183. CHARLIE MINGUS IN MAKE-BELIEVE

Charlie Mingus in Make-Believe
Hanging from the rafters, slumming from the stars,
drinking drafts of whisky, driving 'round in cars....
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I've told you everything - how I walked to Mississippi
with Scatman Crothers, how I discovered the means to
stitch a baseball's seams, how Bill Burroughs and I held up
that bank in Abilene. Intricate factors, all these things.
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But I haven't got the patience to go on.
I haven't got the patience to go on.
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In one section of the stadium they put all those who were
once prisoners. Prisoners of something, no matter what.
There was no room for anyone, or any thing, else -
as the place quickly filled up. 'We are, beneath this moon
and sun, prisoners of every sort : nightmare nickel-tenders,
black-eyed doctors, banshee'd singers of despair and doom,
hang-dog snoopsters of trespass and gloom.'
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It seemed a lot like forever, the cake, the mitre,
the saw-box and the tooth. The cake, the mitre, the
saw-box and the tooth. But I haven't the patience to go on.
I haven't the patience to go on...