<smith's "autobiography"> 2002-11-25.3:24 p.m. autobiography patti smith great human wild animal amoral an outlaw keep watch over her I was born in Illinois...mainline of America... beat to shit...Chicago tenement big red eyed rats in the night...dead rats to tease at night Morning...I waited for the organ grinder with my nickel for the monkeys tin cup gingerbread man...cotton candy man bad girl setting fire to the oil cans run like hell escape on the icemans truck I was a limping ugly duck but I had good luck Mama filled me with fantasy...my bears danced at midnight even my toybox had a soul Mama called me her goat girl...little black sheep I loved my brother and sister: Todd and Linda we drank each others blood...we were double blood brothers we rolled in fields...three white wolves...we practised telepathy no one could separate us...our minds were one One, little one eye...I had an eyepatch...I walked like a duck In the years the nursery children cried Quack Quack I didn't care and didn't fight back I floated off...fantasy gave me fire...I was made of water the moon caused tidal waves and I'd cry like a coyote I learned to drift...magik...tarot pack I paraded in thirty disguises and when people laughed at my carnival family We didn't care...We had armor: Daddy was a tap dancer...acrobat...wild horse tracing pornography through the bible. Mama was the dream of every sailor...bootlegged whiskey called spirits from evenings half moon...dream weaver We braved hurricanes...a new baby came...I named her Kim the neighbors were suspicious...they called us witches we didn't care...we were laughing and dancing and damned and there was always music Hank Williams crying off the lonesomes funny valentine...Patty Waters beat of the drum...bartok song of the swamp rat rock and roll music rock and roll music Rythum On my own...my own rythums: rythum of the railroad steamheat of the factory Alabama blues on a migrant bus but as a blueberry picker I failed...I dreamed too much the berry crop died...my mother smiled. I ran off...I traveled...I broke down kept running...TB trapped in the lung...spitting on the railroad track I shook...I drank...rythum of one too many rhums Drunk and broke down I slinked home...grabbed my sisters hand and away we run...We took a freighter to Iceland railway to Paris...Pigalle and wine in a black dress I joined the fire eaters and sang in the streets...using all I learned from Lotte Lenya...Bob Dylan...and motorcycle rock n' roll We lived near a wishing well...milked goats...capture snails and crawled back to New York. New York my greatest love: Rise of the building flash of 42nd street...the pool halls...the hustlers the trucks along tenth avenue the helicopter yards ghost of Jackson Pollock human shit and dead dog floating on the Hudson River moving...I kept moving dreaming: Panama...heart of adventure the hot life of Mexico the drunkard...the dock worker Rythum...flash of white hair...winter the Jesters...the Paragons rise of the blue heron breathe through the great rythum scream through the Shepard sing through that rock n' roll music rock n' roll music rock n' roll music rock n' roll back /& forth /& frosting names are often sad