Ferlinghetti vs. Jello Biafra

[perezoso]

Two poets, somewhat similiar themes:

Jello:

RELIGIOUS VOMIT
chorus all religions make me wanna throw up all religions make me sick all religions make me wanna throw up all religions suck they all claim that they have the truth that'll set you free just give 'em all your money and they'll set you free free for a fee they all claim that they have 'the answer' when they don't even know the question they're just a bunch of liars they just want your money they just want your consciousness chorus all religions suck all religions make me wanna throw up all religions suck all religions make me wanna bleah they really make me sick they really make me sick they really make me sick they really make me sick they really make me sick they really make me ill


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Fer:

An Elegy on the Death of Kenneth Patchen


A poet is born
A poet dies
And all that lies between
is us
and the world

And the world lies about it
making as if it had got his message
even though it is poetry
but most of the world wishing
it could just forget about him
and his awful strange prophecies


Along with all the other strange things
he said about the world
which were all too true
and which made them fear him
more than they loved him
though he spoke much of love

Along with all the alarms he sounded
which turned out to be false
if only for the moment
all of which made them fear his tongue
more than they loved him
Though he spoke much of love
and never lived by ‘silence exile & cunning’
and was a loud conscientious objector to
the deaths we daily give each other
though we speak much of love


And when such a one dies
even the agents of Death should take note
and shake the shit from their wings
in Air Force One
But they do not
And the shit still flies
And the poet now is disconnected
and won’t call back
though he spoke much of love

And still we hear him say
‘Do I not deal with angels
when her lips I touch’
And still we hear him say
‘0 my darling troubles heaven
with her loveliness’
And still we hear him say
‘As we are so wonderfully done with each other
We can walk into our separate ‘sleep
On floors of music where the milkwhite cloak
of childhood lies’

And still we hear him saying
‘Therefore the constant powers do not lessen
Nor is the property of the spirit scattered
on the cold hills of these events’
And still we hear him asking
‘Do the dead know what time it is?’

He is gone under
He is scattered
undersea
and knows what time
but won’t be back to tell it
He would be too proud to call back anyway
And too full of strange laughter
to speak to us anymore anyway

And the weight of human experience
lies upon the world
like the chains of the ‘sea
in which he sings
And he swings in the tides of the sea
And his ashes are washed
in the ides of the sea
And ‘an astonished eye looks out of the air’
to see the poet singing there

And dusk falls down a coast somewhere

where a white horse without a rider
turns its head
to the sea

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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Jello:

MORAL MAJORITY
you call yourself the moral majority we call ourselves the people in the real world trying to rub us out, but we're going to survive god must be dead if you're alive you say, 'god loves you. come and buy the good news' then you buy the president and swimming pools if jesus don't save 'til we're lining your pockets god must be dead if you're alive circus-tent con-men and southern belle bunnies milk your emotions then they steal your money it's the new dark ages with the fascists toting bibles cheap nostalgia for the salem witch trials stodgy ayatollahs in their dobble-knit ties burn lots of books so they can feed you their lies masturbating with a flag and a bible god must be dead if you're alive blow it out your ass, jerry falwell blow it out your ass, jesse helms blow it out your ass, ronald reagan what's wrong with a mind of my own? you don't want abortions, you want battered children you want to ban the pill as if that solves the problem now you wanna force us to pray in school god must be dead if you're such a fool you're planning for a war with or without iran building a police state with the ku klux klan pissed at your neighbour? don't bother to nag pick up the phone and turn in a fag blow it out your ass, terry dolan blow it out your ass, phyllis schlafly ram it up your cunt, anita cos god must be dead if you're alive god must be dead if you're alive


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Fer:

Constantly Risking Absurdity


Constantly risking absurdity
and death
whenever he performs
above the heads
of his audience
the poet like an acrobat
climbs on rime
to a high wire of his own making
and balancing on eyebeams
above a sea of faces
paces his way
to the other side of the day
performing entrachats
and sleight-of-foot tricks
and other high theatrics
and all without mistaking
any thing
for what it may not be
For he's the super realist
who must perforce perceive
taut truth
before the taking of each stance or step
in his supposed advance
toward that still higher perch
where Beauty stands and waits
with gravity
to start her death-defying leap
And he
a little charleychaplin man
who may or may not catch
her fair eternal form
spreadeagled in the empty air
of existence

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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Jello:

HYPERACTIVE CHILD
i'm tired of kissin' ass i can't sit still all day you know i know your school's a lie that's why you dragged me here 'you're a hyperactve child you're disruptive, you're too wild we're going to calm you down now this won't hurt a bit' drag me to the floor pullin' down my pants ram a needle up my butt put my brain into a trance 'no more hyperactive child got too much of a mind wouldn't you rather be happy? now this won't hurt a bit' cameras in the balls no windows, just brick walls pledge allegiance to a flag now you will obey...

KEPONE FACTORY
i finally found a job in a paper movin' barrels at a chemical plant there's shiny-looking dust on my fingers goin' up my nose and into my lungs it's the kepone poisoning-minamata kepone poisoning-minamata at the grimy kepone factory turning people into bonzai trees now i've got these splitting headaches i can't quite get it up no more i can't sleep and it's driving me crazy i shake all day and i'm seeing double kepone poisoning-minamata kepone poisoning-minamata gonna go down your big metal building gonna slam right through your bright metal door gonna grab you by your sta-prest collar and ram some kepone down your throat the lawyer says 'that's the breaks, kid gonna gnarl and rot the rest of your life if you don't sue, we'll give you a trans-am...' that i'll never drive cos i shake all the time 'cause of the kepone poisoning minamata at the grimy kepone factory


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Fer:

Sometime During Eternity


Sometime during eternity
some guys show up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter
from some square-type place
like Galilee
and he starts wailing
and claiming he is hep
to who made heaven
and earth
and that the cat
who really laid it on us
is his Dad

And moreover
he adds
It's all writ down
on some scroll-type parchments
which some henchmen
leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres
a long time ago
and which you won't even find
for a coupla thousand years or so
or at least for
ninteen hundred and fortyseven
of them
to be exact
and even then
nobody really believes them
or me
for that matter

You're hot
they tell him

And they cool him

They stretch him on the Tree to cool
And everybody after that
is always making models
of this Tree
with Him hung up
and always crooning His name
and calling Him to come down
and sit in
on their combo
as if he is THE king cat
who's got to blow
or they can't quite make it

Only he don't come down
from His Tree

Him just hang there
on His Tree
looking real Petered out
and real cool
and also
according to a roundup
of late world news
from the usual unreliable sources
real dead

Lawrence Ferlinghetti User Rating:

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DOG BITE
dog bite on my leg not right supposed to beg daily to the filling station underwater navigation oh oh oh...

NAZI PUNKS FUCK OFF
punk ain't no religious cult punk means thinking for yourself you ain't hardcore cos you spike your hair when a jock still lives inside your head nazi punks nazi punks nazi punks-fuck off! nazi punks nazi punks nazi punks-fuck off! if you've come to fight, get outa here you ain't no better than the bouncers we ain't trying to be police when you ape the cops it ain't anarchy repeat chorus ten guys jump one, what a man you fight each other, the police state wins stab your backs when you trash our halls trash a bank if you've got real balls you still think swastikas look cool the real nazis run your schools they're coaches, businessmen and cops in a real fourth reich you'll be the first to go repeat chorus you'll be the first to go you'll be the first to go you'll be the first to go unless you think...

WE'VE GOT A BIGGER PROBLEM NOW
last call for alcohol. last call for your freedom of speech. drink up. happy hour is now enforced by law. don't forget our house special, it's called a trickie dickie screwdriver. it's got one part jack daniels, two parts purple kool-aid, and a jigger of formaldehyde from the jar with hitler's brain in it we got in the back storeroom. happy trails to you. happy trails to you. i am emperor ronald reagan born again with fascist cravings still, you made me president human rights will soon go 'way i am now your shah today now i command all of you now you're going to pray in school i'll make sure they're christian too california über alles über alles california ku klux klan will control you still you think it's natural nigger knockin' for the master race still you wear the happy face you closed your eyes, can't happen here alexander haig is near vietnam won't come back you say join the army or you will pay california über alles über alles california yeah, that's it. just relax. have another drink, few more pretzels, little more msg. turn on those dallas cowboys on your tv. lock your doors. close your mind. it's time for the two-minute warning. welcome to 1984 are you ready for the third world war?!? you too will meet the secret police they'll draft you and they'll jail your niece you'll go quitely to boot camp they'll shoot you dead, make you a man don't you worry, it's for a cause feeding global corporations' claws die on our brand new poison gas el salvador or afghanistan making money for president reagan and all the friends of president reagan california über alles über alles california

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Papa Larry sure could represent, but Jello's works are a bit more politically sophisticated and relevant......