EUREKA OF SORTS

ALOHA 2U,

CONTEXT i drove taxi in frisco between 1976 and 1980 when i flamed out. during that time i also wrote poetry and read it aloud in various coffee house (see Final Score which was my first public reading) now Vart was both my BFF (sigh) fellow cabbie and next door nabe.he had a self published book of his own..since he was from Petaluma, the home of chicken farmers and i was a zen buddhist we called our nites at the Noe Vally Library 'A BUDDHA IN THE BROODER HOUSE ' & WE GAVE $20 CASH THOSE JUDGED THE BEST POET OF THE NITE.

anyway, i wanted to set this off with a rollicking poem i wrote about MAD RUTH,based on an obscure Denny O'Keefe song...recently i realized this poem is about The Mirage which i wrote TEN YEARS BEFORE I EVEN MET HER! sigh.

so, long story short, i can't find it among the three unpublished volumes i put together decades ago.so the following was written during the same era about the poetry experience, you will notice over time that i went from traditional rhyming verse (a high school lesson) to blank verse to haiku.hope you enjoy (?) the ride..read it aloud if it helps.this is from sept 1978 and you will note that it sounds about the same as i do now,precocious or merely stagnant???... HOPE THE NEW TEMPLATE DOESN'T SCREW IT UP TOO BADLY.

OKAY, HERE WE GO.

POETRY MOGULS

Greetings.all you Culture Vultures
you see here before you
a genuine
poetry mogul.
a patron of the arts
a consort of The Muse
a veritable pedagogue of poetics.

Fridays,disguised as
Pandora, i assist in
the unlocking of
oral sphincters
releasing the flood tide of
free floating anxiety,
the hunchback harlequins
& gaudy painted lepers of
"OPEN POETRY READINGS".

i sit aghast
writhing in the
metered massacred memory
of past ham fisted assaults
on The Muse;
this Rape & Rough Love
rhapsodized as rhyme...
rhyme & punishment indeed.

i ask thee;
Calliope-Muse of Epic Poetry
Terpsichore - Muse of Lyric Poetry
Erato-Muse of Lyric,Erotic poetry
i ask thee fair ladies
if thy know what PAIN is?

is PAIN a difficult breech birth?
is PAIN being stranded in Antarctica
naked with an abcessed tooth
aching fiercely?
is PAIN starting the day with diarhhea
watching your wallet fall
into the toilet...before you've flushed?
is PAIN finding out that The One
you've worshiped so relentlessly
from afar is -upon close inspection-
a bloated biased bigot with bad breath?

NO NO..THIS IS NOT TRUE PAIN!
its not even close.
castration & self mutilation in their
finite variety run,at best,a poor second.

PAIN IS...
being clubbed senseless by archaic cliches
being mauled by murky metaphors
being entranced by a lyric ppassage, only to
realize that the poet they stole it from
is YOU.

PAIN IS...
watching a plodding poet stumble over
and around a beautiful idea/concept/phrase
then pick himself up
and keep going.

PAIN IS...
watching seven minutes of
two old drunks fighting,
together in one body,
using only one dry voice.

PAIN IS...
watching seven minutes of terminal halitosis
having a temper tantrum
aided & abetted by
a tattered rhyming dictionary.


PAIN IS...
watching thesaurus-theatrical prose polemics
plagiarized into pathetic pseudopods of puerile
"poetry".

PAIN IS...
preying that you've heard the last of
endlessly agonized adolescent Angst
and then some zit faced
brings up her life story
wrapped in twine & rhyme.

PAIN IS..
praying that the tedious & tawdry trash mouth doesn't
show up again this week but of course he does
and signs up to go first.

PAIN IS..praying that once again tonite
we will get one REAL POET
aside from the scant irregulars.
some elfin tongued waif dancing lightly upon
eucalyptus,cyclamen & daffodils.
some student of
unicorn racing & rainbow polishing
and perhaps even Mt.Fuji cherry blossoms;
adept in quicksilver symbol-speech
& fairie lore & wistful shire magic.
someone brimming with Invincible Poets Blood,
yea with verse in the veins,fire in the heart,
lust in their loins but LOVE in their belly.
FOREVER MIGHTY & MINDLESS
RAPT WITH THE MUSE.

aye yes, we pray for Real Poetry hallowed & rare as finding
diamonds in a whore's navel or
Salvation's Holy Grail in
the wino's gutter.

pray for us, the ever Buddhas in the brooder houses,
as we stumble thru the blind back alleys of
debris box dervishes searching, forever searching
for the Taj Mahal.

PRAY
for we are proud & shameless,
we bleed thru our scabs
for your applause,
regurgitating our pain & humiliations
for your inspection & approval
PRAY
as we expose our private parts in prosy.

WE ARE THE...
PROUD/BITTER
SHAMELESS/SCARRED
ROMANTIC/CYNICAL
VIRGINS/VOMIT
PRAY...
GOD HELP US
for we are
POETS???
**********
there, that wasn't so bad, was it?

if you liked it-tell your friends
if you didn't-tell your enemies how great it was...

namaste
mega


PS as i was typing this
i noticed how much it sounded like Blogging.
SIGH..."SSDD".