poem all i have

[revolutionrabbit]

i was hurting an lsd head sixties kid
did not want to get drafted
so became a street poet or
what i roamed the street
and hung out in book stores
i use to see the people let out
of the mental hospitals in those days
i felt like i was one of them, a street
poet, poet of the street scene, mean
like a hippie rimbaud of santa cruz
in those days poets flooded the street
or they were stoned students and hippies
the main street was always filled with em
there were like poet gangs, or university
poets, i was like in a poet gang, we published
a rag, called velvet pistol, sold it in the local new
and used book store called logos, wanted it was
for all the weirdos we met to add their poems
what a world it was then, no internet, just
a paper filled with poetry by freaks with some
cool art work, so simple, so defiant, and the
university poets wondered at us, and went on
publishing their stuff in their own little stapled
book, there were famous poets that lived there
and famous and some not so famous ones that
came in and out of the scene, but it felt like poetry
was alive in the cafe and out on the drag, felt like
it was walking around and breathing its dragon on
us, and the strange ones passed by through it all
and you could get in a old heap of a car and drive
up to frisco and run into jack hirshman in front
of city lights books and he would give us some
poems to put in the rag, and he would make fun
of us crazy hippie poets, because he was a commie
then, and we were just silly kids from los angeles
originaly, or there abouts southern california, came
hallucinating out of the sixties with surrealism on the
mind, looking for freaky people that talked poetry all
day long and hung out in strange ways with mental
hospital patients let out on the avenue to stand on
corners and look at the normal people doing normal
and the universe raged behind the sun of blood poets
back when a cat would talk about bukowski or some
cat that people knew about in those days, local poets
that seemed to really make a difference when you ran
into them at a local poetry reading and the drunk party
after a reading when the wild froth of their poems lingered
and nights were filled with days that had poetry for a gun
and everything the mental patients on the drag said also
seemed to be part of this huge poem were were writing
because you met an old sailor that knew bobby kaufman
and he had those sparks in his eyes that bobby had talked
like the sea and the plains indians and 50's north beach
readings all still held that awe that a jack micheline held
talked like they just walked out of some book that was a
living book that existed between some star and some earth
some early morning poet gathering down under the art bridge
with the huge holy clouds and the sacred bottle of cheap wine
and the words just poured out of a green bottle like jack magic
and the sixties and the fifties never ended and it all howled wild
then the world got too bad and war torn and poetry held on dear

[joel]

"no internet / just a paper"

i haven't taken the lip off a pen and written a poem on paper in...well...longer than since i've been away. i write notes and letters longhand...and of course it's different: tangible in substance if not in content.

just a paper.

also, i really like the iron cadence you build here.

[revolutionrabbit]

ah, i use to write on a second hand typewriter
or in a note book, it had a different feel, more
connected with the ink i think, but back then
things were different, i was trying to get that
capture how it felt, to have people around like
Bobby Kaufman, or Jack Micheline, or the poets
i met and knew, like seeing them read live, and
i did see Bukowski read, and Ginsburg once,
also Burroughs, and other not so known ones.
But the coming of the computer and the internet
kinda forced me to accelerate my writing, the
places i write on, and the experimental style.
In this piece i was attempting to recall the feel
of the street, but over and above that, trying
to recall just what it all seemed to be about,
like poets, and crazy ones, or like say Jack
Micheline, who would read on the street, and
people would give him change, i remember
seeing him one day in North Beach with a bowl
or a can, and i think a sign that asked for coin
for wine.I use to see poets read on the street.
and i saw Bobby Kaufman walking around North
Beach, that was so long ago now, I met Philip
Lamantia and saw him read several times, and
who even knows who he was now?Yeah i was
like those crazy ones let out of the mental hospital
but there was a difference, i mean i was always
thinking about poetry in that context, like how insane
society is, and so the so-called crazy people that just
never fit in and or fall through the cracks, and since
i began writing poetry the cracks just get wider, hard
to talk about, but poetry is about that, that crack in
the cosmic egg.Peace.

[SadLuckDame]

A wonderful delivery, rabbit.

[hester_prynne]

Brilliant! Brilliant! Brilliant!
H

[revolutionrabbit]

Back in the 60's we liked to say
Peace & Love.I still think about the poets that can say
what they see and feel, What is it that i can say that is relevant?
I thought meeting a famous poet like Bobby Kaufman was what
i was here for, to see the look in his eyes, hear the sound of his
voice, hear the living poet saying the living poetic word, but darn
it don't get more difficult to hear that poetic voice in the world.
all those years ago when i began reading Rimbaud and Ginsberg
and all the others, i wanted to make myself into a poet because
that was a way to bare witness to what passes for creative thought
and not just getting the media blackout and what passes for human
discourse in this day.I write like this because after spilling the beans
or spelling the words that i still have to look up, i feel that poetry
is still under struggle, and look for the thieves of fire after Rimbaud
will carry on.I rant on, in 2010 what happened to the free lunch, and
food and not bombs?

[Sue Littleton]

Oh, yeah, rabbit, i was there
except we did it here and it was the '70's
our group was called
"Poesía y Calle"
we had café concerts and readings
and we talked/wrote about Allende and Chile
turned out revolutionary poems
while the world was eroding all around us
but we didn't notice
until we discovered our island was the size
of a tablecloth
and they were pulling us off the streets
and making us disappear
poetry be damned
I ran back to Texas in 1976
with the Hounds of Hell
yapping at my heels
while my poet friends dropped from sight
from life perhaps?
Yeah, been there, did that.
Good memories of bad times.

Sue L.

[revolutionrabbit]

came out of the 60's
a tripped out teen, with "turn on,
Tune in, and Drop out" a poem
on my chimes of freedom flashing mind
went up to northern calif.
in the 70's my poet mentor
crazy surfer pot head declared himself
a surrealist, he could translate spanish
and french, so he translated as best as
he could, i read lots of it, he found books
in the university library from translated
authors for me to read, writers i can't
remember, like Julien Gracq, or Huysmans

Santa Cruz California, was a hippie mecca
it was a poet town, in the 70's a person like
me could live there, but Santa Cruz was always
a strange scene for sure, i met an old poet friend
at one of the local reading open mics, Porter
that had been a socialist, and he liked Hemingway
he was nice to me, and liked to tell me stories
and talk about poetry,There was William Everson
who lived above town in a cabin,off last chance road
in Kingfisher flats
and taught a class
on poetic creative writing up at the U, his mentor
was Robinson Jeffers out of Carmel, famous one at that
Bill had that nature style, and read with a crackling golden
voice that filled the room with sweet coastal light i remember
him reading "The Poet is Dead" written after Jeffers passed
it was always odd and interesting seeing the local
poets gather, some were university poets, others
just wild freak poets, drifting in from parts unknown
or from any town U.S.A. looking for that magic
that made getting up to the open mic seem special
don't know what happened, i met Harry Monroe at
one reading, who had been best friends with Bobby
Kaufman. Harry liked to drink red vermouth, had
had that wild indian part Scottish man in sailor poet eyes
i read Neruda, like Residence on Earth, and recall his love
for Aliende, that terrible day on sept 11 Chilean capital
began reading all the Magic Realists i could find
Philip Lamantia came to me early on, found his book
one night, and soon after went up to North Beach to
hear him read and show him a poem i wrote, that was about
72, oh Philip's voice was so surrealist sensual


i just kept writing and reading all the poets that came
along a life time.

been reading yours.Peace

[Sue Littleton]

Peace, RR, although about all we can do
is say it
because Peace is a long way
from where we are.
May I suggest

Internal Peace.

P.S. Thanks for reading my poetry. You should have the eye by now, with all you have read. I translated Neruda to English for Texans about the time "Il Postinno" hit the screens, damn, it was wonderful ... only reading in my life where 200 people appeared. We read in Spanish and English at Book People in Austin and it was -- words fail me, and I am a wordsmith. Sue

[joel]

no hippie memories
no fists clenched for the revolution
no great names of poetry with voices in my brain caches

born into blessing, the thanks for which was aimed at God--
now I know it's privilege, the thanks for which goes to other
white and wealthy
educated and episcopal
two-parent and two-car garaged
master's degree and Master of the Universe
merry at heart and allowed to be married by law
penised and privileged
minorities of humanity who label everything other "minor"

my great poet voices were Spanish teachers in public high school
and English teachers for "the gifted and talented"
and whatever I picked up on MTV

but still somehow it has resonated
and though I don't understand
still the word of the poem is all I have

the thanks for which I aim at God