writing

Abilene, Texas
Abilene AuditoriumMay 1, 2026


1.	To Be Alone With You (Bob on electric keyboard)
2.	Man In The Long Black Coat (Bob on electric keyboard)
3.	All Along The Watchtower (Bob on electric keyboard)
4.	I Contain Multitudes (Bob on electric keyboard, Tony on standup bass)
5.	False Prophet (Bob on electric keyboard, Tony on standup bass)
6.	Black Rider (Bob on electric keyboard, Tony on standup bass)
7.	Love Sick (Bob on electric keyboard)
8.	Goodbye Jimmy Reed (Bob on electric keyboard, Tony on standup bass)
9.	I Can Tell (song by Samuel Smith) (Bob on electric keyboard, Tony on standup bass)
10.	I’ve Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You (Bob on electric keyboard, Tony on standup bass)
11.	Crossing The Rubicon (Bob on electric keyboard, Tony on standup bass)
—	Band introductions
12.	When I Paint My Masterpiece (Bob on electric keyboard, Tony on standup bass)
13.	Forgetful Heart (Bob on electric keyboard, Tony on standup bass)
14.	Soon After Midnight (Bob on electric keyboard)
15.	Nervous Breakdown (song by Eddie Cochran) (Bob on electric keyboard)
16.	Every Grain of Sand (Bob on electric keyboard and harp)

We drove 8 hours across the caliche flats and flare stacks of the Permian
Basin to Abilene, Texas, where Dylan is playing for the first time and
ending a leg of his Rough & Rowdy Ways Tour. What was it I saw? He walked
out in a white hooded windbreaker which was half boxing robe / half Sith
Lord aesthetic. With Dylan's white hood and sparse stage lighting, with
his position along the back line and the nondescript silver curtain behind
him, he would flicker in and out of existence, in and out of sight –
he's aware of this phenomenon and reinforces it with lines like:
"I'm nothing like my ghostly appearance would suggest".

It's an exercise in paying attention to get the most Dylan out of a Dylan
show, partially because of how he keeps disappearing or how restless you
get in the audience with no stage production, no public big screens and no
private little screens as cell phones were not allowed. There's no other
artist at his level that gives you so little to look at, and most of this
Abilene audience simply couldn't handle it as evidenced by the near
constant movement of attendees back and forth from the lobby to their
seats. The darkness of the venue was pierced every 10 to 20 seconds by the
harsh flood of the lobby's fluorescent light every time someone left or
returned mid-song to the concert hall (maybe those Abilenians were just taking a cue from Bob who got up from his chair 1,000 times over the 1.5 hour set). At a time when performers add more and more visuals at places like the Sphere, Dylan takes away everything and loads us up with poetry. With references to Poe, Blake and Whitman, he's gotten more literary while, let's face it, Americans have gotten less literary as the decades roll by. Don't you remember Ginsberg or Patti Smith standing by his side? Things aren't what they were.

The pronoun "you" was used in many of the songs he played tonight; sometimes it's the speaker's lover; sometimes it's us; sometimes it's both like in the
opening tune To Be Alone with You. Sometimes the "you" is the other
character in the narrative like in All Along the Watchtower. I'm in
there listening to lyrics as hard as I can, y'all know how it is, you
don't get every word because of how he's bobbing and weaving at the
mic like a boxer, how he's putting all his swagger on the phrasing and
how his inflections and mic-work are his stagecraft, but the poetry pokes
through when it needs to. Some poetry that clearly poked through in I
Contain Multitudes was "you greedy old wolf, I show you my heart / but
not all of it, only the hateful parts. / I'll sell you down the river,
I'll put a price on your head, / what more can I tell ya, I sleep with
life and death in the same bed." With good annunciation he makes sure
you hear the cornerstone bars to get the message of each song. In False
Prophet: "what are you lookin' at? there's nothing to see, / just a
cool breeze encircling me," and we are the ones directly commanded when
he sings "put out your hand, there's nothing to hold, / open your
mouth I'll stuff it with gold". There's a violence in the Rough and
Rowdy Ways lyric book that starts to pile up as he turns the page after
each song. He says "I'm just here to bring vengeance on somebody's head". He tells us about the pistols and knives he carries. He hacks off our arms.
He's armed and dangerous, more Malcolm X than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
these days.

His electric keyboard playing, always one-handed, sounded more normal than
when I last saw him in 2016. Sometimes he uses his other hand to cover a
yawn or pull close his sitting-mic. His playing sounded less circus-like
and less in opposition with the songs than it has before. There's no fat
in this music; short intros, short outros. My wife and I exchanged head
bobs and grateful glances during Love Sick; it seemed like he had the
lyrics to that one memorized and it was ominous, confident and rocking.
The solos are all very brief, though he did his longest solo in Goodbye
Jimmy Reed near the end. I Can Tell was a nice cover that shook up the
tempo, but more than that its lyrics fit in with this tour's songs of
love and betrayal. Speaking of love, I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself
to You was my 15-year-old daughter's favorite song; do you remember your
first Dylan show? He used his sweet voice for this one, sans growl. Anton
leaned in over the bass drum, lowered his shoulders and played with
startling restraint in Crossing the Rubicon. They have expansive dynamics
in this one, and it was a show highlight. Forgetful Heart was communicated
with a clear melody, and it's a great treat to hear a song he co-wrote
with Robert Hunter.

The playing throughout the show was crisp and the 2 acoustic guitars kept
it earthy and ironic after all that fuss about him going electric.
Tony's bass playing stood out to me; his establishment of each note, his
embossing of each tone; you can hear his finger feeling for it, shaping
it: out it plops a micro-moment before the snare drops. Several of the
songs crackled with a palpable-juke-joint-jolt and I think Tony did most
of that, especially when he played electric bass. Throughout the show, and
especially in Every Grain of Sand, I noticed when Bob is delivering lyrics
the loudest, he is coming into a line, often with a prepositional phrase.
For example, he's really loud and deliberate at the beginning of lines
like "in the fury of the moment, I can see the master's hand." By
the end of the line he's pulled away from the mic to de-emphasize the
concrete nouns of the "master’s hands", he's swiveled to give it that
Dylan touch we keep coming back for.

I would not blame Dylan for continuing this exact setlist, this exact
libretto, when he starts up again this summer. It tells a good story, asks
all the most pressing questions, and reminds us who he is, who he was, and
who — before our very eyes — he's changing into.

Tim Staley

Wife and daughter in Abilene on day of show

This review was originally published on BOB LINKS which is a long-standing and amazing resource for Dylan fans.

USA Election Poem ~ October 30, 2024

Served with a ramekin of zesty ranch,
a human arm. This is the city
of big butts and bigger gyatts.
Of the sunrise over Gyatt Mountain
I taste baby powder, sulfur, regret.

“How long did it take to get here?”
“How long has the clock been stuck
at 3:07 PM?”

Pew says “about two-thirds (66%)
of the voting-eligible population
turned out for the 2020 presidential
election.” Yet somehow we’re divided
perfectly in half like a clay spaghetti
tennis court?!

From space your broken toe looks
terrible, and your heartache worse,
and your piñata full of lukewarm
bile, bluegray Kisses and ill-
conceived haiku is exploding
errant syllables everywhere and a moral ~

a moral is an egg
on a green enchilada flopped
over easy.

PS: “Only a creative mind can make use of hope” – Jericho Brown

~~~

USA Election Poem 2 ~ November 3, 2024

Out in the desert I found a TRUMP sign
beside Pat Garrett’s death site.
Immediately came the metaphor making:
TRUMP’s the lawman that killed Billy the Kid.
Which makes Billy the Kid the Kamala.
Which makes me the one
on the high ground,
top of the hill, who killed Sheriff Pat Garrett.

Suzanne said the man
who put the TRUMP sign there
wasn’t making a metaphor, but if he was,
TRUMP would be Billy the Kid haunting his killer, dancing on the cross
carved into concrete, singing lawmen die,
outlaws never do.

In a stroke of switcheroo,
I pulled the TRUMP sign
from Pat Garrett’s death site
and placed it on the nearest abandoned car:
a modern sport coup in sparkly blue,
blown out from the inside,
a cartel job or something worse,
the windshield glittering like a magic carpet
across the dash, the frontend chopped
completely off.

Maybe the man who put the TRUMP sign
beside Pat Garrett’s death site
is the island of trees, some up to 30 feet,
standing out in a circuitry of arroyos
and offroads
and powerline service roads,
and maybe these 2 roadrunners
scrambling across the trail are you and me,
and maybe the creosote
rattled by the breeze
remains undecided.

~~~

USA Election Poem 3 ~ November 4, 2024

I’m just writing this poem instead of eating highlighters, chewing gum foil, raisins, or Sylvia’s halloween candy.

This afternoon I wrote “environment”, “change”, and “open border” on a piece of scratch paper in a column labeled BIG. I wrote in pen so it’s permanent.

Most Americans vote for their team, despite this season’s roster. Team captains come and go, mascots are always silly, it’s the score that counts.

Ronald Reagan played right guard for the O AND the D. Yes, he played for Eureka from 1929 to 1931 but none of the plays were of his design.

How could my poem ride a bike up a steep hill and benefit your heart? We don’t need to argue anymore about whether the songbird is pleased with its singing. Sylvia says ants have more brain cells than any other insect.

My student said “coach said if you don’t cheat, are you really trying to win?” A plastic drinking straw, a missing screwdriver with a long silver shaft, boxes of dead batteries and blown bulbs atop the fridges overflowing.

PS: Coach said he doesn’t like Hail Mary.

~~~

USA Election Poem 4 “the donkaphant” ~ approximately 9 PM, November 5, 2024

The donkaphant’s middle finger is so tall it comes all the way around

to make a circle

of middle-finger-fellowship.

I tried getting away from the donkaphant, as soon as I started crossing ~ the bright upright

red hand of halt!!

write enough poems

economics stop

driving your vote.

I saw a man leaving Albertsons today, staring at a single red rose, utterly dumbfounded ~ he had the telltale gait and demeanor of the donkaphant.

I let the donkaphant rumble with dust bunnies, let it tussle with sourdough crumbs, then I let it out with the dogs and mopped the kitchen with vinegar, lukewarm tap and cobalt qualms.

you can let the donkaphant kiss you good night, but no tongue!

~~~

USA Election Poem 5 “I always forget that u in fabulous” ~ November 8,2024

What’s supply and demand have to do with the dead Mediterranean gecko on the key card reader to get into my school?

The little baby froze to death with his eyes wide open last night, the mountains are dusted with snow, how cute.

You want me to care about all the dead people everywhere else when somehow, this little Mediterranean gecko is stiff with his black onyx eyes wide-open, dull enough to reflect my silhouette. I touched its tail. It did not move.

I walked to the library, but it was closed. I wanted coffee, not books, not words, just the liquid oubliette of drug.

What’s supply and demand got to do with all this dying? Why do I feel like crying, when it’s just a dumb old Mediterranean gecko ~ you can tell by his name he doesn’t belong here.

I voted. I got a little sticker for voting. I put the sticker in my car’s cup holder. When my team lost, I put the sticker on my dumpster ~ supply and demand ~ how poetic.

~~~

poet’s note ~ 1 PM, November 11, 2024 : I’ve been wondering what it was about this 2024 presidential election that inspired so many poems from me and also, what inspired me to so feverishly share them on social media? I write everyday but rarely post my poems. Perhaps it was that many people had the election on their minds, and I wanted to capitalize on that possible interested audience? Did I finally have a built-in audience like a Grateful Dead cover band? Perhaps the thought of another 4 years of Trump scared me, and then when it was made clear that most of our country voted Republican, I went from scared to empty. 2 of my poetry heroes, James Tate and Anne Waldman, both say that writing while exhausted can bring about sometimes great but typically surprising work as it bypasses ego; perhaps that’s what happened with me, perhaps my tiredness of all things Trump led to an explosion of poetry that superseded ego.

I wrote the first poem with my students throughout the day, and it came about automatically and was brimming with joy. I trusted the automatic and joyful nature of it immediately. When a poem comes fast, a poet feels it may be a gift from the poetry gods. What’s the old adage, never look a gift poem in the mouth? This poem wasn’t edited or revised for meaning or sound or any of that.

The second poem is one that has been brewing for over a year. What I mean is I have been wanting to finish a poem about the Pat Garret death site ever since I first visited it last year. It really is 2 miles directly South of my school, out in the desert. I went back to the site this year on November 3, and saw the Trump sign, and I really did remove it and place it in a destroyed vehicle. After the first draft, I returned to my journal from a year ago to see if I could cherry pick some lines about my first visit to the death site, which I did. Finally I had enough components to play with in a poem and I went for it. I made a few changes and them posted. I didn’t fiddle with it forever, like I do most my other poems, because election poems are urgent, and will rot and fester in the sun if left unattended.

The third poem was a way for me to push my idea that we only vote for our team. As an artist who feels shit, as someone who roots for the losers, how else can I rationalize the majority of my country’s electorate without separating Trump from the Republican party? Americans handle their political party the same way they handle their favorite NFL team; for example, most Americans only care about football during football season, see how easy the comparison?

The forth poem came on the evening of voting day. Results were not in yet, and I didn’t know that Trump was winning. This poem was an escape from waiting, as perhaps, all poems are. I thought the AI image of the donkaphant was funny. Instead of pulling away into hateful division, I went the other direction. Instead of using heated hyperbole (which was a common move by other social media poets), I used trippy, and hopefully humorous, juxtaposition. I didn’t want to write anything I would feel embarrassed about with my community members, coworkers and students if Trump won.

After I learned Trump won I withdrew into my non-poetic self. I got numb and tired and irritable and had zero energy for students, and even less for loved ones. I did not write one word from Wednesday morning to Friday morning, which is rare for me. I wondered at the time, why? Mary Ruefle talks about how we write poems when we are distressed but sometimes we don’t; why do we sometimes write when distressed and sometimes shut down our writing when distressed? Perhaps I was empty somehow emotionally, especially after having written 4 poems already that week. Was I too sad, too shocked, too incredulous, too mad, too disappointed to write? I walked into school Friday and saw that dead lizard by the door and became very emotional about it. I couldn’t handle that dead lizard. Then I was in my classroom before school doing my daily meditation and core strengthening and I was asked to spell “fabulous”, I kept spelling it in my head with 7 letters, forgetting that “u” in the middle. WOW. I always forget the u (u = you) in fabulous. That was the spark and then whole poem just poured out. So even though I wan’t writing on Wednesday and Thursday my subconscious never unplugged the hotplate, and once I met some requisite number of poetic ingredients (images, ideas, good lines) I just mixed it quickly and served cold.

I share these 2024 election day poems on my personal site today so we can remember what went down according to one human’s inner life. That’s what poetry is, the inner life. When it comes to someone’s inner life, you have nothing but your own to compare it to. Elections are the outer life. We, you and me, are the gray area stuck in-between but with poetry we can grease ourselves up to slip the shackle of boring old polarization.

Tim Staley, poet

BOB DYLAN CONCERT REVIEW ~ 5.1.25 ~ Abilene, Texas

USA 2024 ELECTION SEQUENCE