You may remember Neeko from his oft-inane comments and his one-time contribution that he still uses to impress septuagenarian women…he’s ours now.

As a “huge fan” of The Hidden Track, it is my huge honor to now be called contributor to The Hidden Track. Not since my awkward threesome in that Bucknell U. sorority-house have I been so eager to “contribute”…I mean, man, I really dig this blog re-lig-i-ous-ly. I think Abe Cowboy, Robby Bernstein and the rest of the guys do a fantastic job and really give it their all. To paraphrase the Phil Lesh song, Donor Rap, these guys really have ‘a lot of guts’ to do what they do…

In spite of my overwhelming admiration for HT, I think it’s relatively easy to find it lacking. Sure, daily posts full of “links,” and “news,” and “jokes,” and “music” are ‘relevant’ and all…but where is the art, man? Where is the poetry? I haven’t seen one decent haiku in all the months this blog has been published! And that’s what the people really want, isn’t it? Haiku. That’s what they want.

Instead of boring you with my own self-indulgent art, I spent the last three weeks traveling back in time to visit with some of the great contemporary American poets. I schooled them in all things jam-band…I played them all the epic shows, the epic jams, the sit-ins, the bust-outs, the encores, the openers…and here is what they came up with. The finest American Poets of the past 150 years inspired by the crunchiest, headiest jams in the universe…so let’s hear it:

The Haunted Stolen Beard
Lo! That my ears were gently cupped in cotton!
My spirit soars aimlessly, bewildered by noodle jams.
Oh God! I weep. I weep!
Weary of Weir, he torments my ear.
Is it all that you wear, poor lost-soul Weir, but short shorts and short shorts?
Behold! Weir now wears abducted Jerry-beard.
-Edgar Allen Poe

Hippie, My Likeness
Hippie, my likeness,
You look so much like me, hairy, bearded there,
I now suspect a style of theft;
I now suspect there is some of myself in your patchwork, and
also in your sandals.
For nature-boy is enamored of me, and I of him,
But toward him it really pisses me off, honestly,
That hippie stole my god-damned nature-boy style,
getting all the hippie chicks,
I dare not tell you how pissed Walt Whitman is, brah.
-Walt Whitman

Read on for four more poems from Cummings, Frost, Pound and Ginsberg…

bluesy)jam
bluesy)jam
ing and
everybody must noodle dance
to jam (and more-Warren-sit-ins) who

sits in on all the jams may, be
jam ing G, cee, and dee,
chords.
.they must have; clon(ed) him be
cause he is sitting in;; at four diff
errent shows.
To
n
ig
ht.
Alon.e.
at.

the.

(same.; time) Take.
a br.eak.
Warren.
-E.E. Cummings

The Shakedown Not Taken
Two custies diverged on yellow mud shakedown,
And sorry I could not meet them both
But being one observer, long I stood round,
And looked at the preppie one as long as I could
To where his collar popped up toward his hood;

Then breathed in the other, patchouli in the air,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because he had well worn dread in his hair;
Though as for the poorly weighed one-eighth ounces
Had shaken them down really about the same
-Robert Frost

In a Field of the Bonnaroo
Ghostly apparitions of stoned faces in the crowd
Kind buds on a wet, muddy field
-Ezra Pound

A Coffee Shop in Vermont
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Trey Anastasio, for I walked down
Main Street with a hangover self-conscious looking at Rotating Nectar’s sign
In my magic eighth hour, and shopping for kicks, I went into the Muddy Waters
coffee shop dreaming of your Type II Jams!
What Peaches and what Loving Cups!! Hippie families brewing at night! I saw mothers in the Axillas and babies born on Tube Jam Reprise!
Aisles full of Gordos! Wait, I think that’s actually Mike Gordon… Holy Holy! Its really him, alone, drinking coffee brew, camera in hand. I gotta go shake his hand. Gotta meet gone dodledangy Gordo, man. Gottta shake his hand. I’ll finish this later..
-Allen Ginsberg

My only real hope today is that someone besides that Abe Cowboy fucker reads and comments on this stupid post…our poetry forefathers deserve it.