Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

cool be cool man
the saxophone is coming
with flying saucers of sound
the witch doctor is rising from the carpet
the people walking on city streets
talking trash or uttering poetry
in costumes and rags and bags and suits
clown bum vampire witchy queen of cool
king of toilet plungers and monk of fool
in spades and diamonds boots and barefoot
underneath skies of books turning pages
spilling beans of magic and murder
under floods of signs moving around like
rays and beams of light moving around
in circles and triangles making trails
like neon letters flashing through cosmic
boxes of colors stacking up like mad
cool be cool man
those walkers in the night under blinking
insanity of false idols and televisions
are passing huge windows filled with manikins
they want to wear the clothing that the fake
people wear, up there they look up to the
Christmas tree with huge bulbs and shinny lit
but out of the myriad box shapes of objects
and round shapes in darkened rooms
in side other box shapes and bulb spheres
there are vast interiors revolving around
with beings dancing like the hully gully hoodoo
with strange human shapes writhing in ecstasy
flipping through mirror rooms and hidden room jazz
coming through the hieroglyphic walls like top hats
with neon like snakes climbing the ceilings
and cat headed women making hand signs
as the walkers arrive from above and below
they got that wild fun house free love of the stars
above and below
cool be cool man

This felt as if you were channeling some beatnik poet out of the 1950's. I could hear the rhythm and the finger snapping and smell the smoke and unwashed bodies and the beer. Old is new again. Good one.

it's all channeling, I was a Beatnik at 12 in my mind
that was when all those beats were still alive, then
the late 60's came along and Dylan and and Jim
Morrison, I met poets along the way that were
right there in North Beach when Ginsberg recited Howl.
so to me it's all still a happening and finger snapping.
yeah so it's all channeling right along.

an apt Halloween poem, but open to a great deal more....just watched the new movie, Howl, with James Franco as Ginsberg....it's excellent....lots of great insight into the time.....Ferlinghetti actually had to stand trial because of Howl.....a fascinating case......some great cameos from Mary Louise Parker and Jeff Daniels testifying at the trial as expert witnesses .....good write

i lived in San Francisco once for a few months
then years later I lived there with my wife life mate
the time i lived there alone, i hung out in North Beach
everyday, i lived right in China Town, on Pine Street
I had a view of the corner of the street that ran down
the main street in china town, there was a building
that had one of those Chinese slanted roofs on the corner
I use to go hang out and City Lights books everyday
I saw Ferlinghetti quite often, once Bobby Kaufman
came in City Lights and asked Ferlinghetti for a dollar
and Lawrence said "I don't have a dollar" and Bobby
just kept asking him, "give me a dollar" like it was
a ritual, It was very funny, but it also said something
about the odd reality of City Lights who only publish
well known writers, they use to have a section in the
basement or maybe it was at some point on the upper floor
where allowed self-published local writers/poets.One of the
poets that city Lights published was Philip Lamantia, whom
I talked to on the telephone when I was first writing poetry
I was influenced by him, and I went up to Frisco and saw
him read, also i ran into him in City Lights basement a
couple of times, because he was working in the store then.
I had a copy of a poem by Philip in my wallet and showed
it to him, and he corrected a line in the printed version.
Once I saw Ted Joans do a reading in City lights, and I
talked to him after the reading, and he gave me his phone
number and i called him once, and he talked to me for
awhile, and invited me to a local reading with Philip, which
I did not make it to, for whatever reason.I also saw Jack
Hirschman around and at readings, my poet mentor
and I talked to him in front of City Lights one day, and
he sort of mocked us, for being hippies, or hippie poets
he said something like"what do you do take LSD and write"
but he gave us some poems to put into of our little
poetry rag that we self-published in Santa Cruz where we lived
on the coast 75 miles below S.F.Once a local poet organized
a huge reading at the civic auditorium in Santa Cruz
that lasted two nights, and All the famous poets were there
Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Burroughs, Bukowski, and many others
and local poets.I was a ticket taker and got in free, and I
got to sit in the back room with the poets, or the ones that
hung out in the back room, Bukowski was sitting near me
at a table with the booze that was supplied and his two women
friends that were with him, I can recall so clearly the look on
his face right before he got up to read.And I remember hearing
Burrough's voice echoing through the auditorium.And of course
William Everson a famous local poet was there.Oh, and Ken Kesey
was there reading too.So many poets from then are passed on now.
Ferlinghetti is still alive, and City Lights books still exists.And I wrote
a self published poetic novel about the late 60's that is chock full of
LSD writing with the Lamantia-esque surrealist influence, but with
a Beat flavor, finger snapping good!