Bob Dylan Pawns His Watch (Part III)
By Larry Fyffe
Detective Dupin points out that limited-thinking policemen, unlike the eight-year-old boy, miss evidence that’s right in front of their faces, evidence that clearly shows that Apollo and Mona track Apostle John to Turkey where he’s carved up with a crooked knife as if by a couple of enraged orangutans,
Poe’s poetic detective notes that Beelzebub is thereby cast out of John’s body, and Satan flees back to Tartarus.
Dupin notes too the evidence given up front in the Holy Bible that miracle-worker Jesus Himself must be possessed of Beelzebub:
But some of them said
He caste the out devils through Beezelbub The chief of the devils (Luke 11:15)
In any event, with St. John’s body liberated, his soul is directed down the right-hand road, and over the river by ferry to the Strawberry Fields of Elysium:
Roll on, John, roll through the rain and snow Take the right hand road, and go where the buffalo roam They'll trap you in an ambush before you know To late to sail back home (Bob Dylan: Roll On John)
The story does not end there, however. The Almighty allows St. John to return to the Upper World in bodily form where he finishes writing the Book of Revelation.
The vampiric Beelzebub, not one to give up, is right behind him, ready to possess others, whether John, Jesus, or simple railroad men.
Apollo’s sister, the Moon Goddess, warns her brother:
Mona tried to tell me To stay away from the train line She said that all the railroad men Just drink up your blood like wine (Bob Dylan: Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again)
Apollo, the Sun God, as well as the God of Music, doesn’t care; fears not Satan any more than he does the Saint when John’s possessed by the Lord of the Flies.
Like Elijah, Apollo challenges the Devil to a contest:
I'm gonna make you play the piano like Leon Russell Like Liberace, like St. John the Apostle I'll play every number that I can play I'll see you, maybe, on Judgment Day (Bob Dylan: My Own Version Of You)
Hebrew prophet Elijah wins, so goes the story in the Holy Bible:
And Elijah said unto them Take the prophets of Baal Let not one of them escape And they took them And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon And slew them there (l Kings 18: 40)
Crimson-coloured Beelzebub is not at all amused that yellow-haired Apollo, whom he calls “Bunyan’s bunion”, wins all the races.
While he comes in second at best:
The keeper of the city keys Puts shutters on the dreams I wait outside the pilgrim's door With insufficient dreams (King Crimson: The Court Of The Crimson King)
Bob Dylan Pawns His Watch (Part IV)
Jesus, James, and John are on the road to the lion-filled Coliseum.
They’re singing:
Got to hurry back to my hotel room Where I've got me a date with Botticelli's niece Yup, she promised that she's be right there with me When I paint my masterpiece (Bob Dylan: When I Paint My Masterpiece)
The three of them start laughing. A parchment falls to the ground.
Edgar Allan Poe’s detective Dupin finds the parchment; takes it down to Ida’s Cafe where he reads it while drinking a cup of coffee.
Sees written thereon a conversation between Zeus and son Apollo:
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son And where have you been, my darling young one I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways (Bob Dylan: A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall)
Detective Dupin lights his pipe, holds the parchment up to the window, and notices that the last line quoted above has been changed to “on six crooked highways” from the original “with six crooked knives”.
And he recalls from his knowledge of history that Rome becomes known as “The City of the Seven Hills” after a big flood washes five of them away.
On a hunch, Dupin journeys to Greece in order to examine documents stored at the Court of Athena.
What he uncovers makes it clear why Apollo does what he does ~ the Sun-God decides to side with the Trojans against the Greeks.
Yellow-haired Apollo believes that Beelzebub gets to have all the fun; gets to win all the battles.
Trojan leader Aeneas loses the Trojan War, escapes to Italy, and founds Rome; only to have it taken over by the followers of St. John.
Apollo knows that Hera, the wife of Zeus, is not his real mother, and she really hates the Trojans because Paris chooses Aphrodite as the most beautiful of three women – Hera and Athena lose out because Aphrodite bribes Trojan Paris by promising to deliver Helen of Greece to him.
The motive now plain to Dupin as to why the Sun-God uses a crooked knife to carve up Apostle John.
The question now ~ who’s next in line for angry Apollo – aka, “Jack of Hearts”/”Mack The Knife”:
Oh the shark, babe, has such teeth dear And he shows them pearly white Just a jack-knife has old Mcheath, babe And he keeps it out of sight (Bobby Darin; Mack The Knife ~ Brecht/Weil))
Masterpiece is on UTube