Come Together -- John Lennon

Guest poem submitted by Matthew Chanoff:
I know you already did your song lyric theme, but I've got to propose you
run this anyway.

(Poem #995) Come Together Here come old flattop he come grooving up slowly He got Joo-Joo eyeball he one holy roller He got hair down to his knee Got to be a joker he just do what he please He wear no shoeshine he got toe-jam football He got monkey finger he shoot coca-cola He say "I know you, you know me" One thing I can tell you is you got to be free Come together right now over me He bag production he got walrus gumboot He got Ono sideboard he one spinal cracker He got feet down below his knee Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease Come together right now over me He roller-coaster he got early warning He got muddy water he one mojo filter He say "One and one and one is three" Got to be good-looking 'cause he's so hard to see Come together right now over me Come together, come together, come together, come together, yeah. -- John Lennon

This is my all time favorite obscure poem.  What could they have had in
mind? Maybe it's a poem about a street person with a personality disorder
who needs to come together.  Maybe it's a parody of John "he got Ono
sideboard."  Maybe it's just a stream of imagery.

One thing I love about it is the rhythm.  Everyone over 30 has that rhythm
somewhere in their brain cells. You can tell you have it if you try reading
the thing aloud.  Try saying "He say "One and one and one is three" without
stretching and syncopating on "one."  The poem is also very heavy on
trochees (stress-unstressed feet) like slowly, roller, football, cola,
gumboot, cracker, warning, filter. Very often they're used as a signal for
indecisiveness, passivity, etcetera. cf, the "To be or not to be" soliloquey
in Hamlet.

Maybe it's about recognizing mentally distrurbed street people as not so
different from you and me.

I'm not sure who wrote it. At this stage in their development, Lennon and
McCartney pretty much wrote separately, though they continued to put both
names on all songs. [It was Lennon, actually - ed.]

For a bio of the band, check out
[broken link] http://beatles.sonicnet.com/artists/biography/969.jhtml

For a complete Beatles lyric archive, check out
[broken link] http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Limo/3518/

Matt.