the little street.

But little teacup does make it through!

And the silence and dust are so dear to us.

Later the teacup is filled with the eyelashes of owls.

A wind comes and we waft through the night.