go

[keithalanhamilton]

go
jam it
jammin’ on
and
on
until
jammed out
enough
to go
jam it
again

[stilltrucking]

If I was a poet
And I know I am not
I would jam Nietzsche like an old testament prophet
Nietzsche running all around my brain
Like LSD

[stilltrucking]

though i walk through the valley of the shadow
I will fear no evil but my own
Nietzsche for dummies that was me

I was such a fool
What I thought I knew
was only vanity

I leaned on my own understanding
I leaned on Nietzsche
I leaned on Jesus
I was leaning like a tower

Gotta go
I love this board Keith
I never know what will come

[revolutionrabbit]

i am a poet
poet am i

what sort of poet
am i?

i read philosophy
i read poets that read poetry
and sometimes they read
the Bible or not

poetry seems to somehow
elude the minds of bible readers
or not

i always saw myself as a poet
or not

i decided that i would become
a poet when i was young
one could say in lue of what
i did not know about poetry

i only knew the lyrics of Dylan
i knew i was seeing some kind
of language that he used

becoming a poet was like a movie
i saw as a 12 year old called Bucket of Blood
i saw that guy recite his poem to the beatniks
on that day i knew i was one of those
i wanted to be like some dishwasher
that worked at the cafe and stood
at the back of the room
and listened to the Beats

i wanted to know what it meant to be cool
but i was still a kid and i dd not read much
cept some science fiction, did not read
Kerouac or Ginsberg until about 18 or so
i just listened to the music and let the
sounds and words of the stuff i heard
on the radio form my impressions
of the world

[stilltrucking]

Never read the Bible
just bits and pieces
some of [it]sure seemed like poetry to me

I am old
startling old

Older than the moon and the stars
I started out old
And I am getting younger every day

I am going to be a[s] innocent as a new born babe [by] the day I die

***

no poetry in me
man must no [know] his limits
but clint eastwood never had aspergers

poetry eludes me
tone deaf and tune deaf
I just like the clickety clack of the keys as I spew and spurt doggerel
hell doggerel would be an improvement for me

[stilltrucking]

for a meta
for

wrote write
in blood and pain

Nietzsche extracted from my life
and hers

he wrote in ink
and I write this with blood

and pain and loss
of my vain it dross

so I am here
and there she is I don't know

I can't blame
I can't evade

so it is
going on and on
mush every ketystorke
spontaneious from my soul
the regret remorse redemption return
in the shadow of the letters between the blank ness of the words in light and shadow
I thought I was exempt from the reaping of my actions

who wants to know

[judih]

who wants to go
who hears the beats in the valleys of the room
the clinking of silverware where chopsticks once stood
who knows what flies say
those eyes on the wall see
who can tell me
in a voice from within
that shouts without fear
going from here is gone from there
got something to say
lost more wisdom than a bookshelf's store
but i can listen
so go - let it out
trade your smarts for a moment on stage
fifteen minutes is what ya get
grab it, let it soar

[revolutionrabbit]

plant a kiss on the shore
were in a song i recall as a kid
it was called Ebb Tide, sung by
Jerry Colonna, as the tide rushes in...

next i recall seein Dobbie Gillis
and Maynard G. Crebs the first
Tv Beatnik, i didn't know a poem
from a pop gun, but i knew what
funny was, The Ernie Kovacs Show
and his famous character of a poet
Percy Dovetonsils with the spit curls
and the too big martini glass, and
that far out zebra smoking jacket
dovetailed nicely with the Nairobi Trio
those too cool monkey men playin
a bongo hat a tinny piano and a
banana

i did not want to be Percy, but
i loved those funny painted eyes on
the shot glass glasses, i also recall
finding the dirty paperback books
my factory worker dad hid for me
under the couch i sat on to watch
Tv in the den, i did not know anything
much about dirty books but i recall one
that was about Heroin addict teenagers
it was called 'H is for Heroin" and i do
remember reading some of the book
at the age of about seven or eight
those pony tail babes

in the too tight sweaters and the hep cats in
leather jackets on the cover of "H"
i could not wait to grow up
and become a Heroin addict poet teenager
good thing i also recall the first time i heard
Stereo, and that sound of the walk from one
speaker to the other, it the record that came
with the new Stereo was all about this new
Stereophonic sound had a cool lookin 50's
pic of some spacey look and a beautiful
woman that seemed to be the physical
manifestation of that mono become stereo

i was on a trip listening to that record over and
over, with that new out of this world stereo i was
a little beatnik in the making but i always was a
hobo on Halloween, and once i was a heroin
addict bum poet like a monkey in the Nairobi trio

[stilltrucking]

Yes I want my 15 minutes
I Only need 15 minutes
A shower and a change of underwear
and Time to get my affairs in order

I heard the voice
it was saying we knowers
we are forever strangers to ourselves
Comforting words to a freak like me


In Baltimore during world war two
in the front room of a house
with blackout curtains on the windows
was a floor model radio
Taller than I was

A man was speaking in German
I thought it was Yiddish
sounded kind of like it
But I could not understand a word

Why was everyone so afraid?
I felt so safe there.
Then I heard
Walter Winchell and Gabriel Heater speaking to Mr and Mrs Amerika and all the ships at sea.

Air raid wardens on every block
air raid sirens going off
German subs off the coast
the pill boxes on Rehobeth Beach Deleware
Glen L Martin Plant painted in camouflage
It was a good time to be a Jew boy
but only in Amerika
far across the sea

I remember the sultry summer day they executed the Rosenbergs, and it was paranoia time
for Jewish refugees, oh no not here!

it is all in there
the baths I used to get in the kitchen sink
the dead rats and maggots in the alleys
the drowned kitten I saw in a toilet in a junk yard

The blue skies of endless childhood racing by
The Saturday matinees
the Sunday funnies that I taught myself to read
The first book
Little Dog Ready at Home
the feeling that reading is magic

Never occurred to me that writing is magic too.

I can't see *itler as a monster
just a man but I can not bear to write his name
I can see it all in me
the lust for power
the hatred and desire for women
Twisted people see each other
I spent too long staring into the darkness
I never saw the light


I heard Nietzsche's voice coming out of an alley on East Baltimore Street in 1952. As I walked to school recklessly eyeballing the posters of the strippers.

Please promise me you won't ever GO away
I need your voice
You are a priestess to me

[keithalanhamilton]

fifteen minutes
to let it go
and make it soar
now that’s pressure
or maybe uninhibited fun
wordplay like foreplay
inciting the spirit
to get it on
spill the beans
to say it like it is
it was or ever will be

[stilltrucking]

how it was
was nitty gritty
how it will be
will be technicolor
so long so far away
in time and space
words playing on and on
learned anew in each generation
peace

[the mingo]

beaten down
laid out
rubbed away by
the wind
the play of things
engages us

[revolutionrabbit]

the stereo railroad track on the twilight zone
like album cover the post card of Little Big Horn
in the rain of arrows and Jap zeros
the street the size of Jupiter
with a gigantic circle drawn in chalk
the cats eye marbles like planets
casting shadows through the curtains
of the tv show with the clown and kids
as Mack the Knife stands at the back
the railroad track behind the tract house
with the flattened copper pennies
the rosary beads with finger nail polish
the cracker balls like precious stones
in little packs neat and cool as razor blades
the paper back of stranger then science stories
with ghost trains that appear in fogs of reason
the frogs the other kids stepped on for fun
the rhinestone earrings the Mexican workers
put on the four year old kid and laughed
the Mexican baby sitter that lived in the cracker
box house in back the box with the toy bug game
whose name is forgotten like the little black dog
that was lost one cobalt blue day the barn in the
little farm in the lot next door where the little
girls lived and they took off their clothes in the
smelly piles of hay and the little pencil with red
lead on one end and blue lead on the other
the walks on Redondo beach with the young mother
the orange peanut penny candy miracle of mother
Mary the vision of the hill behind the beach with
only a few buildings on it the apartment on the hill
with the paper thin walls where the child talked to
the nice man on the other side of the wall on
the toilet the far away memory of summer green hills
the streets like long fingers of monsters reaching
up and down hills with a metal structure on the top
of one hill that appears like some tower with a signal
blinking blinking blinking off in the almost blind distance

[stilltrucking]

beat up and beat down
engaged in life
after all these years
still not beat enough

I still want to compete
old age ain't for sissies
everybody seems so young to me

How did I get to be so old
walking those streets in little italy
on the look out for the Nun's from st leo's church

And all the jewish girls
wanting to look italian
and the italians jewish

a big old goofy world
old truckers never die
we just get new peter's bilt.

[revolutionrabbit]

Burroughs said "hells yes i'm old"
i don't exercise religion
i don't like to be the pigeon
in that hole
hell is old

i don't know
but i been told
that when knights were bold
they slaughtered little brown
babies

some knights were too busy
diggin up the Holyland
to bother little brown babies
looking for that treasure of
treasure

measure for measure
and it was buried again
in some underground
under a castle
in France

i missed my chance
the bloodline was picked
up again in a poet's
pleasure