the poet is not some groovy guy

[revolutionR]

poetry is the odd ball, the one that says
the off the wall thing when others won't

poetry is the thing that needs to be said
that goes beyond all the load of crap
that passes for dogma of current affairs

poetry is not what governments do
as we see the passing thanksgiving parade
of one fake for another, a gold covered turd
is still a turd

poetry is the sore thumb, the elephant in the room
is the one poem revolutionary, the black sheep
not the sheeple, is an outcast, is the radical
that says whats on everybody's minds

poetry requires some kind of detachment
but it also needs the affront to tell it like it is
it needs to transcend while it sinks to the
bottom of the book of lies

poetry will remind you to remember why we
are really here, where we have been
which is the same as where we are going

poetry is the smart alec in the back
of the school room
that really wants to read a poem to the class
to break the monotony

poetry is like a school of fish in the miracle sky

is the soul standing in the train station of transition
poetry is the transcendental object, like James
Joyce spoke, history is the night mare from which
I'm trying to wake up from, like death
like crossing over, poetry is crossing over
is standing between worlds seeing to the other side

poetry is the heavenly mother-ships
like rainbow bubbles blown from the prime creator
uncloaking at the end of time

[mnaz]

Exactly.

I remember one time in eastern Oregon, I looked at the moon and I swore I saw the wispy pale white outline of a fish around it in the miraculous desert sky.

[revolutionR]

I don't know, I in the beginning I saw poetry as a voice of discontent with what
I was seeing happening in the world round me, mainly the war which was part
of the picture of a lot of over all things going on,a sense of something
wrong, like the disparity between the things we are told and the feeling
we are not being told the truth. I learned to write by reading writers and poets
I ready could not get it on with the education system, so my practice is limited
is some ways, my knowledge of grammar, spelling, structures of English,
vocabulary, but I always had a sense for the meaning of words, so I compensated
by reading a lot. And in my readings I read about spiritual subjects, like mystery
schools, about psychic things. I was doing this on my own and it was the early 70's
but the whole time in that time I was concentrating it all into poetry. I was attracted
to the surrealists because they went deeply into the mystery of language, I liked the
Beat poets and writers because they seemed to capture the times a changing and
followed on the heels of the Dadaists and surrealists and fellow travelers. However,
because I was doing this in a place where there was a lot of psychic energy, and
a lot of poets and artists I learned a lot the hard way, because it was all new then
I did not know where it was going, but it felt like a lot of creative energy was
building a revolution of spirit, but learning about that in the hard way on being
a lone poet, but also with all the other poets that I met along the path, Bukowski
was very much a part of that, and many others, like Bob Kaufman and Philip Lamantia.And William Burroughs too, and the magic realist writers. And the poets that I met that were
not famous, but were in their own way great because they were part of the poetic revolution.
I felt the momentum of that time, that moment when those poets were alive, and
computers had not yet entered the scene. It really felt like poets could break through
the wall of bullshit and lies, and tare down the curtain of illusion. Maybe some were into zen
or like me were attracted to Buddhism but ended up following western occult writings because
of the symbolic language subjects to learn more about our real history. I did this all on my own
because I was a lone poet on my own, and to find out things you had to dig it out of the library
or hang out in book stores. Or sometimes where I lived strange travelers appeared
with their stories that seemed exotic or just far out and then they were gone back into the mist they came from., or maybe I hung out with some old homeless Mexican under a bridge for a few moments and just watched the way he moved
not the way he did not say anything. Whatever it was, people that had been let out of the
mental homes in the 70's because that was the new policy by then California governor Reagan.
Poets were on the down town streets with the people let out, and sometimes you could not
tell the difference. The poets life.

Somewhere in the early 70's maybe 72 I went through a kind of psychic meltdown, a lot of which
had to do with what I had to do to stay out of the military draft, and other things that were
happening at that time with people I was involved with. Where I was living in a house with a lot of people, and there was crazy stuff happening between
some of these people. I was spending time reading in the university library, I was forcing myself to read all kinds of things, like Carl Jung who spoke of the collective unconscious, which I think I kind of tapped into. I had written what I call my first poem a few months before this, and then months later it was published in a local alternative paper. When the poem was published it kind of pushed me over the edge. I can't really write about what I experienced, strange psychic stuff. For about a year I was like one of those people let out of a mental home, wandering the streets of Santa Cruz. Then I met a woman and ended up in a place called the university of the trees, a meditation community, I stayed there for one year.

To think about what happened when I was first writing poetry, it was in a very odd moment, it was that moment just before everything shifted with the internet, a moment when, I had to find out stuff by hanging out with poets and books, the stories in my mind were there because I read
some stories, and the poems, I was using the computer of my brain, almost as if I was seeing into the future, but I could not really imagine what it was going to be like when the internet came along, and when It did all I did was try to figure out where it was going, but for me it was all through the lens of poetry. I cannot imagine robots writing poetry, but I can imagine aliens that like poetry, I donno.

[mnaz]

That's true, it was an odd moment, at the explosion of humanity and tech, the big bloom and boom despite all efforts to annihilate it in world war. They tell me the population doubled after 1968 ... an odd moment between the mechanical and digital, and drowning in screens. For better or worse, til death do you part ...

[creativesoul]

Poetry is a voice that needs to be heard

[creativesoul]

Past
Present
Future

[the mingo]

Wow ! That's a shot and a half !

[creativesoul]

Poetry
In
Motion
Early in the quiet of morning
The diligence of the new
Pounding on my inner door
Wake up
Touch the day
It's going to be beautiful
Poetry is the vague key that opens
Passageway
And corridor
To somewhere
That is not here for long
Seriously
The words came rolling off her tongue
She stood up there
The poetry came from her small mouth
With a bigger voice
That is heard
Poetry
Lives inside