The cover photo is a curandero from the Vaupes region of Colombia.
I know more now than I did here at the time.
Yage is the fictional pseudonym of Brian Dougans & Garry Cobain from
FSOL. Often credited as the "engineer" on FSOL releases. "The Yage Letters" is the fourth track from the 2008s The Woodlands of Old.
I decided to add the track "Yage" from The Future Sound of London's 1996 release Dead Cities as well.
EPILOGUE (1963)
Sad hand down backward time track---Genital pawn ticket peeled his stale
underwear---
Brief boy on screen laughing my skivies all the way down---
Whispers of dark street in Puerto Assis---Meester smiles through the village wastrel---Orgasm siphoned back telegram: 'Johnny pants down'.---(That stale summer dawn smell in the garage---Vines twisting through steel---Bare feet in dog's excrement.)
Panama clung to our bodies from Las Palmas to David on camphor sweet smells of cooking paregoric---Burned down the republic---The druggist no glot clom Fliday---Panama mirrors of 1910 under seal in any drug store---He threw in the towel, morning light on cold coffee---
Junk kept nagging me: 'Lushed in East St Louis, I knew you'd come scraping bone---Once a junky always spongy & rotten---I knew your life---Junk sick four days there.'
Stale breakfast table---Little cat smile---Pain & death smell of his sickness in the room with me---Three souvenir shots of Panama city---Old friend came & stayed all day---Face eaten by 'I need more'---I have noticed this in the New World---'You come with me, Meester?'
& Joselito moved in at Las Playas during the essentials---Stuck in this place---Iridescent lagoons, swamp delta, gas flares---Bubbles of coal gas still be saying 'A ver, Luckees!' a hundred years from now---A rotting teak wood balcony propped up by Ecuador.
'The brujo began crooning a special case---It was like going under ether into the eyes of a shrunken head---Numb, covered with layers of cotton---Don't know if you got my last hints trying to break out of this numb dizziness with Chinese characters---All I want is out of here---Hurry up please---Took possession of me---How many plots have made a botanical expedition like this before they could take place?---Scenic railways---I am dying cross wine dizziness---I was saying over & over "Shifted commissions where the awning flaps" Flashes in front of your eyes your voice & end of the line'
That whinning Panama clung to our bodies---I went into Chico's Bar on mouldy pawn ticket, waiting in 1920 movie for a rum coke---Nitrous flesh under this honky tonk swept out by your voice: 'Driving Nails In My Coffin'---Brain eating birds patrol 'Your Cheating Heart'---Dead post card waiting a place forgotten---Light concussion of 1920 movie---Casual adolescent had undergone special G.I. processing---Evening on the boy's naked flesh---Kept trying to touch in sleep---'Old photographer trick wait for Johnny---Here goes Mexican cemetery.' On the sea wall met a boy with red & white striped T shirt---P.G. town in the purple twilight---The boy pealed off his stale underwear scraping erection---Warm rain on the iron roof---Under the ceiling fan stood naked on bed service---Bodies touched electric film, contact sparks tingled---Fan whiffs of young hard on washing adolescent T shirt---The blood smells drowned voices & end of line---That's Panama---Sad movie drifting in islands of rubbish, black lagoons & fish people waiting a place forgotten---Fossil honky tonk swept out by a ceiling fan---Old photographer trick tuned them out.
'I am dying, Meester?'
Flashes in front of my eyes naked & sullen---Rotten dawn wind in sleep---Death rot on Panama photo where the awning flaps.
from The Yage Letters, William S. Burroughs
