Poems for Eva Bee

The early writings of Peter Stone Brown Esq from Milburn, NJ 1965 to 1966

and

Oct 13, 2024

Mysterious post from the USA (September 2023)

Sometime in September of 2023 I received mail from the USA. Inside I found another envelope stamped and dated Milburn, NJ, Jan 1966. Printed in faded blue-green felt-tip pen were phrases like “END THE WAR IN VIETNAM”, “LIFE IS JUST EXISTANCE” and lines from Bob Dylan songs. On the flip side you could tell it’d been mailed from Desolation Row, something nobody had to think too much about, and there was message for a man named Jones.

Peter’s heavily annotated and old-weary-fragile envelope

Inside I was astonished to find stream-of-conscious surrealist poems written by Peter Stone Brown dating back as early as 1965, typed and attached with rusty staples, stains, fingerprint smudges and notations.

Dear Eva

Dear Eva,
Eva,
How come it is than youse haven’t called or writ
But sumthin which is nuthin’
anyway, I miss you horrible.
And wish you’d ledt me know what is upt
Wat youse.
Is that alright with yours sending youse another poem
It’s called portrait of an intellectual raping.
Do you like the sounds of silence
Exams exams exas exams exames!
It’s so disgusting
Help me badly,
I can’t stand it !
the kids in school and everything.
how come you weren’t excited or nuthin when i told you thet i was moving
to new york city.
they want me to get a haircut so bad in school thet they spread a rumour that
i got one.
i’m comin’ into new york i think the saturday around the 29th or something.
school is so ridiculous
and everyone/
agrees/
with me/
but/ they don’t do nithin/
about it.
i miss you and need you
and dig you,
and you -
ain’t givin’ me nothin’

(over)
recently
i need new york bad,
i haven’t been out of this state since january first,
and baby that is bad!

i continually go out of my mind an am very hung-up,
i got some sort of job whicht starts next saturday,
which is alright.

mimi & richard farina have a new record out.
are you going to the dylan concert in white plains?

Bob Dylan, White Plains, NY, February 5th, 1966

this country needs a revolution now///
and i’m really gettin’ sick of nonviolence,

i’m really starting to hate some people,
and i have never really hated before.

call me please, i don’t have no money to call you.

write me too.
can you come out here some day,
if you do bring some people with you if you
want to.
oh yea, and some 7th grader type square girls have flipped out over me,
and call me up and follow me all aroun’ the school,
and it is really funny.
i’m cool, your cool, some others are cool,
and life is shit!
i have ~~gine~~ given up any attempt at taking life seriously,
petula clean-ass clark is on the radio,
what that love shit song and i feel sick,
call me please, I’m Alone