First song I hear today:  
“Box Of Rain.”

I wish I could remember what it felt like
to be a Deadhead.  All that song means to me now
is that some college kid’s being clever
with a hurricane on the way.  But there was a time,
allegedly, according to photos and ticket stubs I’ve saved,
when I knew everything
about everything Deadish and the first notes
would have set me spinning, talking about
concerts in Lewiston, Nassau, Pasadena.

Let me stress that I was never a hippie.
I WAS NEVER A HIPPIE.  Too violent
and cynical ever to have been one,
I’ve owned one tie-dyed shirt in my life
and most of the acid I’ve dealt with 
was my own bitter bile.  But something
there was in me 
once loved the Dead
as a good son loves the first full escape
from home…

Oh, that lifestyle:
no concert ever the same twice,
no song ever the same twice,
no guarantee that you’d ever hear
what you wanted to hear;

goddamn, it was the perfect extended childhood —
everything new and surprising,
every time.  “Nothing to do except
smile, smile, smile.”  Ah, you have to love them now:
such easily marketable icons, such a deep well of symbols,
such a music no one ever even really tried to make.

A hurricane’s coming in tonight.
I have to buy something or other to survive.
Maybe I’ll drag out the old records and listen tonight
but then again, maybe I won’t — 

nothing really to do except worry, worry, worry.