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 23^rd 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