Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

 Bowery Blues


The story of man
Makes me sick
Inside, outside,
I don't know why
Something so conditional
And all talk
Should hurt me so.

I am hurt
I am scared
I want to live
I want to die
I don't know
Where to turn
In the Void
And when
To cut
Out

For no Church told me
No Guru holds me
No advice
Just stone
Of New York
And on the cafeteria
We hear
The saxophone
O dead Ruby
Died of Shot
In Thirty Two,
Sounding like old times
And de bombed
Empty decapitated
Murder by the clock.

And I see Shadows
Dancing into Doom
In love, holding
TIght the lovely asses
Of the little girls
In love with sex
Showing themselves
In white undergarments
At elevated windows
Hoping for the Worst.

I can't take it
Anymore
If I can't hold
My little behind
To me in my room

Then it's goodbye
Sangsara
For me
Besides
Girls aren't as good
As they look
And Samadhi
Is better
Than you think
When it starts in
Hitting your head
In with Buzz
Of glittergold
Heaven's Angels
Wailing

Saying

We've been waiting for you
Since Morning, Jack
Why were you so long
Dallying in the sooty room?
This transcendental Brilliance
Is the better part
(of Nothingness
I sing)

Okay.
Quit.
Mad.
Stop.

Jack Kerouac :

Alice Oswald

Time Poem by Alice Oswald



now the sound of the trees is
worldwide

and I'm still here
staring when I should be bathing
children.

it's late, the bike's asleep on its feet.

the fields hang to the sun by
slackened lines...
when the grass breathes, things fall.
I saw
the luminous underneath of a moth.
and a blackbird
mouth to the glow of the hour in
hieroglyphics.

who left the light on the step?
pause

what is the pace of a glance?

the man at the wheel signs his speed
on the ringroad

right here in my reach, time is as
thick as stone
and as thin as a flying strand

it's night and somebody's
pushing his mower home
to the moon

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)

Cause And Effect

the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them

 

Charles Bukowski :

Jose Guadalupe Posada

Bob Kaufman (1925-1986)

O-Jazz-O
Where the string
At
some point,
Was umbilical jazz,
Or perhaps,
In memory,
A long lost bloody cross,
Buried in some steel cavalry.
In what time
For whom do we bleed,
Lost notes, from some jazzman's
Broken needle.
Musical tears from lost
Eyes.
Broken drumsticks, why?
Pitter patter, boom dropping
Bombs in the middle
Of my emotions
My father's sound
My mother's sound,
Is love,
Is life.

Dan Verkys

 

Lucille Ball (1911-1989)

I'm sometimes scared of everything that has happened to us. We didn't think Desilu Productions would grow so big. We merely wanted to be together and have two children.

Lenny Bruce (1925-1966)

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996)

I Sit By The Window

I said fate plays a game without a score,
and who needs fish if you've got caviar?
The triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass
and turn you on--no need for coke, or grass.
I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen.
When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn't often.

I said the forest's only part of a tree.
Who needs the whole girl if you've got her knee?
Sick of the dust raised by the modern era,
the Russian eye would rest on an Estonian spire.
I sit by the window. The dishes are done.
I was happy here. But I won't be again.

I wrote: The bulb looks at the flower in fear,
and love, as an act, lacks a verb; the zer-
o Euclid thought the vanishing point became
wasn't math--it was the nothingness of Time.
I sit by the window. And while I sit
my youth comes back. Sometimes I'd smile. Or spit.

I said that the leaf may destory the bud;
what's fertile falls in fallow soil--a dud;
that on the flat field, the unshadowed plain
nature spills the seeds of trees in vain.
I sit by the window. Hands lock my knees.
My heavy shadow's my squat company.

My song was out of tune, my voice was cracked,
but at least no chorus can ever sing it back.
That talk like this reaps no reward bewilders
no one--no one's legs rest on my sholders.
I sit by the window in the dark. Like an express,
the waves behind the wavelike curtain crash.

A loyal subject of these second-rate years,
I proudly admit that my finest ideas
are second-rate, and may the future take them
as trophies of my struggle against suffocation.
I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out
which is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out.

Maria Szantho

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

http://youtu.be/Lwi56fZpn6w

"A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"


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
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue eyed son?
And what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin'
I saw a white ladder all covered with water
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder that roared out a warnin'
I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin'
I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you meet my blue-eyed son ?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony
I met a white man who walked a black dog
I met a young woman whose body was burning
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow
I met one man who was wounded in love
I met another man who was wounded in hatred
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
And what'll you do now my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin'
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest
Where the people are a many and their hands are all empty
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison
And the executioner's face is always well hidden
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten
Where black is the color, where none is the number
And I'll tell and speak it and think it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
But I'll know my song well before I start singing
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

19

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Devouring Time blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix, in her blood,
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st,
And do whate'er thou wilt swift-footed Time
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen,
Him in thy course untainted do allow,
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do thy worst old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

William Stafford (1914-1993)

Traveling Through The Dark

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

 

William Stafford :

Norval Morisseau (1931-2007)

dg nanouk okpik

Excerpt from Corpse Whale

Ukiuk: Winter Siqinrilaq Tatqiq: December
Moon with no sun Ukpeagvik: Barrow
Tuluqraq: Raven
A high place for viewing; a root of a point
2 feet from the left, 71 degrees north,
Gateway to the Arctic
in the center of the earth a gingko tree
is planted. A hole drilled in the rocks
penetrates where the flesh is easily
separated where her/my roots grow.
Her/my cadaver sings an old honor slow low.
For she/I want/s confession with a full
wafer and a drop of wine.

Andrew Radcliffe

Garry Snyder

How Poetry Comes to Me

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light

Doug Draime

Poem For A Political Poet

for Amiri Baraka

What honor is there?
The lie creates idols of
……………..death.
Why hang the grave clothes of the
‘old man’ on the new man?
And, from where, brother poet, does your
new man emerge?
Ideas? Concepts of Cultural Global
Political Revolution?


Politics is a grotesque lie.
Politics is a vexation of the spirit.
Politics is an affliction of the mind.
Politics is the “devil’s” street game.
I see the rage in your face.
I am grounded with the brilliant rage of your poems,
………………..into the sense of your sensibilities..
Your language has always been my language; your
words I know from the very blood of my soul.


Often we react to the
oppressor with stupidity. When we
don’t acknowledge that stupidity,
it becomes iniquitous, and the psychotic
barbarians resume their dance in
praise of the dying atmosphere,
………………as once intelligent men
………………………and women
pay homage to dictators, liars, butchers,
who promise equality, liberation; men
who would cut the throats of your children for
an idea.


Men whose souls rot and stink with
the hatred of innocence and regenerated life,
………men who collectively tortured, enslaved,
and murdered millions upon millions of people,
men who would pour wax over poets and
burn them as candles in the bloodied moonlight.

David Crosby

I am having so much fun performing, I feel almost guilty. I think, my God, I hope no one comes and busts me for this.

Ringo Starr

I like Beethoven, especially the poems.