Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

all the poems I lost on the way
to the poetry reading
all the poems I wrote in my mind
on the way to the poetry reading
all the poems I was planing to write
on my way to my last day
all the poets I read in the first few
days of my becoming a poet

to think that I could have read the Bible
over and over until something spoke to me
and I saw the truth behind the words

but instead I read certain poets
that spoke to me of a truth
that came directly from the words
that they picked up from the ground
of being

the poets words are not owned by any church
or cabal, they are the ink blood of the people
they are the fermentations of the real feelings
we all share when we tell it like it is

I understand this. All my best poems, I've lost, never having been written down.

I like this poem.

Actually years ago in my early twenties I was living in San Francisco, in a small studio apt. a block up from China town, I would walk down the China town street and then go down Kerouac alley before they named it that and come out there where City lights Books was next to Vesuvio cafe, one night I was on my way to a reading at a place called Project Artaud where artists and poets lived in a old warehouse. But I met this black dude in front of City Lights and we got drunk together, very drunk, and I woke up in City jail. I had lost my poetry
and when they let me out the next morning I met a young girl that tried to get me to go to a Reverend Sun Moon meeting, I hung out in City Lights basement a lot reading poets all day long.Sometimes Bobby Kaufman would come in, or other North Beach poets. Back when a lot of those poets were still alive.

....excellent story from a treasured time....I would love to hear more about Bob Kaufman....I was at City Lights in '73 and again on my honeymoon in '74....I went to Los Altos H.S. from '68-'70.......

Tell us more about this time and your experiences. And did you get Poetry Flash out there. Had all the listings of readings throughout the Bay area and beyond.

I was just a visitor passing thru but in the 90's and the last decade.
Your stories are more interesting. Hit us with a couple of poems about those days.

I understand the computer tech money is suffocating the spirit of San Francisco----squeezing the artists and writers out. Razing buildings with character and history and making it another part of 24/7 America.

Baltimore, New Orleans, Portland Oregon, maybe Boston are still culturally attuned and unique cities. Washington D.C. has a thriving literary scene as does downtown Los Angeles.

See if you can recover some of the lost poetry by walking the pavement of your mind.

I met a poet in Santa Cruz calif. where I was living in the 70's, I only lived in S.F. for a few months, the poet had been best friends with Bobby Kaufman in the days when they lived in the East Village in the 50's. Harry told me stories about Bobby Kaufman. One time I went up to S.F. to hang out and I met Bobby in Vesusio cafe and bought him a drink, and talked to him for awhile. Then we went outside in Kerouac alley, and stood there next to where they had placed in a cement square right next to the door like a plaque that said how many times Bobby had been 86ed from Vesuvio cafe. Some guy came up and handed Bobby a joint and Bobby took a hit and did a little dance there in the Frisco night. I have written several poems about my meeting that night with Bob. I use to see Bobby walking around North Beach when I lived there next to China Town.

Yes I use to get Poetry Flash. My poet mentor friend and I put out a small rag publication once called The Velvet Pistol that had a bunch of local poets that would never have gotten published otherwise. City Lights is still there and Ferlinghetti is still alive, but S.F. has been taken over by Silicon Valley.

For we, the poets,
Lost poetry is inevitable unfortunately
Some say they must've been irrelevant
Surely they jest.

Know they not the significance
Of the unfortold hope that could've been
Or the tear that'd been shed
Or how about the possibility of a life changer.

Time and again we loose poems
Leaving us much in frustration
Leaving us much in shattered thoughts
Oh, please, must it happen to us.

So much lost to thin air
So much lost in ages past
So much lost to the sands of time
But oh those poets great.

Speak to us oh great authors of light
Bring us the truth in your heart of knowledge
Save us the downfall of our own faults
Great ones please assist us.

Know they not of what we are
Know they not of how we speak
We are the riddles and rhymes
We are the lights unknown until perfect time.

Yes for we, the poets,
Lost poetry is inevitable
Some say it must've been irrelevant
Surely, surely they do jest!

Yes, this really captures the real spirit
of the reality of the true poet

so much happened, so fast in my early
poet days, but it was a different time
and in those first years, so much was
lost and so much was found

I was living the life of a poet
as it so happened in those days and times
when poets flocked the streets
and it was like there were poet gangs
I was the fringe street poet gang
then there was the university poet gang
and others who floated in from
other parts of the universe

this all happening before the internet
so much happened in those first poet days
I can never describe how much was lost and
what was found, but there was a period within
a period when I was riding the current
when the poetry seemed to come from
a whole other place altogether

which seemed to be connected to some higher dimensional
source, but came through the collective unconscious
I cannot explain this in so many words
but it was like I was being blown around by wild winds
and I was trying to write poetry in the middle of a mental hospital
in the middle of the changing shifting of one age to another
the sands of time blowing through me
the stars blowing through too
on my way to the poetry reading