Article Name
AMERICA
Drummed out of the infantry of death
I came back to you carrying the
Poems of my soul
Opened the door of life
And found only death inside
America
I have read the state of the union
And listened to the state of the economy
By statesmen in a state of hysteria
America where the
Poor and the black
Are sentenced to Attica
And the rich serve time at San Clemente
America where the
Coal miner's lungs are used
For corporate profit
Where the only sounds that can be heard
Is the opening and closing of the
Downtown Bank of America
America where the angry voices
Of soccer moms can be heard
Preparing their children for death
Amidst the hurried jerks of masturbation
Coming from the closets of the university
America where the elderly are treated
Like abandoned railroad boxcars
Kept idle unemployed
Forced to walk the streets
Like an unacceptable poem
America
It's hard living in a country where the
Hours are shaped like coffins
The law and order administration
Running wild at Waco and Ruby Ridge
America where the politicians sold the
Country to General Motors and IBM
And gave the people buffalo stew
And scientology
Readers Digest has renewed its option
On the educational system
The mafia weans the poor on drugs
While McDonald's and Coca Cola
Compete for the nation's heart
America
You leave a trail of death behind
Everywhere you go
Desecrating the bodies of men
Women and children
From Wounded Knee to Vietnam
Leaving behind a trail of genocide
As your calling card
America
Where the Narc's of New York City
Grow fat on the fears of thousands
Of junkies
Where the high priest of the cemetery
Drinks the rooster's blood
At the crossroad of reality
America
Where holiness is found in the
Bowels of Buddha
Where Christ died on the cross
And the police were quick
To take his place
America
The years grow heavy in the
Cavity of my heart
Leaving me feeling
Like an army mule carrying
A cargo of death
Your bicentennial message
Ringing loud and clear
In every cash register across
America
The American way
If you can't kill them
Buy them into the system
America
I grow older carrying
A new found vision warmer that
A child's smile
Walking the streets of my mind's
Third eye
Lady death blinking like the
Flickering candles on a birthday cake
America
You are the only county I have known
For any length of time
And unlike some poets
I have no desire for Cuba or Moscow
But I am a man
I am a poet
I am the energy running through
Your withered veins
Not afraid of your shock and awe
Your disregard for international law
All too aware of the storm troopers
Of justice
Who would turn off the beauty
And discard it like a rusted faucet
These men in blue
Who sniff the blood of my wounds
Like a hound dog crossing
A river of blood
Their sirens playing mad tunes
Outside my window
Like a poet forced to read underwater
Where the poet twice dead
And once resurrected
Turns over in his grave
But the middle finger he raises
Is jammed back down his throat
Until the shit he shits is theirs
And the blood they bleed is his
And the cries united
Fill the air
Like a lonely bird
Lost in flight
REMEMBERING BOB KAUFMAN
He walked the streets of North Beach
An ancient warrior with hollow eyes
That seared the dazzling lights of the
City by the bay
His eyes boring into you like a drill
Carrying decades of heavy sorrow on his back
Like a bent-over hunchback
Overcome with the rust of time
Flesh stripped to the marrow
The mirror of his eyes doing a slow dance
Up and down Grant Avenue
A dark shadow riding clouds of "Ancient Rain"
His life measured in hot jazz and verse
A surreal mirage where hip cats
Wailed in precision rhythm
As he walked an imaginary zoo
Looking for tigers to talk too
Runaway poems blaring in his ears
Like a stuck car horn
The Ancient Rain falling
Falling
Falling
Washing away his wounds
POEM FOR JACK MICHELINE
He was the high note of a wailing saxophone
The spark that ignites a fire
He was a shot of tequila
A glass of imported beer
A shaman
A vagabond poet shuffling words
Like a river-boat gambler
Ravished by illness
Ravished by time
He painted his visions on canvass
In parks in bars and coffee houses
His poems singing out across the
Streets of America
Pure innocence pure genius
Spinning words that hung in the air
Like a hummingbird drunk on the
Pollen of life
WOMAN ON THE BALCONY
I see her two three
times a week
sitting on the balcony
when weather permits
here in old Italy town
in what is left of North Beach
her robe slightly parted thumbing through the
pages of a book
she may or may not be reading
taking no notice of the people down below
standing to stretch she yawns
legs like sturdy pillars that stretch
to reach the sky into the
boundaries of my mind
my eyes begging to read the pages
she turns with sensual fingers
wanting just one quick look
one intimate journey into the pages
into the space between the
parting of her robe
a journey to forbidden places
a flight back in time
to another place another world
high on a balcony where I too
ignore the people coming and going
down below
DIGITAL AGE
I told you not to take a snapshot
I don't photograph well
But you did nevertheless
And sent it to me by means of attachment
And there it was on the screen
In black and white the only colors that matter
And it split into two parts on the screen
Neither of them doing me justice
An injustice I am sure not intended
This faceless face staring back at me
Smashed into a thousand lines
This snapshot more like an empty face
Stuffed away in a shoebox
In the far corner of a closet
Like a series of quick winks lost
In cyber space
ON MY WAY TO BECOMING A MAN
On my way to Lackland Air Force Base
The train stopped to take on passengers
Giving me the chance to get off
Stretch my legs and relieve myself
On returning from the men's room
An elderly black man approached me
Wanting to know where the restroom was
And when I pointed in the direction
Of where I had just come from
He shuffled his feet nervously
And said, "No, the colored room"
And being naïve and from the North
I had no idea what he was talking about
When suddenly a woman came running
Out from behind a concession stand
Her face red with anger
Yelling for the old man
To leave me alone
As I tried in vain
To calm her down
Telling her it was all right
He was only looking for the
Men's room
"That boy knows where the colored room is"
She said, shooing the old man away
As I boarded the train
Turning to see him
Bent over a "colored" only
Water fountain
Ss the train picked-up steam
Sparks flying from the tracks
Taking me on my way
To becoming a man
Where I would have
My serial number branded into
My head
And made to wear a dog tag
Around my neck
To remind me
I was the property
Of Uncle Sam
PANAMA TEN
Two political prisoners were sitting
In their jeep with two
Panamanian National Guardsmen
Outside a bar in town
The two Panamanian Nationals
Went inside to check the bar
Leaving the two men
Handcuffed outside alone
Once inside the guardsmen spoke
To the bartender
In a language
I couldn't understand
When suddenly there was an explosion
Coming from outside the bar
And without looking the
Two guardsmen laughed
And downed their tequila and beers
While outside you could see the
Flames engulf the jeep
The two prisoners lit up
Like two scarecrows
Tossed into
A bonfire
PANAMA MEMORIES
The young Panamanian girl
Sitting alongside
Her sister dressed only
In panties and bra
Reading a comic book
And chewing on bubble gum
At a brothel called the
Teenage Club
Waiting for the first
GI's to arrive
Six girls lined-up
Like bowling pins
Rooted to the long
Wooden bench with
Zombie like stares
Doing a woman's thing inside
A child's body
RETURNING HOME FROM PANAMA
They had this bar at Ocean beach
Called the Chalet
It used to be a hangout for vets
The American Legion boys
Most of them fat and balding
The years piling up like litter
One so old that
He claimed he was gassed in
WW 1
You never knew whether
To believe him or not
He just sat there staring
Talking into his beer
Humming a song:
OVER HERE OVER THERE
And using terms like
Dough Boy and Pill Box
And you just somehow knew
He had to have been there
Was still there would always
Be there
I KISS THE FEET OF ANGELS
dark starry night
fog creeping in
over the hills
raindrops falling
on the window
I see the faces of old friends
staring at me
ghosts from the past
freight trains steam ships
subway trains carrying
their cargo of death
Corso the mad hatter
Baudelaire
Lorca fed a meal of bullets
Kaufman black messiah
walking Bourbon Street
eating a golden sardine
Micheline drinking with Kerouac
at the old Cedar Tavern
Jesus wiping the perspiration
From his forehead
the foghorn playing a symphony
inside my head
I hear the drums
I feel the beat
I kiss the feet of angels
OLD WARRIOR OF NORTH BEACH
He walks the streets of North Beach
Looking like an old man
With eyes empty as a broken parking meter
Unemployable weighed down by the years
His mind heavy as an anchor dragging the
Bottom of the ocean floor
Forgotten rebel playing old ballads
In the shipwreck of his heart
His mind destroyed by shock treatments
And one too many police batons
At night he dreams
He ‘s riding with Geronimo
Has imaginary conversations with Charlie Parker
Rides the ferry with Miles Davis
Getting off at Bourbon Street
To down a drink with Kerouac
He shares a cigarette with Charlie Chaplin
At the old Bijou theater
Walk the battlefields with Walt Whitman
Rides the plains with Red Cloud
In search of the last buffalo
Walking the streets of North Beach
In search of the elusive ginger fish smell
Death a sightless chauffeur
Waiting like a concubine facing another
Apocalyptic day
CITY POET
Once addiction sets in
There is no stopping it
You become a serial killer
Attacking the keyboard at will
Your mind working in shifts
Strange creatures live inside your head
Show no mercy give no ground
Forcing your fingers to do their bidding
Writing down your thoughts in your
Loose-leaf notebook
The city is your slaughterhouse
Like a wife it accommodates your moods
Doesn't seem to mind you giving
Her a bad name
You walk her streets a hungry vampire
Lapping up your own blood
On nights when blood transfusions
Are not enough
THE MAN YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE
beware, he'll talk you to death
while puffing on a cigarette
you can find him standing by the jukebox
begging for a quarter, waiting at the
pool table for an out-of-town mark
he's a would-be soldier
looking for a battle zone
a boner without a bone
he's a sex addict hiding under the bed
a towel-man cleaning up semen
from a whorehouse bedspread
he's a second rate Don Juan
reciting the 23rd psalm
he's the chef you never see
in a rich man's restaurant
he's the difference between
night and day
a preacher who sells options
on how to pray
he's the man behind the window
in the downtown pawnshop
he's a crooked weather-beaten cop
dining on mashed potatoes and pork chops
he's the ugly face you see on cable TV
trying to win over you and me
he's a funeral mortician bringing
you sadness and gloom
he's into yoga and a master of zen
he's the feed in a pigpen
he has his nose up the ass of anyone
who can do him a favor
he comes in twenty-four different flavors
he's the stain left behind in the church-pew
he's the masturbating monkey at the zoo
he's a shoe salesman, a fortune-teller
a dying man with a 106-degree fever
he's a jack-of-all trades
dressed in designer jeans and wearing shades
he's as old as mankind, a cheap treasure find
he's the man you never hope to see
when you look at yourself
in the mirror
FOR BERNIE
Survivor
Old-timer
In search of a fix
Burned spoon hovering over
Hot flame
Like a moth drawn to a light-bulb
Arm stretched tight with rubber band
Liquid death riding sunken vein
Resembling a cowboy looking
Forward to the last trail drive
THE WORLDS LAST RODEO
Strange this trip back in time
Not with flesh and blood
But in disguise of poems
Having survived all these decades
The muscles the cells changing
Dying and yet somehow managing
To survive
Traveling through a strange time tunnel
Through an origin you cannot remember
Because there is no you to remember it
Walking behind my shadow shedding the
Years like a snake sheds its skin
I who have never called myself a poet
Never clothed myself in consonants
And vowels nor took refuge
In similes or metaphors
Yet planting the words on the page
Like a florist preparing a bridal bouquet
A tender arrangement of flesh and bones
At war with the demons who leave behind
A Custer massacre of words
Left cooking these images like a fry cook
Scrambled over easy
Waking at three in the morning
With junkie like sweats
My eyes a heat seeking missile
Honing in on an invisible kill
Feeling like an alcoholic with the DT's
Trying to roll a cigarette atop
A bucking bull at the
World's last rodeo
AUDIENCE OF ONE
Old songs with half-forgotten lyrics
play inside my head
older still movies play on the
bark of my skin
Oklahoma, South Pacific, West Side Story
singing on the tip of my tongue
humming my way back to yesterday
left alone with ghostly echoes
that serenade the dead
I can almost feel the ignited passion
lost lovers draped on my bed
tasting the melody riding up and down
my spine
Memories of my parents old Victrola
vinyl records spinning
on a balanced groove
a love affair so fragile
it was like trying to thread a needle
in the teeth of a storm
Fading
fading
fading
now like an old flame sipping
on a cup of coffee
at my favorite café
a smile on her face
fingers snapping foot tapping
to the music that made us as one
Evaporating in the face of dawn
like clouds taking foreign shapes
like the smoke rings my father
blew my way as a child
Frank Sinatra crooning in the
background
the way of music
sex love god
and death
playing to an audience of one
GOING BACK IN TIME
I was looking at my scrapbook the
other night
while listening to an old Dylan record
and there I was in my youth traveling
from California to Arizona and places
further west
heading in so many directions
it was like getting lost in the
trick-mirrors at the old fun house
and there were the women
then young girls
free flowing spirits who gave
their minds and bodies at the
slightest invitation
and nights too lying alone
in tangled sleep feeling
like a deer caught in barbed wire
or sitting hunched over cold and disheveled
at the local Greyhound station
fighting off the eyes of leering men
who preferred boys to women
Now sixty and counting
I realize I was there and back so fast
like a train running out of track
returning home carrying my life
in a Knapp-sack
the days the months the years
hung out to dry
like your mother's washing
on an old clothesline
POEM FOR GINSBERG
I saw the best minds of my generation
Destroyed by greed, not so starving
hysterical, naked under their fashion designer clothes
driving themselves through congested city streets
looking for non-existent parking spaces
aging hormone driven biological clock mothers
offering their purple veined breasts to baby suckling
zombies, in and out of public.
who stock market driven and laser vision perception
sipped Starbuck's coffee under protective awnings
while watching beat cops shoo off the homeless
who chatted aimlessly on their cell phones
making reservations at trendy restaurants
while whining about the quality of the wine
who fucked only by appointment, dutifully expecting
a climax in sixty seconds or less
who shopped at organic food markets looking
for eternal youth while seeking cash rebates
with no idea what to do with them
who saw the savior while vacationing in Palm Springs
and God on Turner TV
who taught their children how to use ATM machines
while devising cleaver tax evasion schemes
who gave up writing to save a tree
and claimed it as a tax deduction
who drove their cars in the bicycle lane
hoping for some excitement
who pierced their nipples cocks and tongues
wanting to be among the hip and young
who pledged their allegiance to the almighty dollar
while writing protest letters to their daily newspaper
Holy is the sock. Holy is Swiss cheese
Holy is the ATM machine. Holy is cable television
Holy is the condom. Holy is the U.N.
Holy Is pop culture
ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching is the new
Holy Order
the Holy of the unholy
The best minds of my generation
OLD JOE
He sleeps in doorways
Doesn't want to move
Doesn't want to go
To a shelter
Not even when prodded
With the heaviness of the
Cop's nightstick
Under threat of jail
He curls up in a fetal position
Closes his eyes
Tries to shut out the
Memories of Vietnam
Nightmares whirl inside
His head
Like helicopter blades
The alcohol the drugs
The failed years gather
Like locusts inside the
Cranial guitar of his mind
Warrior troubadour
Of Pharaoh origins
Pale spokesman of lost tribes
Masked as homeless transient
Poet Prophet of beauty
And all its imperfections
Ravished by the streets
Kissed by angels
Left tired withered
Like an unattended Kansas
Grain field
AUDIENCE OF ONE
Old songs with half-forgotten lyrics
play inside my head
older still movies play on the
bark of my skin
Oklahoma, South Pacific, West Side Story
singing on the tip of my tongue
humming my way back to yesterday
left alone with ghostly echoes
that serenade the dead
I can almost feel the ignited passion
lost lovers draped on my bed
tasting the melody riding up and down
my spine
Memories of my parents old Victrola
vinyl records spinning
on a balanced groove
a love affair so fragile
it was like trying to thread a needle
in the teeth of a storm
Fading
fading
fading
now like an old flame sipping
on a cup of coffee
at my favorite café
a smile on her face
fingers snapping foot tapping
to the music that made us as one
Evaporating in the face of dawn
like clouds taking foreign shapes
like the smoke rings my father
blew my way as a child
Frank Sinatra crooning in the
background
the way of music
sex love god
and death
playing to an audience of one
The following poems are from my three most recent chapbooks: The Wrong Side Of Town (Cross Cultural Communications); This Land Is Not My Land (Presa Press) and The World's Last Rodeo (BOS Press).
CITY POET
Once addiction sets in
There's no stopping it
You become a serial killer
Attacking the keyboard at will
Your mind working in shifts
Strange creatures live inside your head
Show no mercy give no ground
Forcing your fingers to do their bidding
Writing down their thoughts
In your loose-leaf notebook
The city is your slaughterhouse
Like a wife it accomodates your moods
Doesn't seem to mind
Your giving her a bad name
You walk her streets
Like a hungry vampire
Lapping up your own blood
On nights when blood transfusions
Are not enough
THE WRONG SIDE OF TOWN
cop's flashlight intruding
on my thoughts
loud rapping on car window
demanding to know what I'm doing
out on the other side of town
at this ungodly hour
ordered out of car
frisked and taken downtown
for questioning
police suspicious
why would a white boy
be listening to a tape
of a black musician
in a respectible part
of town
POEM FOR CHARLIE MINGUS
Hot lava erupting in my head
wet sex screams riding my veins
white hot lightning bleeding my heart
like an undertaker dressing the dead
your rainvow notes cutting into me
like a surgeon's scalpel
leaves me feeling like a drunk Jesus
walking on water
FOR WILLIAM BURROUGHS
You played the game out
Like a Mafia Don
Late for an appointment
With the Godfather
Living life with the tenacity
Of a gunslinger
Looking for another notch
On his gun
Your cinema midnight cowboy eyes
Cut-up poster-boy hero images
Walking the mind's third eye
Like an aging dinosaur
Trudging his way through
Drug-induced mythologies
Grinding away the days the
Months the years
Like a frenzied lap dancer
Seeking pleasure in forbidden
Pleasure zones
68
lines beginning to form
on the corner of my eyes
and I eat not from hunger
but out of force of habit
the fire in the loins is still there
and the hose still hard
but no one to man it
PANAMA ONE
In Panama City the
Day they killed the President
A group of us were issued rifles
And a loaded clip
And told to assist the
Panama National Guard
In whatever way we could
Like rousting civilians
Who might be possible assassins
We split off from the
Rest of them six of us
Four half-drunk
And one stoned on grass
And dumb ass me wanting
To be anywhere but there
When we came across this woman
Working in the fields
And what started off as questioning
Turned out to be a strip-search
Eager hands violating
Every part of her body
And when I protested
I was told to shut up
Or get with it
They laughed that
They were only looking
For concealed weapons
Wrestling her to the ground
As I walked away in shame
Not wanting to be part of what
I had no chance of stopping
PANAMA SIX
She lay there on the bed
Naked legs spread open
Labia lobster red
Her eyes those of a prisoner
Serving a life sentence
We never said a word
It was like a mechanic working
On a used car
Trying to put life back into it
And failing to get a response
Her eyes two headlights
Burned into the ceiling
As if she were taking inventory
Of all those there before me
A never ending long line
Of raw sausages moving down
An assembly line
In a butcher factory
PANAMA TEN
Two political prisoners were sitting
In their jeep with two
Panamanian National Guardsmen
Outside a bar in town
The two Panamanian Nationals
Went inside to check out the bar
Leaving the two men
Handcuffed outside alone
Once inside the guardsmen spoke
To the bartender in a language
I couldn't understand
When suddenly there was an explosion
Coming from outside the bar
And without looking the
Two guardsmen laughed
And downed their tequila and beers
While outside you could see the
Flames engulf the jeep
The two prisoners lit up
Like two scarecrows tossed
Into a bonfire
PANAMA MEMORIES
The young Panamanian girl
Sitting alongside her sisters
Dressed only in panties and bra
Reading a comic book
And chewing on bubble gum
At a brothel called the
Teenage Club
Waiting for the first
GI's to arrive
Six girls lined-up
Like bowling pins
Rooted to the long wooden
Bench with zombie like stares
Doing a woman's thing inside
A child's body
HAIKU
a microphone inside my head
static playing mad tunes on my tongue
a lonely grasshopper without wings
HAIKU 11
another day spent home alone
bag lady talks to cracks in the street
pope takes his last breath
HAIKU 111
Kaufman poems ratlle inside head
Hunter Thompson gunshot wound bleeds the dawn
Umpire in black sweeps off home plate
TO BE A POET IN AMERICA
To be a poet in America
is to be faceless
like the Indian on an old Buffalo
head nickel
To be a poet a prophet
a shaman is boxcar Willie without
his guitar
To be a poet in America
is to be invisible
A BIT OF ZEN
monks in
meditation
have no need for
explanation.
THE PERFECT COUPLE
He was a pica
She was elite
He was after a homerun
She liked to stop at third base
He liked lobster
She liked cracked crab
He played doubles
She played singles
He took showers
She took baths
He ate Chinese
She ate Italian
He saw sex as dessert
She saw it as an appetizer
WORDS THAT BLEED
She was the knife in the
Hands of Jack the Ripper
In a heavy fog in a back alley
In old London town slicing
Dicing her way through the
Canvas of my heart
She was the pearl-handled revolver
In the hands of Dillinger
That begged to be fired
But never had the chance the
Night he was gunned down
In a hail of bullets
She was a keg of gunpowder
Waiting to be ignited
Betrayed by a wet fuse the
Night I woke naked and vulnerable
Feeling like a voyuer walking
In on two strangers making love
My thoughts a mosaic tattoo
On public display
These wounded words that drip blood
Lying still as a beached shipwreck
In the bone yard of a stranger's dreams