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Archive for the ‘beat poetry’ Category

Bones About It

Posted in beat poetry, corona, covid, mindfulness, ordinary madness, poetry, poetry in motion, prose, Uncategorized on December 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Equate me with foot dragging on carpeted stairs to squat quick & pensive at the outlet-God of cheap-thrill shock-therapy, for my inner-child needs a cold-water start to wake up from the monotonous boredom that’s got us all tangled up; dragging beneath the slowest car, riding on puro rims- over potholes & pits, with a blackout blotch smeared right over arrival time.

2 weeks that bled into 2 months, that bled into 9 months- at present, that bleed still. A vacuous wound unresponsive to tourniquets, & the pressure persists, but no mind, no mind.

I used to take my thinking-saw when I’d grown into my shadows & saw my skull open to let my head-moths fly around & land in unlikely places, & write about what came home, attached to their feet. I’d witness a white crow 2 times in an unmistakable flock of black ones & felt closer to the mystics; and stranger to common concerns like days of the week. I touched magic more often but also got my feet dirtier in the process. You can’t walk through a long field & not step in shit.

I struggle with recognizing my own web of fault. Have I trapped myself in the monotony or am I too close to my own nose to see my victimhood in having little to do for months? Everyday is a grand Groundhog of reminder, edging margins of subtle variation.

And now with cold cold air to wrap reliably around my leggys & weave it’s way through my hair & around my scalp, & penetrate my body top down & bottom up- I trap further into myself in inaction & the dullard’s company of a grey, cloth couch. My guitar will call & I will answer, but where once I had magic beans that rolled around my pockets of song snippets & poetry shreds I had hung without protest- on thin blue lines of spiral bound pages; storing them like orphans hoping to get chosen when I pull up in my petticoat & emerge from my Cadillac Roadster with clicky heels & feather hat. Dahling~ I am ready for you now. Prepackaged sentence pluckery. Those beans- where are they now?

My tea leaves carry-on unread, for my cup filleth & filleth again, I sip on & on all day long, working with my hands, trying & forgetting, repeat repeat repeat- to steady my mind- & search for cheap thrills or expensive thrills or I’m-open-to-suggestion-thrills-please-change-out-my-tea-now-I’m-ready-for-a-new-flavor-of-thrills.

Time is my sweet, yellow dog growing older. It passes without asking or telling, as it takes without the same pleasantries. One day we’ll look back with rosier lenses, while now we must find our way through the darkness of the un-knowing. Generating our own sparks again.

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Night in Shining Alloy

Posted in beat poetry, musings, ordinary madness, paranoia, poetry, Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 25, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Oh the possible punches packed by the brain from an empty tin-can when it comes to tumbling too loudly, pushed along by wind, tricking on ears at metallic kick-along footsteps causing neck double back and double back and triple back.
Just me and that wind.
Just me and some trees. For all I know.
Just me and my dog- too busy darting untethered in the dark, bush to bush bedeviled by his snout- to sense my woeful paranoia.
This fear of sunless-sky time rapidly twists into sadness, as I’m well aware that I’m likely my own worst enemy- worrying myself so- amongst the blocks surrounding my domain, and even more-so that a place free of those lurking in the shadows is easy to imagine. This is the thought that I must hold between my throat and belly in a sustained inhale. Also, I have to remind myself to continue with breathing.
These notions dance erratically against the dread of the cumulative grouping of every horror movie I’ve watched, trailing me, or the fear of furthering my connection to the Me Too movement as I unintentionally create a target of my sole self in the street. Forced comfort causing friction against collected phobia. Like Rachmaninoff dropping from a dream to somehow share a stage of opposing sets, simultaneously with Siouxsie and the Banshees. Or trying to shimmy to Parliament Funkadelic, in synch with slow dancing to James Taylor.
It can be an easy endeavor to entertain this vision of harmless walks, as experience introduced myself to itself in tales sunk in from traveling fashion.
In the city of Florence. In the country of Italy.
There was an occasion that lasted a night, that lasted a lifetime in a seed inside my heart or soul or mind or maybe all at once or sometimes it may float around, where I became enlightened in an evening to a coupling sense of rawness and security; who’s mathematics equaled a unique sum of awe unknown to my own certainty before.  Walking along the drunkard’s-dream of cobblestone streets, gliding through Moorish marble piazzas and the basilica’s double colonnades, exploring  the banks of the Arno river, over uneven bridges, beyond Donatello’s conquering breast of Judith, past dizzying, extending stone structures, in the middle of the world, protected by an angelic omnipresence, cradled by an exotic energy in that the threat of an attacker was nil. News to me- it was- that this was even a conscious idea before this moment.
How natural keys fit between fingers. How deep the wagon wheel grooves can be driven before even questioning beliefs.
And all of this experience to have a tin-can maddeningly rattle me out of a purifying parade through the commonwealth. The uneasiness of the unseeable nipping my heels and herding me by invisible hand towards the absolute calm of home.

alloynight

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Like Love

Posted in beat poetry, love, poetry, prose, random, Uncategorized on August 15, 2019| 3 Comments »

When heated, coals become incandescent, glowing red-hot.
When were you the most coal?
Where did the spark start?
Lightning-footed before your head even knew it, till suddenly: poof– hairs are on end; your body electric?
Were you then pulled in? Washed over? Was it warm, did you let yourself burn, or were you magnetized in moment? In momentum? In monumental feeling? Familiar and old as bones?
Like moon;
With gravitational pull, consequently prompting the oceans to tide. All approximately 67% water of us.
Have you overflown, salty-wet? Basked in spilled star light, reflecting in lovers’ eyes? Awake awake awake and not in mind for sentence assembly, as something else occupied your mouth? Full. Filled.
We would likely quake when over-swept with thoughts to imagine the other side of this closeness emptied and airless; Before love, or without it.
Once that taste is stoked, palettes evolve standards, and these are models of desire, and this want is driving force, and resistance is no dice. So we keep at it, poke it, feed it.
When filled, thy cuppeth runneth over. And have you lately? Please, please.
Been crowded with passion. All red and heart hued. Exotic butterflies dancing in stomach, reminding us of the good stuff. The reason. The prompt. The time to tend to. And did you manage complete presence, and achieve surrender?
Fresh-out-the-kitchen, hot-off-the-griddle, flushed pie, ready to eat, just made for lovers with nose to nose kind of mornings. Skin to skin kind of nights.
The world, our oyster. The sea- ever-bearing.
It just takes a flicker to glow. Bioluminescent fervor.

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Rain’s Check

Posted in art, beat poetry, Deep South, flowers, inspiration, nature, photography, travel on June 19, 2019| 1 Comment »

Mexican Hats tipped their flower heads so deeply in the rain from big drops forcing dramatic ballet-bows below the spectacular, incessant, stark contrasting of white-lightning blasts  penetrating thick, black firmament.
It was something to watch.
How their feathered stems gathered droplets like a slick rain coat caring too much and taking its job very seriously- in near magic, protecting bodies from the reality only a millimeter away. Skin to sky, the red petals whip around my father’s house, bumping into yellow, flowering Prickly Pear paddles, twisting to Coral Glow Red Yucca blooms, challenging the thin necks of slender, towering wild Sun Flowers. These blossoms do much, including shielding June Bugs as big as qualifiable hitch-hiking-thumbs, all matter of spiders, and butterflies taking rest… How could one not judge the manner in which they coexist?

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The bright green that occurs post thirsts’ quench from a proper summer pour in the Lone Star State stands alone. It threads ties of poetry and admiration to each rejuvenated being.
The Great Refresh is capable of deconstructing loneliness. If you take pause, you get full quick in this.
It’s nature parlance for a speech-free promo bill at the promised kiss of a cooler, walkable morning; an invitation from Mother Nature herself beckoning us to exit shelter and observe her brilliant art show-
unfettered by walls and in defiance of constraints. The glory and tenacity in resilience to bloom in an unaccommodating place and flourish against odds. A true piece de resistance. A sight one must not deny for purposes of soul. A real hat tipping breath-taker,  life-giver and not-misser;
Thanks rain.

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Southern Comfort

Posted in beat poetry, Deep South, nature, travel, tagged , , on April 1, 2019| 4 Comments »

The swamp has eyes, which are overfilled with diamonds.
Insects, amphibians, reptile’s optics- set a shimmer in hazy, humid, thick, repeating nights.
In one square foot of space we could be looking and remain unsurprised to see firefly flash, raccoon skittering, slug slime trailing on. To see moth bodies hostage to dusty  milk-glass sconces, to see hornet mounds uncomfortably close to every place a hand may need to touch, to see the last second of a frog jumping- webbed toes swallowed by blackness.

At large- the sounds in this marshland are in concert.
The unsuspecting, shy operatic beginning of a solo winged one- slow; increasing. Adding of other like players; building. Swelling to crescendo. Carrying on and on. Cracking through the night, sounds bumping across crawfish towers, and sliding around kudzu vine and ornamental privet gone wild.
Until inky silence comes a creeping, cutting one off at the ear with a sudden stopper-  plunging into the lull til’ it’s just a couple of humans breathing easy, sleeping birds, gently swaying whisky, weary nutria, sweet tea, awake snakes, sweating ice-cubes, and nearly still water below.
And then another wave, and another, and another- of boisterous, irrepressible bugs.

To know the swamp is to do so by being here, only.
No stories stand to tell better than experience. Tale tellers, find some Spanish moss and take some rest.
It’s an entire entity, a grouping, a package deal unlike any other, surmise-able as a whole, but breakdown-able with all sorts of moving, squirming pieces. Requiring gentle attention and a tendency toward pacific neutrality.
The land can be surrounded by skimmer boats; a wayward dock rotting and a float, propped by repurposed plastics; neighborhood children venturing bravely into muddy rivers with fingers crossed; strangers becoming friends faster, on average, and often with the assist of sugary spirits in single-use forever-cups; someone, or 2, or 4, or 5- being responsible for the greasy, alluring smells of deep-fried daily-catch.

All these senses- alight. Brightly so. Incandescent due to sun-packed days, bringing hot, stocky air. Incandescent due to outsiders so quickly being welcomed in; enveloped and full-bellied. Incandescent due to the nowhere-else-like-it factor. Crowded with accompanying oohs’ and ahhs’.

The swamp has eyes and they’re overflowing with diamonds.
Some spilling right across the ground. Some dangling around in branches. Some peering placidly from the damp beyond. You can count these lucky land-stars, as they twinkle all around you. You can make them yours just by thinking it so.
Because, hello tortoise, you’re moving like molasses here anyway- so it’s best advised to gather momentary gems and learn the local slither, fill your diamond shaped holes and watch the night shine, let the breeze take its subtle toll, and observe .

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Blotting Block

Posted in beat poetry, poetry, prose, random, Uncategorized, writers block on May 7, 2018| 2 Comments »

Picture me- an explorer voyaging the chopping, sailor, mermaid, school-of-fish, sunken-ship, Jacques Cousteau-eat-your-heart-out spaces in between places where feet have their solid, favored terrain so far from their bodies, traded,
searching new full flavor seasoning, adrift- in the name of it,
seeking to sprinkle more than pepper or turmeric or saffron upon my pallet anew; kindling tastebuds unknown
by my own hand
from my own glory, salt of sea and evolving flavor,
ever-lasting-gobstopper, unraveling in first, second, third, fourth course
all French and sophisticated, all cobweb and torment, all fresh tortilla, all squirrel feed, all bursting contentment, all raspberry-velvet-ganache, all sweaty panties, all hyphen, too many commas, all “surprise- look who’s here for dinner”, all stumbly wino, all exquisite, all vile, all gutter grease-straw-sipping, all gravely voice, all angel’s bells, all hammer of justice, all swift motion with arm-fulls overloaded of fragrant, pillowy, white blossoms that ring of early Spring nights festooned in bare-bulb-strung-lights, trailing behind me and scented of subtle jasmine in the warm, lit, dark,
whilst stirring and stirring to amend
my own soil where-which I will plant these gleaned exotic seeds of 15 year blooms, annuals, noninvasives, and perennials, brilliant orange pink yams from Southern bioregions, original dates of the Fertile Crescent, rubble with some green sprouts interspersed from Palestine and hope hope hope to raise a tree to a forest, strawberry juicy Hawaiian papaya, tall sugar cane groves to run amongst, 3 sister’s silky corn, plump beans, striped squash,
and bleed
into surrounding soil and imagine
and contribute,
and discover
what delicate monster bounding bony, spined hills, straddling trickle creeks of sodden  zygote or embryo fresh possibility of holding black floral, private scarlet intoxicating emergence promise that maybe/ might/ would occur as a result of this witch’s brew. Chocolate reminiscence in the floral world. Over loaded arm fulls of the blossoms. Amalgamating. Tumbling behind my flight.
When you must write to stoke.
When you must type on and on to provoke.
Stream of consciousness.
String of theory
tied
from tree to tree.
Limbs full swing and purpose. Petals on fleek.
All in mercurial motion that you can’t place a bet on.
I’ll go high and low for it. The buzz I’m constantly chasing.
Help me find my way to God’s contract; never need to write one more ode to writer’s block.

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Looking

Posted in beat poetry, poetry, prose, Uncategorized on April 14, 2018| 2 Comments »

The thing about poetry is that it can live anywhere.

Like reindeer moss deprived of rain or light still flourishing after years of neglect.

It can hide in plain sight.

It can be on the tip of your toe as you kick a stone off the sidewalk.

It can be tucked up some country road with countless potholes leading up to a seemingly  forgotten, stumpy clear-cut that  just about wrenches your gut, as it should; and ends you up snapping photos of yourself there, envisioning saplings strengthening.

It could be in the way that you catch your own eyes reflecting off your own red blouse, this poetry- and how it echoes your anger, your passions, or your effortlessly coursing, very alive and platelet rich blood.

It can surprise you, while you peek back upon someone else’s story in your mind, & find the tale ready to be regurgitated in reflective fashion, touched with artistic licensure.

It can be in the seagull that approaches you & makes you feel shame for having the sense of being slighted with its head cocked all judgy like. *What dude?*

There’s this rampant ambivalence that’s sure to be the leading cause of fruitless pages & stilled pens.

You must show up for yourself.

Give yourself time in this land.

You are the gardener. And it is not an easy harvest.

Some poem trails lay fallow or demand of you to over step those washed-out, cliche illuminations like a biblical plague of frogs raining sideways, causing hairline fractures in the south-facing, sun-emitting windows of your concept collecting place.

We must use refrain from once more addressing the grandiose of the moon or sky or rose blooms or lovers eyes that tug for  yet another cameo as it’s so damn easy to include, but would demand space like kudzu or catnip, choking out the roots of other gentle flower thoughts yet to be planted. New growth.
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

So throw your ass in your car. Drive out to the coast in the rain. Sit in your mobile monsoon box, eat your leftovers on a perch overlooking the great sea, & write something new. Listen to the whispers beyond the waves.

Our words await us. And the time is wow.

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