"Nothing" by The Fugs

 

The Fugs first album, 1965

Monday, nothing
Tuesday, nothing
Wednesday and Thursday nothing
Friday, for a change
a little more nothing
Saturday once more nothing

Sunday nothing
Monday nothing
Tuesday and Wednesday nothing
Thursday, for a change
a little more nothing
Friday once more nothing

Montik gornisht,
Dinstik Gornisht
Midwoch an Donnerstik gornisht
Fritik, far a noveneh gornisht pikveleh
Shabas nach a mool gornisht

Lunes nada
Martes nada
Miercoles y Jueves nada
Viernes, por cambia
un poco mas nada
Sabado otra vez nada

January nothing
February nothing
March and April nothing
May and June
a lot more nothing
July nothing

'29 nothing
'32 nothing
'39, '45 nothing
1965 a whole lot of nothing
1966 nothing

reading nothing
writing nothing
even arithmetic nothing
geography, philosophy, history, nothing
social anthropology a lot of nothing

oh, Village Voice nothing
New Yorker nothing
Sing Out and Folkways nothing
Harry Smith and Allen Ginsberg
nothing, nothing, nothing

poetry nothing
music nothing
painting and dancing nothing
The world's great books
a great set of nothing
Audy and Foudy nothing

fucking nothing
sucking nothing
flesh and sex nothing
Church and Times Square
all a lot of nothing
nothing, nothing, nothing

Stevenson nothing
Humphrey nothing
Averell Harriman nothing
John Stuart Mill nil, nil
Franklin Delano nothing

Karl Marx nothing
Engels nothing
Bakunin and Kropotkin nothing
Leon Trotsky lots of nothing
Stalin less than nothing

nothing nothing nothing nothing
lots and lots of nothing
nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing
lots of it
nothing!
Not a God damn thing

(Mostly) Anonymous in Inner Space

All of the ancestors have returned and are living quiet lives in Inner Space.  

Choirs will fall silent, money will be thrown into the streets, and everywhere people will wonder what this dream was all about.

I was not cut out for childhood, I was already living part-time in Inner Space.

How can poets write anything without going down the spiral staircase to the darkness below?

I needed so many years to accomplish so little.

I'm back living at the Yew Tree Inn; nothing has changed, there is a Yew tree outside my window and children playing by the old wishing well.

There were some people dressed in colourful outfits, meditating and praying in Inner Space; we threw them out.

I no longer care what poets have to say, not if it's just more of the same old avoidance of Inner Space.

None of this was invented by me. It is what I found in Inner Space.

I was absorbed into the universe by cosmic energy; there's no playing around in Inner Space.

And now I'm a broken wheel going nowhere.

It's not bleak here in Inner Space, it's just a habit of mind to say that life is meaningless.

I liked poets but when I arrived in Inner Space I found few had joined me there, they were too busy trying to make names for themselves.

Most poets have nothing I want or need, they are not crowbars prying open the unconscious mind. Poets need to be crowbars.

  

If a poet can't be a crowbar he can at least be a hammer. 

                                                                       

Believe Nothing

When did I become a nihilist? I was born this way.

Inner Space is a hinterland of cosmic waste; here, everyone is either a nihilist, a poet, or both.

My defense is suited to one whose motto is "Believe nothing".

Poets used to be referred to as "ground breaking" or "visionary"; now they want to be referred to as "award winning poets", the visionaries are gone. 

I am well known in the territory of Inner Space.

About what am I incredulous? On most days, just about everything.

A whole new cohort of poets has arrived,  they are ambitious, self-conscious, and dedicated to self-promotion; in other words, younger versions of older poets.

The opposition of nihilists to all forms of censorship is famous in the history of Inner Space.

I am not the Pope's nose but I can still smell shit when it's all around me.

As we cross the green archetypal fields of poetry we reach the borders of Inner Space.

I have lived the nihilist's life: anonymous, introverted, and appalled.


Mister, in Inner Space we don't have room for anybody but poets and nihilists, so you'd better high tail it outta here before you're discovered.

Most religious and political beliefs offend my sense of nothingness.

A poet's apprenticeship can never be replaced with sitting in a classroom workshopping someone's poems.

Believing anything makes people stupid.

Photo taken at the Montreal Botanical Gardens, 2009

Believe Nothing

I wanted to be a part of something and I thought I was. I thought I was on the great journey of individuation, or that I believed in God, that I was a part of something connecting me with the great ideas and experiences shared by so many people. But, in truth, I wasn't a part of anything. If you "believe nothing" then all of the old constructs of life, the scaffolding that supported your existence, have collapsed. Belief was, in retrospect, nothing real or lasting, it was a pretence or an illusion of belief—mostly it was a pretence, as intellectual assumptions, beliefs, and considered analyses end up being. The doctors are wrong in their diagnoses, the Ivy League educated poets and intellectuals have fooled even themselves with their self-importance, the imams, priests, and gurus are deluded, the politicians are obviously liars, the social workers want to break up families, the teachers are selling a lot of preconceptions based on their idea of what they stand for, the intellectuals are filled with book learning but no wisdom or practical knowledge. There is no satori, no heaven, no hell, no enlightenment, no god, no prophet, there is nothing. I asked myself, what if nothing I believe is true? What if all of my beliefs and assumptions about life are wrong? Very few people are willing to say, "Look! The Emperor has no clothes! He's naked and everything he stood for is a lie and a cheat of belief." I did not decide to believe nothing, I accepted it with difficulty; in fact, it was what I always believed but never admitted to myself. But then, one day, the scaffolding of belief collapses, there is no free will, there is no certainty about anything except that the Emperor has no clothes. Believe what you want after this, but for now, believe nothing.