Southern Charm and a Free Mind

In J P Dooley's writings, Jaymo has outrageous and sensual adventures in the Southern states.  They depict a time when the Southern youth abided by Hippie Law.  This is an exerpt from J P Dooley's book Two for the Road:

“Greetings from Lousy-ana!” in letters so large they took up most of the space with the rest crammed into a single increasingly smaller line.  “Jaymo, what’s the haps?  Where are you at, bro…”

Opiates were suspect.

My eyes drifted to the address, a lady’s hand, and then to what appeared to be a decorative border in the same ink; on closer inspection, an unpunctuated message, carefully scribed along the edges and around Beau’s missive, a private post-script added before mailing.

“JAYMO YOU’RE A REALLY FINE MAN PLEASE BE MY FRIEND I’D TAKE REALLY GOOD CARE OF YOU—“ the same line I had used on her, Tooker’s favorite come-on, followed by:  “I DO GRITS THE WAY YOU LIKE ‘EM COME BACK LOUISA”

A lady who could turn cartwheels and bend over backwards to touch the earth, her long honey-colored hair cascading to the ground, then contorting the other way, put her feet behind her head; the implications of her invitation were stellar.  I could feel my hands around her slender waist, remembered the scent of her hair and how it surrounded our faces like a curtain when she rolled on top, covering my lips with hers.  I stared at her image for a long time; Tooker had drawn her tits with medical accuracy.  Her body was an erotic temple, her mind free and ready for fun in the warm southern sunshine."

The Hawk of London

There are many places that can raise your consciousness, here is a poem written by J P Dooley called "The Hawk of London":

I have seen the Hawk of London and I have heard its cry

I have watched the London Fox walking boldly in the night

I have seen the long gray Rat and Mudlarks by the river

And felt the gaze of the Carrion Crow perched upon the Tower 

In the cellar of Gordon’s over bottles of wine

We talked about London and the passage of time

Leicester, Trafalgar, Embankment and the Strand

Remnants of Empire and eras that were grand

 

I feel safe here she said in the world’s greatest city

A civilized place of manners and money

Steeples and spires and the dome of St. Paul’s

The Gherkin and the Shard and the ancient Roman walls

 

Britain is England, the center of things

And England is London, the abode of kings

Elizabeth, Charles, William and George

Parliament, Whitehall, Prime Ministers and Lords

 

Trains and the Tube, busses, bikes and cabs

Theater and the arts, Sunday Roast and pubs

A feast for the senses, wit like a knife

When you tire of London, you are tired of life*

 

London is brilliant, Doctor Johnson was right

The very best of culture, sparkling and bright

But for me never easy, never perfect, never safe

But a matrix of danger, hardship and death

 

For I have seen the Hawk of London and I have heard its cry

I have watched the London Fox walking boldly in the night

I have seen the long gray Rat and Mudlarks by the river

And felt the gaze of the Carrion Crow perched upon the Tower

The East End, Brixton, Vauxhall, Battersea

Places and streets where she might not want to be

Spring-Heeled Jack leaping from the past

Thieves circling Clapham Common, looking for a chance

 

Eyes through half-closed curtains, sirens in the night

Dark figures passing swiftly under the tall streetlight

Ghosts in top hats, petticoats and lace

The Ripper and the hangman and The Reaper’s faceless face

 

For I have walked the streets of London through this and many lives

From Tyburn Cross and Bedlam to the docks of the old South Side

Where ladies live on garbage scavenged from the Thames

And sell their souls and bodies for opium and gin

 

Bloody deaths of traitors, religious fratricides

Hanged, drawn and quartered, and witches burned alive

Black Death and Smallpox, starvation and disease

Bridges crowned with severed limbs and the smiling heads of kings

 

Rolling drums at Greenwich, the whistle and the pipe

Sailors dancing in the wind, swinging til they’re ripe

Oppression and enslavement, black coal smoke and steam

The glory of London is someone else’s dream

 

In the darkness of the Tube I have sheltered from the Blitz

And hidden from the Vikings in Fleetside gravel pits

In the crypt of St. Pancras I have fled the wrath of God

In the temple of Mythras I have worshipped flowing blood

 

And I have seen the Hawk of London and I have heard its cry

I have watched the London Fox walking boldly in the night

I have seen the long gray Rat and Mudlarks by the river

And felt the gaze of the Carrion Crow perched upon the Tower 

 

I feel safe here she said in the world’s greatest city

A civilized place of manners and money

A feast for the senses, wit like a knife

When you tire of London you are tired of life

Whatever You Have to Do to Get High

One of the definitions for Hippie Law is: whatever you have to do to get high.  Here is an excerpt from J. P. Dooley's book, Getting High, currently available on Amazon:

"In dire circumstances, up against the wall, there are covenants you make with yourself, before the witness, with the gods, the condition of staying awake another night, of dragging my body up in the pre-dawn to face yet another remorseless day:  that if I live through this strange test of war, I will never again be the pawn of evil empire, of convention, a prisoner of habit and other people’s expectations, but I will dedicate my life and its fate to the most real, immediate, and personally pleasurable ends.

 

Getting high, rapture and ecstasy unfettered by duty and war but driven by them; a desire to explode into the molecules of the world, getting down, getting laid, and to go beyond the world, to follow mystic threads, other conceptions of reality, people who glow, the divine; to express myself and be myself, and to throw my razor into the sea."