#336

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I look back at some of the earlier Dream Songs, and I think, wow. Those take on some big stuff. This one—not so much, although it’s amusing enough. Henry as absentee landlord has to deal with some “little scraggly-bearded jerk” who won’t, or can’t, pay his rent. I’d bet anything that at least once in history somebody somewhere called B. a “little scraggly-bearded jerk,” but I have no documentation on hand to support such a claim. Don’t need it. I’m confident it happened. If it didn’t happen, it should have. Actually, I’ve done it myself in so many words, so that’s enough for me.

I’m calling this one of the lesser Dream Songs, a leaky coracle to DS 46 as the RMS Queen Mary. It gets slightly interesting, though, when he goes off on mathematicians—except for Einstein and Weyl, both high-profile mathematicians and theoretical physicists, who were also absent-minded and had some kind of comic umbrella mix-up, apparently, he bears little tolerance for them. For language-sensitive artistic types, mathematicians and their thinking seem alien and dangerous. With the exception of a few noble physicist/mathematician/philosophers, of which there were only ever a dozen or so worth mentioning anyway, these people laid the groundwork for the rise of bureaucrats, which is inexcusable.

As for the little scraggly-bearded jerk, “he will pay through both his nose & ass, / I’ll blacklist him.” Perhaps there are some serious overtones to this little tirade, but it’s still just a snitty joke. Henry is the angry bureaucrat overlord here, pissed that his tenant isn’t properly honoring his signed agreement, which of course a bureaucrat by definition is incapable of tolerating. “So help me Christ, it’s worse than a hasty Mass / or a tuneless hymn.” The trappings of religion, without the inspiriting Holy Ghost in support?—not so wonderful. Rent collection, contracts, bureaucracy? Worse. It scraggly-beard’s fault, too, for reminding him.