back when there was only Alan Watts

[revolutionR]

in the late sixties I was taking LSD
I had an Oracle newspaper
I got from a hippie on a street corner
in Haight Ashbury in late 67'
that was put together by Allen Cohen
in that Oracle was an interview
with Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg
Gary Snyder, and Tim Leary
the interview was conducted
on Alan's house boat in Sausalito Calif
just above San Francisco
many years later I met the person
that did the interview, a poet
that had been best friends with Bob Kaufman
his name was Harry Monroe, he told me stories
about Bob when they lived in the East Village

so I did not read much in 67' 68' I listened to
a lot of music and tripped, but that interview
was a big influence on me at the time
because it was the only information I had
about what was happening with the hippies
I also read the L.A. free press who published
some Bukowski poems, and also R. Crumb

but when I began reading books again
I was drawn to Alan Watts because nobody else
was taking about eastern philosophy like him
his voice was ahead of the time, I read his book
'The 'Book On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are'
which is the way I felt in those times

which is why I did not like the education system
and is also why I was drawn to becoming a poet
Alan still resonates and it is great to listen
to his voice late at night, he was trying to warn
us humans and this was all before computers
but he saw things that were on the horizon
it reminds me of early Bob Dylan, that sense
of the times a changing, but things were in many ways
more simple then before all this alien technology

so I don't know how poets are keeping up
Alan spoke of the Dao he really opened up western
thought to eastern thought, in this talks there was
always a sense of the timeless, but also a sense
of the timely nature of the human predicament
a philosopher for the future, and great for poets

[Arcadia]

A friend gave me same years ago as a gift an old Alan Watt´s "This is it" book printed in 1975 in an Spanish translation (Here: "Formas del zen").I treasure it!. I also read "The big mandala" and a book called here "OM" . I prefere reading him than listening... odd but his writings seem to me more powerful than his spoken voice...