I Saw the Best Minds of My Generation Rot

I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked

I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked

I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked

I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked

(I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked)
Dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix

(I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked)
Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night

(I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked)
Who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz

(I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked)
Who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and saw Mohammedan and angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated

(I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked)
Who lit cigarettes in boxcars boxcars boxcars racketing through snow toward lonesome farms in grandfather night

(I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked)
Who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burning their money in the wall

(I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked)
Who howled on their knees in the subway and were dragged off the roof waving genitals and manuscripts

(I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked)
Eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani
Eli lamma lamma sabacthani
Eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani
Eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani
Eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani

The madman bum and angel beat in Time, unknown, yet putting down here what might be left to say in time come after death

And rose reincarnate in the ghostly clothes of jazz in the goldhorn shadow of the band and blew the suffering of America’s naked mind for love into

An eli eli lamma lamma sabacthani saxophone cry that shivered the cities down to the last radio

With the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years

[Break]

What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch!
Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch!
Moloch the judger! Moloch! Moloch!

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!

(They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!)
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!

They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!

(They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven!)
Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof to solitude! waving! Carrying flowers! Down to the river! Into the street!

Carl Solomon!
I’m with you in Rockland
Where you’re madder than I am
I’m with you
Where you’ve murdered your twelve secretaries
I’m with you in Rockland

We're with you in Rockland
Where you accuse your doctors of insanity and plot the Hebrew socialist revolution against the fascist national Golgotha
I’m with you in Rockland

Holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy
With you in Rockland

(Holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy)
Where we wake up electrified out of the coma by our own souls’ airplanes roaring over the roof they’ve come to drop angelic bombs the hospital illuminates itself imaginary walls collapse

(Holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy)
I'm with you in Rockland
In my dreams you walk dripping from a sea-journey on the highway across America in tears to the door of my cottage in the Western night

(Holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy holy)
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!