Hey Joe! Where You Goin’ With That Piccolo in Your Hand?
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?
I’m goin’ where evidence dis-in-te-grates – explodin’ in my hand,
volcanic spittle twistin’ in heat, beige bone cup crackin’ in heat,
cave art scratched into my palm, my baby’s firebird-voice warblin’
gold as syrup, thrashin’ on fiery veined-wings, tin boomerangs wobble,
tippin’ X-rayed & shiverin’ – flash-fuse lightnin’ strikin’ cobblestones
& discarded cigarettes, even my bus ticket, hairline cracks in bone, in tar,
in vermillion – ground cinnebar – pigment packed in jars, coolin’ in red clay
shadows durin’ the Renaissance, hairline crackin’ fractal flowers on lacquer,
river-lines on a map, in masterworks, into Assumption of the Virgin by Titian,
& unmentioned others, with fadin’ of time, a tourist bus pulls off sputterin,’
single-point perspective dis-in-te-grates – unseen stick scratchin’ my hand.
I pirouette my solitary shadow across Palazzo Pirro built within
sixteenth century Rome, my shadow layering, a palimpsest, above
cobblestones and a book of matches.
I light one candle divining a reality (quiet: like a stalking panther),
and then brightly shine, playing a piccolo-infused, Super 8 movie theme.
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?
I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, comin’ down like
a long black glove – aimin’ into the heart of me,
she calls me her sweet hero revolution,
a wooden gate swingin’ open,
and she tastes like nocino…
We pirouette our shadows across Palazzo Pirro built within
sixteenth century Rome, our shadows layering, like a palimpsest, sprigs of
speckled weeds growing among the cobblestones.
We light one candle divining a reality (double-sided: like a magician’s trick),
and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie theme (her firebird voice
disinfecting fountains).
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?
I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, sparklin’
like the aurora borealis, above the path leadin’ down to the river –
her firebird voice nourishes, dark as syrup, aimin’ into the heart of me.
I inhale ancient images in Pirro Ligorio’s engraving:
Image of the Ancient City Rome.
I light one candle divining a reality (earthy: like a black walnut),
and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie theme – the piccolo
a rowboat rocking beneath my baby’s firebird voice.
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?
I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, comin’
down like a long black glove – aimin’ into the heart of me,
she calls me her sweet hero revolution,
a wooden gate swingin’ open,
and she tastes like nocino…
We inhale ancient images in Pirro Ligorio’s engraving:
Image of the Ancient City Rome.
We light one candle divining a reality (weaponized: like a cell phone),
and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie theme – starring
gods who play at sport.
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?
I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, sparklin’
like the aurora borealis, above the wall protectin’ us from invaders –
her firebird voice beckons, dark as syrup, aimin’ into the heart of me.
I cup my ears, lean into a raucus carnival of street theatre,
and reiterate childhood ~ reimagining Pierrot in commedia dell’arte.
I light one candle divining a reality (dangerous: like a darkened highway),
and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie
theme – gods who play at sport loom like the Chrysler Building,
rising like angels on the head of a pin.
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?
I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs, comin’
down like a long black glove – aimin’ into the heart of me,
she calls me her sweet hero revolution,
a wooden gate swingin’ open,
and she tastes like nocino…
We cup our ears, lean into a raucus carnival of street theatre,
and reiterate childhood ~ reimagining Pierrot in commedia dell’arte.
We light one candle divining a reality (bolted down: like a Faraday cage),
and then brightly shine, playing a Super 8 movie theme – my piccolo a
rowboat, her firebird voice clairvoyant in mysteries of flesh and blood.
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?
I’m goin’ to journey – a refugee, I witness the obsidian glyphs,
comin’ down like a long black glove – aimin’ into the heart of me.
Her firebird voice dark as syrup, pale as flutterin’ cherry blossoms,
passin’ like a shadow across the public square, deepenin’
worn ballustrades in darkest chiaroscuro, spreadin’ like black-moss jam,
spreadin’ upon the panther carved in white granite, rollin’ ancient wheels
down hallways of the gods, rockin’ me like a rowboat, rockin’ me into
confusion, perfumin’ rivers and clay, and plants receivin’
moonlight, and trees in silhouette, and evaporatin’ mist, and constellations
deep as ice disappearin’ at breakneck speed, disappearin’ into amber
like a prehistoric gnat, a grasshopper wing, a spine, the scent of smoke,
starlight embedded in black moss arcin’ high above the cave, torchlight
flickerin’ ancestors to the wall ecstatic, copper-plated figurines, hewed
magnetic wood, chantin’ in shrouded limestone, silvery echoes quiver:
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your hand?
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in your
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo in
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that piccolo
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with that
Hey Joe! Where you goin’ with
Hey Joe! Where you goin’
Hey Joe! Where you
Hey Joe! Where
Hey Joe!
Hey
I found this anonymous woodcut online some time ago and created a series of digital images blending it with a small & golden, Incan figure (a god perhaps). I decided to only use one of those images for this posting. I cannot remember which high school, or year, the high school yearbook photo of the cheerleader and basketball players came from but here they are, in their youth, featured in a new variant of the classic Hey Joe! now situated in Rome, or perhaps outside of time. I lifted the figure in blue from a series of images in progress about a bus driver (not sure I’ll ever get back to it). I take credit for my own digital creative work and conceptual imagination. I don’t claim copyright over original source material in my (not for profit) re-contextualizing and art-making.
And of course the original song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hey_Joe
Special thank you to Joe Kelly who encouraged the vernacular in abbreviations such as goin’ instead of going. I used that whenever ‘Joe’ of ‘Hey Joe’ was asked the question.
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