829 Southdrive

829 Southdrive

A New Jersey state of mind



Sunday, January 9, 2011

Hometown









Captain John L. Dorsett, Beaver Dam, Brick Township, NJ
Circa late 1800's, from "Down Barnegat Bay,
A Nor'easter Midnight Reader"
 Robert Jahn, 1980, Beachcomber Press
Mantoloking, New Jerey
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4 comments:

  1. MojoJanuary 9, 2011 at 7:51 PM

    Good find, Baydog. The poem is an interesting expression of the (local) native conscience, as one might call it.

    For me it brought to mind the first line of the chapter "The Destruction of Tenochtitlan" (about Cortez and Montezuma), from William Carlos Williams's "In the American Grain", his prose (yes, he was brilliant in prose, too) work of historical imaginations:

    "Upon the orchidean beauty of the new world, the old rushed inevitably to revenge itself after the Italian's return."

    ReplyDelete
  2. O DockerJanuary 10, 2011 at 2:10 AM

    I am chieftain Angelo Bruno,
    All the tribes are ruled by me,
    Moved in here and held possession,
    South of Trenton to the sea.

    Here we came to run the action,
    Numbers, hookers, other scams,
    Caught our fish along the water,
    Lotsa moolah, lotsa clams.

    Shook down butchers, shook down bakers,
    Money rolled in like a bank,
    Oft we shot if they resisted,
    We paid off cops of any rank.

    In the woods we left the bodies,
    Dropped them as we drove along;
    There my warriors laid in ambush,
    In their crews made stout and strong.

    Our cadillacs upon these highways,
    All about would swiftly glide.
    As we built our weekend hideouts
    With hidden exits on the side.

    My people were content and happy,
    We were free from all constraint,
    We went to Vegas as a pastime,
    Decked with Gucci and Laurent (Yves Saint).

    Where are our strongholds, wide and stately,
    Where oft I shook down shops of pawn,
    The Genovese tribe got to me,
    Alas! where are my warriors gone?

    ReplyDelete
  3. BaydogJanuary 10, 2011 at 1:57 PM

    Is that what all those little sandy roads off of rts. 70 and 539 into the Pine Barrens are?
    I thought they were picnic areas.

    ReplyDelete
  4. O DockerJanuary 10, 2011 at 8:22 PM

    The PC term may be 'multi-purpose facilities'.

    Picnics during the day, 'recycling' areas after dark.

    ReplyDelete

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