Mel Lyman
38 Canal St.
New York City
NY

[May 7, 1963]

I hear good things are happening in Portland, Sofia & Ebon balling & of course as the Polack prophet declared "a delightful season is on the way" & the old beatniks' innocent "I see purple clouds on the horizon" and again me "I'm going to prison and rot"
Michael & I were busted in Florida being vagged & him not hip to swallowing joints & the righteous moral ones seizing them marijuana cigarettes & securing us both charged with mutual possession of said reefers oh woe once more bound by the blind.
We go to trial June 1st in Tallahassee, Florida, judge Lee & do you know any influential people, like politicians, in this our stinking south, namely shiteating Florida to put in a kind word. I'm presently out on Bail (Dear Miss Judy) & doing my will & final memoirs shaving my heads & beards, gouging out my eyes & cutting off my ears unplugging my cord & in general preparing myself for rehabilitation & justice. I'm a criminal & I want to repent & do good & grow up into a fine upstanding respectable citizen, like everybody else, like cops & lawyers & bankers & Elks Club & politicians.

Love Mel

Mel Lyman
1004 Newton Ave. So.
St. Petersburg 5, Fla.

[May 24, 1963]

Steve

Last night we made fudge & love & merry & music. We are happy here, Judy & I, & so in love every minute is vibrant plus many many good people now my heart is breaking because I hate to pass on good times & I have only 3 days left on earth & I don't want to die yet. I'm too involved with living & loving like a song I wrote:

I had a little sweetheart in this world
I"had a little"sweetheart""in this wo"
But I went away
I could not stay
Cause I'm loving in this world or
Cause I'm living in this world or
Cause I'm leaving in this world

Bruce & Jim are here, Ebon & Ross & Heisermann & Ray are in Portland, God is everywhere.
Judy quit school & we are oh so much in love. Today is Thursday. Monday I leave for Florida to stand trial for something or other. The law of opposites is inherent in the physical life of man & these two contradictory forces are responsible for all earthly action. The opposing factors of a body which cannot conceive infinity & a soul which is infinity. Hence heaven & hell, beautiful & ugly, freedom vs. slavery, hence society & all it's precautions & lies, hence jails.
And so, knowing these truths & thereby being out of context, being a threat, I am at the mercy of the blind ones, in the unyielding, unfruitful hands of the fanatics. They won't cop to objective beauty or acknowledge a God who never questions his own existence, they fear death because it is infinite & thus negative, they will do their ugly spider dance in the ugly web they have created, they kick & scream & call names & fear, yes fear & pain & lack of faith & desperate wild outward grasping. They will never have the courage to peer inward, dissolve the inner walls of lies & discover that they too are in prison, doing time. Life is good.
Love, Mel

Mel Lyman