SECTION ONE

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COLUMN 108, AUGUST 1, 2004
(Copyright © 2004 The Blacklisted Journalist) 

JUNGLE JIM FLUNKS HIS SCREEN TEST

[In my opinion now one of our country's greatest living poets, my good friend Amiri Baraka, poet laureate of Newark Schools and---as he calls himself---New Jersey's last poet laureate, remains---like myself---blacklisted by America's publishers. All his many books are now out of print in this country. Still, approaching 70, he is doing his best writing and here we are proud to offer one of his newest poems, which we consider one of his greatest works.--Al Aronowitz]

James , you shd know
How the world
            Makes you ugly. You is, you know, James
Veddy ugly. You-gly, we used to say
Back in the playground, just touching
            The surface of the thing,
Not understanding that there's ugly, there's You-gly
Then various deeper degrees. Like
Dirty ugly, sick ugly, devil ugly, death ugly
Right on till you get to the bottom of the beginning
Of some shit too ugly to be dug, by mere you man.

I never seen that deepest dirtiest past-serial killer ugly
I seen Bush-2 and his charcoal imp-dummy, Kneel Bent
I seen a Lott, a Bilbo, a thing wrapped in white sheets carrying
His burning soul, disguised as a baking nigra eyes melting
Into snot. I seen somethin' so ugly I canceled it out my mind
And if I try to remember I get horizontal lines and blood come out
My fingers.

Ugly is the first letter of where you is. Satan begin with an S.
Put together they is money. A collection of ignorant medusas
Halloween; piano lessons in a human skin mask polka dot with blood.
Self is above, dead and unconnected, as if floating

Defying gravity with the magic of bullshit

You ugly with and in and because is you was the same
You ugly because you know you ugly and say you ain't
You ugly because you eat everybody and belch Hollywood
You ugly because you like it and you wanna be ugly and you think ugly
Cute. You uglier than anybody except who made you ugly, look between yr
legs
At the flickering light of skyscraper teeth on fire again, and some
peepas say
God did it. Was either him or somebody else colored.

You ugly because that's how you got rich  

But you got more ugly than you got money
With all that money you still ugly.
The ugliest other thing in the world think you ugly
And happy because you make them feel better
You uglier than Agnew. When you get yr Ph.D. in ugly
You will be Hitler's last meal. You uglier than Churchill
And Bush the father hideous wife

Ghouls say you ugly behind yr back
Vampire scared a you
When Clarence Pendleton passed gas it painted your face all over the
room
You uglier than that painting Clarence Thomas got in the attic
Of his real self which Oscar Wilde did of him
You uglier than Papa Doc, Hitler and Mobutu
You uglier than Mussolini Franco and the Swedish Angel
Is yr twin. You uglier than zombie vomit.
Uglier than zoo dirt. You the ugliest thing in the human family
And that ID you got sayin' you human  is ugly
You ugly as devil doo doo, white supremacy and you
Is identical. You ugly as the brain emptiness of a cracker lynch mob.

You ugly as Falwell dressed as Cab Calloway. You uglier than white
people.
You uglier than Armstrong Williams. You and Ashcroft is movie stars
Among the backward dead. All insects look better than  you. At yr best
You is vomit, rats run away from you,  you is uglier than Dahmer's sweet
tooth. You is uglier than the police. War is yr makeup.
Prison yr altar. Assassination yr
Conversation. You think stealing make you better looking,. Lying
gives you an orgasm. Only pain make you smile. But you so ugly
No smile would stay near your face. You drink people's tears and paint
yr face
With their blood. You so ugly when you sleep your dreams torture people.

The Devil complains when you tell people you him.
The Devil say you uglier than him.
That cd be a trick. But nobody ever seen the two of yall
Together. But the Devil dress better than you.

Your face is a uniform. Clothes wont let you put them on
You cannot fart because gas refuses to stay in yr ass
You went to Denmark for sexual transformation
But the doctors cd not figure out which sex you were.

You claim not to be dead

You claim the reason you look the way you do
Is not yr fault. "Nature made me like this," You say.
Naturally everything denies it  ##


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"I love the book. I love the way you can open it to any page and start reading and it keeps you reading. The book is just fun to read." --LEVON HELM, Drummer of THE BAND from Big Pink.

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"I recommend it."---DOUGLAS HOLDER, IBBETSON STREET PRESS.  

".  . .It is a fasinating, insightful read. You are such a wonderful writer."---STEPHANIE LEDGIN, Music Journalist.

"I could not put this book of yours down for a minute."---ED GALING, POET LAUREATE OF HATBORO, PA.

IN THIS 615-PAGE PAPERBACK, AL ARONOWITZ, ACCLAIMED AS THE "GODFATHER OF ROCK JOURNALISM," TELLS YOU MORE ABOUT BOB DYLAN AND THE BEATLES THAN ANY OTHER WRITER CAN TELL YOU BECAUSE NO OTHER WRITER WAS THERE AT THE TIME. AS THE MAN WHO INTRODUCED ALLEN GINSBERG TO BOB DYLAN, BOB DYLAN TO THE BEATLES AND THE BEATLES TO MARIJUANA, ARONOWITZ BOASTS, "THE '60S WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN THE SAME WITHOUT ME."


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