Tag, you're IT, Kerouac!

"Straight from the mind to the voice,"
said the mad-eyed man with whiskey
on his lips and cigarette smoke blowing
up his loose-fitting pants where the lovely hand
of a lady journalist from Italy was busy
writing about her life on a Buddhist campus
and she asked him in all earnestness sweetly
if IT was because of the war or because of a need
for change or simply because the dragon tattoo
on the early morning side of his second half
kept spitting fire even during the heaviest New York rains,
when everyone else went running under cover?
while at east 9th and 3rd avenue there was a baby boomer carriage
and he rocked that boat like a titanic wave crashing
through the intersection of his sad generation of brown
shoe wearers looking for a pair of uptight white socks and
Slim playing hot on the nearest radio set high in the
rafters of the famous Harmony Bar and Grill, where
the girl with the unbuttoned blouse kept bouncing her brown hair
into his face and it was the largest crowd he had seen on Harlem
streets in over a week of searching, but it was a Friday night
and their music was jumping into and out of cars and fast trucks,
and hipsters on the road were looking for a good time in no time at all,
shooting around to find something that wasn't perfectly boring,
so they finally asked him to be IT.

an open window

looking at the empty hall
on the open window i saw
my face

next to your smile
and for a short while
all was motionless.

there was no sound;
no one else was around
inside the big house,

only old memories
and the gentle tease
of cooking odors from below

where fresh black coffee
and green tea
would wait for us.

the onion and eggs
arms and legs:
we were both stirred.

the sun also lingers

it's not as simple as it first appears
finger-painting smears
across my face
when i stand in the valley
with my new friend Sally
and her frilly lace.
her foot steps etching sand
a drink in each hand
her music flows
we watch the sun roll around
not making a sound
and it knows
touching skin with fingers
as it lingers
all afternoon long
sweeping the floor
and more
with song.
and when it seems
i have nothing but dreams
out my window
i see through the dark
her smile in my park
and a moon glow.

Room 6 of the Hotel Drouot, 06/13/1921

so i punched the dealer in the head &
would have kicked him more than i did
but was abruptly pulled away, 

in a short-lived fit of loyalty,

by his hysterical brother! 

Leonce was shouting and screaming on the floor
when i kicked him some more

directly in the stomach:
he shrieked again, making me proud of my aim.
we were finally separated by Matisse, 

who said
i was right to beat the poor bastard.
and what a pig!

trying to cheapen cubism with an auction
much too painful to watch. 

"Filthy Pole!"
both Rosenbergs are bastards!!
one was ruining the market for cubism,
while brother Paul connived for a return of classicism,
which he knew he could sell for higher prices.

Pascin's Funeral Day: June 7, 1930

at 36 boulevard de Clichy,
the walls of his studio were sticky red
with an explosion of ultimate sadness
when he drew a final kiss for his mistress,
and drew a final breath
for himself.
on the day of his funeral, she dressed in black.
his wife in black.
waiters and bartenders in black.  

saloons in black.
black was the cloud and black was Paris.
those streets, preoccupied with their special mourning,
allowed only the walkers to follow behind his coffin
to a simple grave site.

their shoes were black. 

their grief was black.
but there, the turned Earth was a fertile brown.  

the near grass brilliant green.

the sky a Matisse blue.  

colorful birds sang and flew 

into the air, a sweetly poetic painted still life. 

windows were flung open.
fragrant wine was poured into buckets of remembrance,
where thoughts like flights of gaiety lifted and blew away as tiny bubbles.
later, his family moved his body to Cimetiere de Montparnasse,
where today he still turns inside that hole.

Picasso never wished Braque away

i heard her voice,
but Gertrude wasn't talking to me.
she didn't even know i was in
an adjacent room, waiting by her front door.
she was saying that Picasso never wished
Braque away, but their rivalry was strong,
reeked of adolescence, and to survive
as great artists, they had to be apart.

i left before she was aware of my presence
and met up with my friend Tom, still wearing
his trademark white suit from the night before.

i complimented him on his recent writing.

he agreed with me that he was a special man who
considered his contemporaries to be literary pretenders.
He was completely vain, and i liked him for that honesty.

in his mind, there was never a doubt about his
writing skills, and any negative critic must be consumed
with jealousy or probably was a registered communist.

i felt comfortable on our walk, and listened to
him ramble on about Whitman and other champions of
a bygone era, when suddenly he told me i was the
wrong person for his confidences, mocking me
for my simple bohemian leanings. 

 he knew I worked in a cold flat, but accused me of not having
The Right Stuff, even though i labored as a reporter.

my feelings were hurt as he abruptly left me on the sidewalk
to go looking for America's future,
hoping to arrive there first, he shouted backwards.

i was about to find a cafe for a drink when i saw Pascin
with two young Parisian girls approaching, and he asked me to join
them for a meal, at his expense, before he fell into a depression.

the two women tried to help him up, swearing in adolescent French,
but he must have been at the end of his rope.

he told one,
Hermine, 

to go home and wait for him in bed,
but he never arrived.

i think Tom would have liked him, had they ever met.

Shave & a Haircut, 2 bits

Not being a devout Catholic
or an Irish whiskey bum,
hell, not even a good Brethren conGREGant
in a luke warm puddle of piss
on the heroin-soaked sidewalk near the Village
Vanguard singing jazz with
Sonny Rollins when he had a reed
stuck between his lips making it
hard for him to sing so he played
the saxophone instead,
i stopped
and began to notice the strange faces
of the strange people walking past.
Face adrift in a camel cigarette smoke screen,
i spent 3 weeks sitting near an alley entrance
with dharma bums saying their Hail Marys
Full of Grace between bites of hot franks and cold beans.
and there was a great buzz at our lunch counter when Pearl
dropped an ear ring in a customer's soup bowl
and the customer refused to give it back, figuring it
was his lucky day.
But she wasn't having none of it and plunged a hand
into the red mess, finding the ear ring before her shift ended.
The barber shop was upstairs where a quick cut and a
stab of wax on the few remaining hairs by my forehead cost
a whole fifty cents, 25 more than the movies but enough
to keep the girls convinced I was a neat one.
but i had no romantic visions unless i was drinking,
and then i was a constant, restless action figure,
sympathetic to a point yet mostly interested in myself and
undisturbed by the growing threat of war.
i should have paid it more mind, 'cause sure enough i was
drafted into the US Army and had my ass shipped in a box
to a foreign land where i saw more strange people with
strange faces but couldn't speak their language even though
they knew mine.  7 years i wandered, in and out of uniform
in and out of trouble and i knew i wanted to find & was
looking for a slice of the pie which wasn't store bought.
so i sat in the bakery booth, waiting for my crowd to gather and hoping
the poets brought some new visions, a couple of tasty insights
to explain the whole Truth your Honor and nothing but the Truth,
wanting to hear them read their work with the passion it deserved,
tossing spit balls at each other, drinking wine and popping pills
if need be to get beyond the cute worry about tragic Self.
i never had a problem with loud voices,
as long as they have an owner, just like a dog
uncovering an old bone and proud of it.

Costa Rica: Osa Peninsula

La Sirena to La Leona.
what?  A tough walk.
19 kilometers, possibly
a little more or less.
the BBC is there filming about
remote spots on the planet.
primordial as well as 2nd growth
forests and palm groves along
the incredible beaches,
salty crocs resting without bathing
suits or dark sun glasses; no Calvin
Klein sightings, unsurprisingly.
the Puma is top of the food chain,
stalking at night when black is black.
Cappuccino monkeys, spider monkeys,
and squirrel monkeys,
run up and down tree trunks and branches
like a bunch of monkeys, flipping their
tails, grabbing a bite, holding a baby
or two or more while the tapir looks on
with slow amusement, without a saddle,
unafraid of man, untamed, uncombed.
and coatimundis, toucans, parrots, and scarlet macaws.
huge, brightly-colored butterflies and
meticulous spiders seemingly unaware of the
scalding sun, the persistent mosquitoes,
the hungry ticks, and the lack of flushing
toilets with perfectly sanitary paper within
an easy reach of a sweaty hand.
but then, the early 19th century explorers had no
modern conveniences, either.
a rain moistens everything.  the birds shake.
noise and silence sleeping together like exhausted lovers,
and the jungle sighs.

Wild side walk

The cynosure of my recent blue-sky hike
was not the luminescent blue-winged butterfly
sipping a wee bit of sweet moist flowered perfume
unlike a neoclassical revivalist on a hurried mission,
but rather in a languid dream-like state;
or the skinny black bear higher on a swaying tree trunk
peering nervously near the ruins of an old mining tank
in eastern central Pennsylvania
where no honest reclamation had taken place;
or the unlucky snake sleeping in his dried skeleton
where no official headstone could be seen.
no, it was the all-important turn;
this unhesitating winding of my trail
around a rugged mountain; a reversal of one gnarly jeep track
of rutted rocky road, just as the late afternoon sun
soured & began to drop & purposeful strides were becoming more
hesitant, less sure of themselves. 
But at the certainty of this wonderful turn,
an alto saxophone immediately wailed with a clever jazzy beat,
the fingers of a great artist snapping me awake, poking my
backside with the concept of a burger and a beer, &
the wild-eyed pink Dogwood were heard barking excitedly, &
choreographed dancers jumped high-stepping from the surrounding woods.
Their infamous stage under house lights flashing was the tall dry grass
where i earlier rested with your juicy orange which i ate,
and my 4 hour walk on undulating ground and up steep & steeper which so
preoccupied my feet...
now and unmistakeably
tilted sharply downward to a still
far-away clear creek, but down down meant my mood was up up.
An amble on the wild side with peaceful intentions and a vow of strings of silence
(no mad helicopters zooming in for a closer look and photo IDs),
i without a topo map and going by old memory with even older notions,
would have a happy ending...
alongside the valleys' swift water always clean & pure.
i could almost touch my car,
and soon i would,
and then a beer.
i would drink to the butterfly and the bear,
while refreshing in your smile.

Native prairie grass

there is little to be learned from this trial by fire
if one is nude and tied to the most important stake
in the overwhelming presence of anxious enemies,
regardless of the time of day and in spite of several
persistent appeals to a hoped-for shared humanity.
not even half-hearted support seeps from the Speaker,
who has an embarrassing hand holding the doomsday gavel.
it doesn't matter if this speaker is masculine or feminine,
as a lusty sex is never part of their equation.
so i heard the deep bass sound of a 1980's Pink Floyd
tune and "I'm all right Jack keep your hands off my stack"
slipped insistently inside my spinning head, bounced me on The Wall.
When I moved closer to a full time job inside a virtual heart of darkness,
the beating roomful of intensity draped a single hood over my eyes
and from that moment i could not see from sea to shining sea.
the coffee chit chat space reminded me of a television reality show,
never to be canceled in spite of woefully low ratings.
outside, our great smoke is still visible, largely caused by fossil fuel burning
and often conjoined at birth by the charred corpse of a terrible irony.
during break time, a few souls volunteered for Yoga class and didn't seem
to mind trying to be mindful without the past or the future interfering.
their proud city high on a hill decked in white in spirit if not in style,
sits tightly connected in a fast 4G network, unconcerned that
the curtain is coming down, even while the audience shifts
uncomfortably in ever smaller seats.  all the house lights becoming dim.
here, ocean fish no longer go to school in abundance, & the glaciers melt.
no buffalo roam over running stretches of a once familiar world once
greenest with wildest native prairie grass, & the untamed Indians are gone.
no soft touch violet round-lobed Hepatica can be found flirting
with it's slender white eyelashes when a simple hiker pauses in search of lasting beauty.
there is much to worry about when the natives dance in circles
and Wednesday is always known as hump day,
even while the island sinks into the bay.

A Monarch butterfly

as i idled in the garden
while the sun came down for his visit
i heard a Monarch butterfly revving an engine,
squealing tires in a puff of foul black smoke
disappearing into a stealthy toxic haze
part pesticide induced and part no one gave a shit
about killing all the milkweed plants
and the larvae had no place to go because
a complex of concrete highways extended all the way to the coast.
the single Monarch butterfly heard the lawn mowers'
piercing growl and being an orphan had no one to be
responsible for, so in a brilliant maneuver
he got the hell out of there, but where he went
no one to this day knows.
despite the plundering, there are animals to be seen
but more of them are men.
men are loyal and self-serving, it's true, but without wings
they can not fly with the grace of a butterfly.

Le Bal des jeux (1922)

Man Ray snapped the shot
of Picasso's comedic eye
and there was indeed a wry smile
captured on film
which ultimately Gertrude Stein saw 
at a Beaumont party.
Picasso was dressed as a torero
and seemed happy for it, carefully
savoring extra caviar and sweet pastries
with his dainty cup of tea.
Olga made him do it, of course.
Were it his choice: hot beans,
cold sausage, and a few Bohemian friends
from the old days.
But, in this Paris spring and summer he was famous.
In winter, he traveled south, escaping
the fancy balls, masquerades, and the silly
Fitzgeralds.
He did not want to be an international
bird of paradise, as much as he admired birds.
He wanted to be Picasso, without upstaging
the invited guests.
His real eye watched the women, while
the real eye of Count Étienne de Beaumont watched the men,
and not very discreetly.
But he and Pablo remained friends,

even as they traveled to different parts.

Winter Landscape

so if he wrote with his blood
and exhausted the supply
he would certainly be dead;
much as using enamels
to create a path through landscapes
from black to white to red,
hoping to design a less wounded past,
he languished there instead.
and in heroic manner he drew
the unseen feminine roots,
which sank directly into brown soil
near where the distorted male tree,
agitated in a sexual fever,
grew heated into a boil.
two separate twigs, stretching, almost touched
until their final recoil.

Imagining Mother

like Wagner's operas,
her mouth ripened into an orange circle
uniquely her own when she tried to upstage my ambition,
but i continued to work even in the abstract.
in fact, when i finished a recent portrait
of my mother
it looked more like me than i did in infancy.
i'd guess she could have been my twin, but her hair was too
dark, the hard eyes very brightly German, and
even her pale complexion was not completely mine.
her head was drawn like a black grape
in a white glass
full of intrigue
and i heard her calling from the canvas
that i was late for supper.
i was amused by what looked like a case
of mistaken identity and
could not resist testing the limits, so
i continued to play.

Venice beach

with a subtle touch of
black charcoal, her green eyes disappear
where a moment before there was a muse
sitting under the Pacific sunset near Venice beach.
with her singular breath offering advice,
perhaps she was an antimuse when her dark hair
became red as the final rays of the strange day
transformed my outlook:
her face became an idealized portrait of a queen
instead of a wife,
a giantess replacing a slim woman of charm
losing her fire while my back was turned.
i saw an angular fisherman casting stones
into the water with a regular rhythm,
watching the tide move with his line.
and an Argentine child ran with a lively Spanish tongue
into the surf, splashing his small brains onto the evening sky.
a blonde girl rolling her way into town smiled
under a nearby palm tree, which gave me hope
that i could learn to skate with a steady balance.
and i grew satisfied with my painting, just as the
dinner crowd began to thin.
maybe my muse was amused.
i saw her on the boardwalk with an easel under her arm,
and it was a large arm, with a defiant eye watching my walk.
but i like Venice,
and it feels like home.

Burroughs

and if you think i give a shit

about william s burroughs

that skinny bugger wearing the infamous 3 piece suit or enjoy

his forehead wrinkles which give off a kind of mental smoke

as he slurs a beaten message with an ape-like malodorous ramble

about pissing into a porcelain sink in open view

of an innocent 1950s sweet little thing named LuAnne who has never seen a scarred penis

hanging from a dead man's hand or felt a loaded pistol inside her mouth

well, i don't give a shit

certainly not about any grandiose typewriter money

or his bowel movements in deepest penetration Tangier

where he goofed around smoking hashish, sniffing cocaine in Mayfair

atop a naked lunch counter where he ate big blackest meat for an afternoon snack

well, i don't give a shit

even if he was the only son of a bitch wearing clothes in a mad Warhol waiting room

when the junkie cops burst in looking for a queer saint wearing cheap clothes

and he quickly removed his tie and kissed each cop dead on the lips

and every one grew happy and every one began passing condoms

from hand to hand to hand, smiling in a soulful albino trance

well, i don't give a shit

and at the 34th street Greyhound station, i saw him reading the Herald Tribune

with a burning cigarette near his short finger, and

a Chelsea Girl showed him her pig face and he marvelously said

"You have no taste" but she wasn't paying him no mind chewing her gum

and she spit it away and began singing an old song about getting laid by an old man

but he was hard to get into bed while visiting friends in a New York city hotel

and if you think i give a shit

about william s burroughs

blowing white hot smoke up my ass or yours for that matter,

defending public narcotics and even hotter cocks in his ultimate hard core World

of knowing more about you than you know of yourself

well, i don't

i can't read Cities of the Red Night and i hate kittens, having

watched them frantically lap up warm milk from a tender bowl

he placed carefully on the carpeted living room floor

of his hidden house in Lawrence, Kansas

really, i don't feel at all comfortable driving around his legacy,

taking over the wheel and screeching the god damn tires and neither should you,

even if he is a corpse, walking or otherwise, half or whole,

puking or jacking off in a corner while looking you

straight in the eye, unblinking

so no, i don't give a shit

about william s burroughs

but he did have one hell of a ride.

Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892)

Whitman would tug manfully
at a favorite hat
upon his head or
without it on the ground.
He wrote promiscuous poetry
under an eternally erect sun;
in the darkness his night stars
like little captions of literary light
showed him what he expected,
not what others doubted.
In Song of Myself, he was
both the in and the out,
extravagantly
making a tune of considerable importance
for himself.
And sing he did, even boasting of
standing amused when he wasn't being very funny.
But he learned to carve a path to values
which he shared in his work.
And while he waits, with no misery on his beard
his eyes still burn.

Breckenridge, CO ski vacation

i didn't want to work
i wanted to ski
sliding from the safety of a chair lift
to the dangers of a steeply
snow-covered slope
i found myself caught in the middle
where an evergreen tree was dying in a beetle frenzy
leaning out of a wide sea of greener trees
like an executioner at a wedding
and even in spite of the beautiful view
i caught an edge and lost balance
momentarily lost hope but found myself
climbing that dead tree in spite of my most secret thoughts
or because of them.

folding you

it wasn't an illusion

your ass shining like the shimmering sea
under the harvest moon
under my firm grasp

all your beauty
shaking like a little girl
spooning her soft raspberry jello
before her philosophical studies begin

i thought i could take you!

you drove me senseless instead
into the clouds where a phantom
with invisible arms
asked me my name
and i gave him yours instead

but my hands were not the mirage
as they held to the pleasures of your body

what went and came out and in
here and there and slowly
folding you to my soul
was much more than a musical note

which a little boy plays in his sleep.

Santorum

i heard his political speech!
the television spared me none of the whip,
and on my back his words
put a lovely red gash where
a bloody pain poured out.
in Santorum whom gods must love,
the simply faithful have found
the Red Sea newly parted;
and with the sound of chariots
echoing from behind,
they give their deepest love
to follow another malicious boy.
without regrets they jostle and jest
and bring me close to unhappiness.
i can not sell my soul to them!

rising from the earth

knowing something of life and death,
i sat with 20 men;
just one of the guys
on an open bar stool
hoping for a summer of love,
aware that my youth died like the spring.

i caught a whiff of their fragrant lies
between sips of the coldest beer.
then, playing fast, i watched a slow game of pool
hearing several languages,
and recognized one of them
(having traveled in my earlier days).

a sullen man with the darkest beer
moved quietly toward the exit door.

he had heard everything he could,
yet still was in need of adventure
and looking for something more,
a stiff shot of excitement, say,
where mysteries fill the parking lot,
he soon danced on the hoods of cars
and flew into outer space
without even rising from the earth.

there was a sailor going home
with garlic on his breath
and he stopped, and in amazement
watched the sullen man
enter heaven,
without missing what he was leaving.

Her name is Rose

i entered the home.
how beautiful the peacefulness of her bed.
shallow breathing beneath the night shirt
resting in her throat.
she has a slight fever,
with strawberry blush on both cheeks
and the clear murmer or a deep hum
persisting like small tidal waves
filling her childhood sand box:
the collapsing castles
collecting Kings and Queens
soon to be gently overthrown.
she slept during my visit with soft eyes,
and waiting lips which will not kiss again
a favorite lover's neck,
resting quietly in her old world.
the thick glass vase by her night stand
complete with roses of red, white, and charming shades of yellow,
simply uninterested in the urgent voice from the close television,
sacrificing themselves to quench her thirst for momentary beauty.
she is actively dying.
not seeking the graveyard or the wall
where trellises with measured silence
watch people pass into their garden,
her name is Rose.
the framed collage hangs
filled with pictures of happy grandchildren
and treasured daughters.
un-sipped orange juice capped on the nearby tray
grows warm.
she grows cold.
her auburn hair waits for the comb
which waits for her.

lucky number 7

entirely in gray
i didn't know any other way
to paint you

& on the stair to heaven
where i found my lucky number
seven

i waited completely
to saint you

on the shore
where i asked you for some more

i had to wait in line
but that was fine

i could be number six
if you promised not to play
any tricks

or number eight
if you promised not to make me wait

entirely in gray
i didn't know any other way
to paint you

& on the stair to heaven
where i found my lucky number
seven

i waited completely
to saint you

Joe Alioto

but
her breasts keep getting in the way

i couldn't sleep worth a damn
and the music was too loud
even if it was Kashmir
each heavy note came tumbling bouncing off the entrance door
i saw the stenciled sign splashed in hurried paint i hurried in
drizzled colors piled onto a dirty glass canvas announcing
Harmony Bar & Restaurant but i wasn't buying it
none of it none at all

her white shirt remained unbuttoned
while i fumbled
i dropped the ball but had a ball played the game
went into extra innings
she felt cold hot luke warm hot again
her nipples got the beat
each one
inclined swayed winked and nodded as i smoked
waiting on my park bench wearing a French beret
met a photographer who soon became a painter
read the newspaper headlines about the disturbance
waited until she touched me touched herself
i became erect & stayed that way

i couldn't sleep worth a damn
had a stiff one had a drink had a dream
i remembered Joseph Alioto and the bomb
his prostate cancer a bitch a hole in the invincibility wall
the streets of San Francisco pulsing up and down
round and round the Transamerica pyramid wild-eyed
his grave and everywhere parades of kids and more shadows
looking for the mafia but finding hills and bags of pills
and the Pacific Ocean and suicides
the Golden Gate Bridge the perfect foil
where inspired hippies danced by the incoming tide
outgoing too and in tune with their war
their camouflaged faces and Indochinese histories
black cats and panthers sitting on ice listening sweating the draft
their inner city jazz coming undercover coming underground
to Dizzy and Miles getting a fix on things some very good things
with sharp wit and sharper needles all at the appropriate time no less

i couldn't sleep worth a damn
living in my crummy flat by the fire department
on Haight-Ashbury with a famous singer
i can't recall his name his face just doesn't appear to me anymore
he played the drums in a white band not well but
only for a short while before dropping his sticks
into the depths into the drug culture into the abyss
ringing my bell at all hours on each every almost any floor
at the window
by the stairs
on the road
tugging at my brains spilling my guts onto the cop's desk by his answering machine
questioning me and digging for deeper mysteries that no man should ever want to know
most any time the elevator to the top floor sat waiting for the middle finger
and i started to write in a cold sweat typing a combination of words
emphasizing color, light, and the need for a change of pace a change of direction
i felt i needed a job needed a push a muse a mother a mouth a moment of genuine solitude
but no flawed insight please no three piece suit please no college campus guidebook
in plain view on a polished dining room table, no stained glass front door, no father knows best
no the prevailing mood wasn't enough no crowd control no ten commandments
no zeitgeist no leitmotif no full monty to unwrap the final vision to explain everything
in one big yellow star-bursting fireworks explosion so we can all just go to hell!
& so it goes for general motors general electric and the general population
all the crazy politicians jerking off in the planetary house of representatives
doing to us what they're doing to each other over the air waves and over cocktails
and over there and here in their hands a new generation looking for a masterpiece.

but i know where Jefferson once talked to his mistress, so maybe that's enough.

but
her breasts keep getting in the way