A Demonic Holy Ghost!

Yeah. Dreams (see previous post), I know they aren't real, but I can't help but think they are important missives, messages, or signals, from a deeper consciousness. Often they seem garbled, confused, nonsensical, otherworldly, sort of like badly-constructed David Lynchian-type flicks.

Often they just of vanish in the light of day. But sometimes they hit home, they seem prophetic, pull you up short, make you ruminate, contemplate, and try to decode.

That Dylan dream totally captivated me yesterday. Add that to my days of obsession. His music fills my ears, I am stirred by his evangelical passion, his short-lived, fire and brimstone, stone-faced preacher of judgement and damnation. Just another one of those forbidding and entrancing Dylan masks. And don't forget, when a human being puts on a mask, they always tell you the truth.

Of course, I reject much of the gospel according to Bob. I can go with the idea of Jesus as cool guy, but all that mighty King on the Throne crap just sounds like bad superhero B.S. to me. I pretty much stop at the shore of a shaggy Jesus, a flawed human being with a messianic-complex, who preached love and forgiveness. I'm pretty much mushy, new-agey, New Testament. Jesus as Perfect, Peace, Love and Understanding Hippie. Dylan is very much Old Testament: Sin, Flames of Hell, Eternal Damnation, Repentance, Blood.

I accept Dylan as poet, not as prophet. Dylan as truth-teller, alive to the illuminated word. Yes, there are insights, revelations, poetic truths, but he doesn't persuade me when it comes to the battle of Armageddon, the End Times, Heaven & Hell, etc. Except, of course, all of these concepts work for me metaphorically, poetically, psychologically. I can fall for the psychology of sin and redemption. I can envision my life and all of human existence as some grand battle of good vs. evil. And we all always hurtling towards a personal and global end-time.

So yeah, "messing with his grain." That's me picking and choosing what I want to align myself with, and rejecting what I think is clap-trap, serious, whacked-out, mumbo-jumbo. I am much more aligned with Allen Ginsberg's Buddha, or Ginsburg's forgiving vision of William Blake, a vision of mystery and wonder. "Energy is Eternal Delight."

But I am addicted to Evangelical Bob. I love the poetry. The language of a man aflame with the creed. And he worked with some killer musicians all along the way. Listen to Slow Train Coming, Saved, Shot of Love, or the double cd live set Trouble No More and marvel at the Wonder, the Beauty and the Power of musicians giving it all to a catalog of songs that can stand on their own against anything else in the canon.

Dylan as Demonic Force? That was a surprise, a startling revelation, I always thought Dylan was channeling some Holy Ghost, but you know there's always the dichotomy. The light and the dark. Maybe this Holy Ghost is Demonic too? Makes for better songs. Makes for Great Art. The highest variety.