Poems by Michael S. Begnal

Homage to Yoko Ono

1.

Be it ones unjustly reviled
who become atavistic avatars

bringing out the marvelous
mellifluistic magnum opera

(opus plural) in all her musicians
plumbing the pleistocene ERA

air time tight
like wrapped in serene

subway stations’ aural soup
tape loops tide on high

yaigh eye yie why
why not walk

the New York morning

2.

walk the morning in trauma,
mind talks like a jagged horn

guitars, a rock’n’roll band
roll room echo wave wand

roll toms and don’t worry
lying in a field of grass

thru warped glass / what’s plastic?
but the mind and its ear

when challenged by some
avatar, be it one ecstatic

or should it not always be
one ecstatic atavistic

in the New York morning woman?

Elegy for Lou Reed

Sunday morning gone—
the gold on the water,

the recently dead
cackling out among the trees

another we had anointed
hero has gone and

now his image
icons / album covers

the gold-leaf of Transformer
and indigo of The Blue Mask

as a fist
to death’s face, fight

it is glorious
the car’s back-seat night

and the spitty corner’s
flickering streetlight

•

we don’t know just where
we’re goin

just some beats
to imitate,

enough/
then it’s not

.
.
.

.

Elegy for Scott Asheton

What matters drummer or drum beat?
my own time as rock & roll drummer?

schooling in the fact of syntax for
poetry too’s rhythm and arrangement

of language, beats is an argument—
bass drum w/wood beater, boom of snare,

Scott Asheton had these, bass/snare
also toms and tom-based rhythms

(“1969,” “Little Doll,” fills on “Dirt” & others)
big booming toms

and the way on “Down on the Street”
he switches, two-thirds of the way through,

from high-hat to ride,
or the flams at “T.V. Eye”’s end

an army marching forward to annihilate you,
heavy snaric groove of “Fun House”

(which I think Miles Davis may have copped
for “Black Satin”)

I’d like to call you Scotty, tho didn’t know you,
knew some like you in wilds of inland states,

Homage to André Breton

BEGLAN Anthony,
418 Griffith ave D9 (01) 837 3883
· Calista, 24 Maxwell ct D16 (01) 496 7784
· James, 13 St Assans dr D5 (01) 831 4868
BEGLANE B,
Laragh Dromard Sligo (071) 6 68 72
· F, Glenborin Donegal (073) 2 16 47
· Seán, Dromore West Sligo (096) 4 63 85
· Vincent, 212 Glentisk ln D13 (01) 844 7889
· William, 3 Shandon gn D7 (01) 868 3988
BEGLIN Albert,
Knockhouse Gracedieu Waterford (051) 37 99 84
· Conaing, Cannon st Kells (046) 923 5867
· Donnchadh, Loch Cé (096) 3 54 76
· Dr Maurice, Loch Cé (096) 3 15 28
· Michael, Esker Milltownpass (044) 2 25 69
· Paddy & Catherine, Esker Milltownpass (044) 2 25 61
· Patk, Salville Enniscorthy (054) 3 59 43
· Paul, Greenbank Bilberry Waterford (051) 85 78 44
· Raymond, Corner hse Glann Culleens (096) 3 56 13
· T&C, 16 Castlebrook D14 (01) 227 1329
BEGNALL Bernadette,
Sranure Cloneygowan Tullamore (0506) 4 43 27
· Joseph, Milltownpass (044) 2 25 87

BEGNAL Michael