born beatnik

[revolutionR]

I'm going to start at the beginning
before it becomes the ending
there was a mushroom cloud
on the booboo tube, i was a kid
I saw the future then, or was it
I had no way of knowing, the black
and white TV made it all so, well
either black or white, but that explosion
a kid of six only see's
the effect of light playing through the glass
that initial bright flash and the shape of it
while sucking on a popsicle or Abba-Zaba bar
the meaning of this event is beyond comprehension
i am more into watching Maynard G Krebs
the original beatnik on fifties television
my young mind is beginning to formulate
who I will become, and Maynard seems cool to me
in so far as i even know what is cool yet
which makes be believe that a beatnik is born
which also makes me believe that the fifties
was a beatnik born in the shadow of the H-bomb

[justwalt]

perfect piece... love it.

mom was one, for sure...
me, the next gen... hippy...
and it was landing on the moon... frisbees... and the mets...

they promised us jet-packs...
instead, we got... jack-crap...
and obamacare

scary

[judih]

jet-pack promise
humour hieroglyph
still a hope

[revolutionR]

almost moon landing anniversary july 20
69', i was 18 working at a newspaper
in the back room, saw it on TV
my co-worker and I smoked a joint outside
to watch the event on TV's mounted over our heads.
thought the whole thing was rather hilarious, considering
that I had the draft hanging over my head, and I was a hippie
that did not know what I was going to do with my life, a year
later or so, I moved to northern California and became
a crazy poet by default. Seems the moon landing did not
mean much in so far as making the world a better place.
It should have changed everything, as it marked that giant leap.
thank goodness for all those lunatics who carry the moon around.

[saw]

aah yes the moon landing
on my girlfriends giant magnavox
on leave from great lakes basic training
next step active duty
what a time to come of age
vietnam and the moon exactly the same
strange places for a young man
to be be considering for visitation

[creativesoul]

somewhere around the time i lost my virginity
i found a tribe in the santa cruz mountains
wavy gravy and the hog farm
the band spare change
mr infamous ken kesey
and paul krasner
baba ram dass came and we ate acid and talked
ABOUT BEING HERE NOW
with a g tank of nitus oxide
but all that acid and sex was great
but it was not love

i liked it anyway
made a vow not to go without anything that felt that great
tried to live a life free of hate

i listen and watch
and think of the hot and sticky mess
of the moon looking down at us
with the comapssion of your favorite old woman
maybe the first one that made cookies for you

the insanity of what
i see now
has me spurned as a casuality
of a world where people
are disposed of in favor of resourses

at any moment you could be replaced by a computer
a machine
your job could vaporize in favor of a merger
while lil girls eat kit cat for lunch\
undress for brunch
crunch

[revolutionR]

I moved to Santa Cruz, actually Capitola
was trying to go to Cabrillo jr. collage
while a shared a small cottage
with my high school friend who was a musician
the situation with the draft determined my life
since I was not a musician, I did play a sax and a flute
but my friend was in bands, i just jammed with him
for fun, so I was living on very little, I was like
"who me work" worked in the collage cafeteria
to fed myself, met a crazy surfer poet, who
showed me his cool book collection, and in one
night decided that I would make myself a poet
always wanted to write another novel, about
my hippie life becoming a poet in Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz was the place to be a hippie poet
poetry was a happening in those days
there was my crazy surfer poet mentor
and his sidekick girl friend poet
and me, and the street crazies that we
met to join our gang, I call it poet gang
then there was the university poet gang
and other poets in between that showed up
at the open mikes to read their stuff, tough enough
and those early 70's days and nights just got crazier
finally got out of the draft after getting arrested
by FBI agents for three counts of draft evasion
I remember one young good looking FBI guy
talking to me about Tim Leary on the way to jail
for some reason they took me to Santa Clara
and I was booked and let out to have to go
to court in LA three times, had to agree to show up
at a draft board physical, where I finally got my 4F
but now I was on disability because they don't draft
crazy hippie poets, cuz they are crazy to not want
to train to go kill people in south east Asia
the stuff of forging the mind of a surrealist beatnik

[creativesoul]

Santa Cruz-1969-yeah baby-geodesic dome book-ben and Jerry s ice cream

[WIREMAN]

Being from then
My zorro sword unsheathed
& my coonskin cap on
sideways, I can relate to this poem, enjoyed the ride...nik ....nik...

[revolutionR]

Davy..Davy crocket....king of the wild frontier

I was something of a outsider even as a little kid
I got kicked out of cub scouts after one meeting
seems I said something, the den mother did not approve of
same thing was happening in my first grade class room
my teacher did not approve of me, because I was not
a conformist, it seems....beatnik here i come

at Halloween i liked to dress up as a bum

[Arcadia]

I still like my gypsy & indian child costumes for Carnival, kind of discarted the Mother-Theresa & Che-Guevara holding a Constitution like a molotov of the eighties & early nineties, but you never know ...

enjoyed the reading, gracias for sharing it!!!!

[revolutionR]

not all gypsies are bums, and not all bums are gypsies

or something like that..let the carnival begin

yeah we can discard the Mother Theresa costume

and Che as a poet, there should be a molotov cocktail poem... peace Arcadia

[creativesoul]

The nomad is one who makes frenz with the people of every land, listens carefully - does not have an investment in outcomes- wanting only healing- the human costume is the most difficult to discern what exactly has been hidden from the light-
Gypsies? Belly dancers!?
Contortionists

[revolutionR]

you know creativesoul, if I had moved to Santa Cruz in 69' instead of 70'
maybe our nomad paths would have crossed. Who knows, we both were
like gypsy souls. I wore my beatnik costume under my hippie one. And
I had to be contortionist in my thinking, to shapeshift my poet costume.
Oh, and Belly dancing is an art that gives a woman power, to entice.
kind of like when a female poet makes the moon roll in her middle.

[creativesoul]

ya know it isnt too late
to teach me to belly dance is it?
our generation is so quick to dismiss the whole notion
of rommanc because we think that is for the toehr americand
or something strange like that
but these days
i pour lavender oil on my tits and pretend i am happy
it works most of the time
then i get my feet and nails done
and im too blind too pluck
so i like the girls at the nail salon
from cambodia rip the hair off my face with hot wax
they clean my toes nd hands and sing
hum lil songs while they heal me
wherever ya go
the world embraces that which is sacred