North Beach Yuppie Bar
Hard to believe Richard Brautigan
Jack Spicer and other Beats drank here
As I sit and watch two business men
Playing liar’s dice at Gino and Carlo’s Bar
In the heart of North Beach
Their faces white as pie crust
Wearing double breasted suits
And Italian imported shirts
The legal mafia making their own rules
The one with the twisted smile
Hides behind his dice cup
His coconspirator silently poking
At the olive in his martini glass
Looking like a hit man waiting
To fulfill a contract
Poem for the Jazz Man at the Anxious Asp
they say he’s burned out
but no one has bothered
to tell him
his Sax igniting a spark
across the room
his lips working pure magic
each note attacking the
heart strings of the soul
and for one brief moment
he loses sight of the bubbling spoon
the heated needle
each note a burst of machine gun fire
just like he used to before the
angel of death took him
on a straight line to hell
Grand Slam Night
the lights are low
you can see the sweat beads
bathing his face like a lizard’s tongue
the crowd is standing on its feet
screaming, dancing, whistling
stomping their feet to the tune
of a marching band
he’s gyrating his hips
making love to the mike
his words are thunder
lightning bolts appear from nowhere
the poems are burning in his hands
the crowd is screaming for more
he’s running up and down the aisle
reciting the ten commandments backwards
he’s back on stage doing acrobatics
the audience is spellbound
the judges are frantically writing
down their scores
he’s standing on his head
he’s trying to raise the dead
he’s brought in the Pope for a duet
the guy waiting his turn
looks white as a ghost
One Too Many Poets One Too Many Poetry Readings
you can find them in the back room
poised for a quick exit
they’re the first poets to read
and the first to leave
they always carry
a loose leaf note book with them
they always have a pretty young girl
hanging on to their arm
there is always one who claims
to have known Kerouac or Ginsberg
to have slept with one or both
two or three live with the Gods
another two or three claim
to be God
two ex-junkies one homosexual
one drag queen with too much mascara
two sad eyed women rubbing their hands
when they’d prefer to be rubbing something else
always a drop out from the Beat Generation
a hold over from the Hippie days
a woman with short hair
a nervous poet with a tic
a refugee from the drug set
a failed poet who drops names
faster than an auctioneer
one poet who reviews poetry
one poet who is an editor
one poet who wants to be an editor
one Messiah
and one visiting out of town star
Father Divine
no one but us older folks
remembers Father Divine
A self made black preacher
who founded his own church
and declared himself
to be God
and had a flock of believers
mostly white women
who gave up their life savings
to sleep with God
He drove a big white Cadillac
and had a white wife
who didn’t mind sharing him
with other white women
but even if she had
how could she have argued
with the will of God
when he died the newspapers
had a field day
as his congregation gathered
at the grave site
waiting for the promised resurrection
which sadly never came
and the newspapers took great joy
in mocking the flock
writing them up as the
fools they were
but how many women out there
reporters included among them
can lay claim to having fucked
God
Under the Mind’s Eye
almond eyes floating
through my dreams
an Asian dragon lady
breathing fire
State of Siege
Mc Donald’s wrappers
mating with coca cola cans
floating across the rivers of America
Walt Whitman’s children forced
to inhale exhaust fumes worse than
a coal miner’s lungs
Christ run out of town
for practicing his trade without
a union card
children weaned on Campbell’s
chicken noodle soup
not withstanding all those tiny
booger hearts floating in a sea of fat
Late at night I can hear the
cannon fodder of Union soldiers
the sound of Confederate rifle fire
deadening my dulled senses
knowing I can’t escape the
hangman’s noose stretched out
across the face of America
In the shadow of night
I hear the whimpering
of soft skinned women carrying
silkscreen fans in bone white hands
mothers of the children
I will never know
Sunday Moning Blues
there is this kind of motionless motion
children crying themselves to sleep
the taste of sunsets for breakfast
and champagne for lunch
there is this kind of mellow music
hills made of wild strawberries
salt on hard boiled eggs
Peanuts in the comic strips
and radio DJ’s with god awful jokes
that see me through another morning
there is this kind of sadness
the feeling of dull razor blades
sliding across smooth skin
Marilyn Monroe suicides and weekends
with nothing to do
heart attacks from love or lack of it
funerals with no mourners
poets with little future
and lovers with no one
to love
Rain Poem
the storm
lets up
the birds
take flight
neighbors dog
sheds water
drops in
sprinkler rhythm
a cavalry
of children
magically appear
in rainbow splendor
sun peaks
from clouds
smell of fall
in the air
I Kiss the Feet of Angels
dark stormy 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
Rimbaud 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 fog horn plays a symphony
inside my head
I hear the drums
I feel the Beat
I kiss the feet
of angels
