Lyrics
The goofy foolish human parade
Passing on Sunday art streets of Greenwich Village
Pitiful drawings of images on an iron fence
Ranged there by self-believing artists with no hair and black berets
Showing green seas eating at rock and Pleiades of time
Pestiferating at moon squid salt flat tip fly toe tat sand traps
With cigar smoking interesteds puffing at the stroll
I mean sincerely, naive sailors buying prints
Women with red banjos on their handbags
In art's handicrafty slow shuffling ardors of Washington Square
Passing in what they think is a happy June afternoon
Good God, the sorrow!
They don't even listen to me when I try to tell them they will die
They say "Of course I know I'll die
Why should you mention it now?
Why should I worry about it?
It'll happen, it'll happen now
I want a good time
Excuse me, it's a beautiful happy June afternoon I wanna walk in"
Why are you so tragic and gloomy?
And on the corner at the pony stables on Sixth Avenue and Fourth
Sits Bodhisattva meditating in hobo rags
Praying at Joe Goold's chair
For the emancipation of the shufflers passing by
Immovable in meditation
He offers his hand and feet to the passersby
And nobody believes that there's nothing to believe in
Listen to me!
There is no sidewalk art show, no strollers are there, no poem here
No June afternoon of oh, but only imagelessness
Unrepresented on the iron fence of bald artists with black berets
Passing by one moment less than this is future nothingness already
The chessmen are silent, assembling ready for funny war
Voices of Washington Square Blues rise to my Bodhisattva poem window
I will describe them: "itkee salusu fluptrt" (etc.)
No need, no words to describe the sound of ignorance
This is the sound of ignorance
They are strolling to their death, watching the pictures of Hell
Eating ice cream of ignorance on wood
Sticks that were once sincere in trees