Poetry
• Mad Mike - Bill
Fleeman
• World Stage Jam - Rex
Butters
• from the Venice poems -
Stuart Perkoff
• Speak Out! - Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Mad
Mike
By Bill
Fleeman
u sat hunkered
down
next to my garage
garret
wall, under the
overhang
under a poncho out of
the
rain, waiting in the
dark.
i arrived late from the
cafe,
my mind lost in a
poem.
suddenly u stood
up,
spread yr arms
like
vampire wings,
making
a tent of the poncho,
&
showed yr
face.
all i saw was yr
teeth!
i stifled a
fear-scream.
u laughed madly,
said
"i got no place
tonight
can i sleep on yr
floor?"
"no!" i yelled. "you
can't
stay
here."
i watched you walk
away
specter-like in the
drizzle
dark & wished i'd said
yes
instead of
no:
till bob chatterton told
me
u'd hanged yrself
in
somebody else's
garage.
***********
World
Stage Jam
By Rex
Butters
some seasoned
players
mostly
young
their saxes slung in hour hand
angles
lightning rods bringing the sound to
ground
wait at electrified
attention
to play with the small stage
untuned piano
eyes unfocused
listen
learn
blow
their hearts out a horn
break the chains of
Sonny and Trane
reinvent the language a
phrase at a time
bite the reed to the the
rubber
breathe warm life into cold
brass
alchemy
then
back benched bathed in offstage light
pensive
patience
prays to
find
salvation in a
song
***********
from
the Venice poems
By Stuart
Perkoff
yet some houses are looked to
as
anchors
to swing from & with them, their
validity
in venice, in a
time
as any time can
be
here they
come
down the
beach
two by
two
three by three
down the beach
they
come
carrying flutes &
drums
saxaphones
pot
wine
poems
open
arms & faces
twisted
needs &
needs
&
loves
to
swing
the house &
anchor
foundationless
tottering on the
hill
************
Speak
Out!
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
And a vast paranoia sweeps across the
land
And America turns the attack on its
Twin Towers
Into the beginning of the Third
World War
The war with the Third World
And the terrorists in Washington
Are shipping out the young men
To the killing fields again
And no one speaks
And they are rousting out
All the ones with turbans
And they are flushing out
All the strange immigrants
And they are shipping all the young
men
To the killing fields again
And no one speaks
And when they come to round up
All the great writers and poets and painters
The National Endowment of the Arts of
Complacency
Will not speak
While all the young men
Will be killing all the young men
In the killing fields again
So now is the time for you to speak
All you lovers of liberty
All you lovers of the pursuit of happiness
All you lovers and sleepers
Deep in your private dream
Now is the time for you to speak
O silent majority
Before they come for you!
Posted: Thu - May 1, 2003 at 05:46 PM