Monday, March 24, 2008

DOUG DRAIME

19 Straight Whiskeys


If I would have been
there at the Chelsea Hotel,
drinking
with Dylan Thomas
the night
they drove him away
in an ambulance.
I would have told him all
the fame and booze
was mutilating
his soul.
The hangers on, writers, editors,
other drunks, leeches, and the women
spreading their
nylon legs.
All of them killing him,
or watching him die
and doing nothing to stop it.
They say he said on that night
“I’ve had 18 straight whiskeys. I think
that’s the record.”
I would have told him all that shit was killing him.
I would have cut him off at 9 whiskeys.
But then again, maybe I might’ve
kept my nose out
of his business and matched him
drink for drink,
going on and beating his record
with 19 and
leaving with one of the
women before
the ambulance arrived.





Finally Realizing



48 yrs. after
his death
he was 24
I was 12 -
you do the
math -
I am finally
realizing
I’ll never be
another
James Dean
This news will
be a
disappoint-
ment
to my
deceased
father,
who was an
Indiana
socialist,
who thought
Dean was the
only true
artist ever in
American movie
culture
Sorry, dad,
that my
biggest
acting role
was in a
film that was
picketed &
shut down
2 days after
it opened
at a
Japanese
movie
theater in
South Central L.A.
for “ exploitation
of the people.”







The Last She Said Poem


She said all my
writing was full of rage,
and morose,
and that I just used
being a writer,
as an excuse for
being a drunk and
an asshole.


I was blind drunk again and she
was driving. We were headed
down Fountain Avenue
in Hollywood, in her mini-
Volvo station wagon.


I attempted, unsuccessfully,
to push her from
the car.


Last I heard she moved back
to New York City,
and was working for a
lesbian stage actress,
who paid her in
sex and cocaine.


I’m still an asshole but I stopped
drinking








A Poem Speculating On The Mysterious
Youth Of Samuel Beckett




Beckett walked the
foggy boulevards
of Paris, weeping, crying
like a baby
like a teenage
sailor
from
Marseilles,
brooding on
cocaine and
codeine
shattered
to the core
over his beautiful and lost love
and he
added to the mix
a lot of Irish whiskey
finally collapsing
in the blackness of an alleyway
feeling
like his heart
had been pierced
by her pimp’s
dagger
and the bleeding
would never
end.






Bada Bing



Jack K. told Allen G. that William B.


Liked to fuck boys, or was that


The other way around?


Yeah, it must have been the other way around


‘Cause Allen G. liked to fuck them real real young


And he knew by sight another perv who liked to fuck boys


Though, Allen G, by definition was a pedophile


And William B. was only on the borderline


Now, Jack K. didn’t like to fuck boys but Allen G.


Kissed and told: that Jack K. liked to fuck a man now and then


Or maybe he just like to fuck Allen G. now and then ?


Nonetheless, welcome to the sex lives of your literary heroes, boys & girls.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

DAN PROVOST

The Workers at the Crematory



The face cinders…


Followed by body parts—fingers, feet, legs.


Jeff was cremated last week in the Crematory of the Simple.


Another job for those guys…stiffs burn…load up the next,
Bring on the Monster Girl into the fold—she had nothing, and
the guy who had the tattoos on his neck…


put him into the flame too…
He and she are nobody but ashes on the floor.


Another paycheck for the fire grinders.


And more to do tomorrow…
So many more to do tomorrow…






Pavlov’s Dog in the 2000’s



You can never do truly what you want…


The responsibility of the Rip-Tide machine has
us all programmed.
Like mice who travel in groups
of two—living only to be eaten by the cat.


We talk about weekend rambling and vacation
madness while drudgery highlights our wakeup scamper.


Shave, apply makeup…then trudge to some shindig of a game.

We never step back and ask:


Who are we?
Who are you?
What is out there?


The belabored sinner.
The corporate antenna.
The real Pavlov’s Dog.








Confession of Soul (or lack thereof)




There is something out there…
I do not know what it is, all I
know that it’s out of my grasp.


Sometimes, I can feel it near
my fingertips…it is then I
am closer to reaching some
sort of peace…a vision of
serenity for not only me…


but those who inhabit this little gauntlet we usually fail to notice daily…


Then, it disappears…leaving in a dusty trail of a soulless arena…not to be found anywhere…


I try to find it in bars, books, or just staring out the window at the end of my earth.


But it fails to come back…


Sometimes for many months, or just one day…
I come so near…but I always fail in obtaining this item I cannot describe.


It leaves a trail of many tears and bloody nights that I have lived through…
And the answer that sometimes appears…and raises its beautiful yet dangerous spirit.


Always finds a way to avoid me in the end…

Saturday, March 15, 2008

LESTER ALLEN

Good Money


Gimmie some death, he said
as he slammed his empty pint glass
on the counter.
I'm sick of this shit. Sun up to
sun down and I'm missing it all,
surrounded by somebody else's
empty dream.



The hum of electric motors,
the squeals of rollers and
old pulleys, the click – click –
click – of the wrapping machines
dividing my days into each painful
second.



It's good money, everyone tells me,
all of them doing it better
just happy to see me eking by.
Their kindness, slithered down
from well manicured towers in
pats on the back that feel like cancer
in my bowels.



It's good money all right, he says again
after a short stare into his beer
got me divorced with
3 kids that I never get to see.
Till she gets done with it there's
barely any left at all. I got a two-bedroom
flat above the newsstand on the square,
a rusted out old pickup that runs
except for when I need it to
and this place
this stool
this beer
and all of you (he was referring to the 5 or 6 of us
strewn about the shadows).



It's good money, he says
and it buys good beer and
if I drink enough of them
it almost feels
like a good life





what we are left with


everyone thinks that the man is so funny. I guess
there was a time, perhaps
when he could link a few clever phrases together and
shake a primitive chuckle from these despairing lips;
when that one catch phrase was still fresh enough
(though never any good, anyhow) to save
the show when the rest of his prepared lines
became too overcooked to swallow.



I saw an advertisement on the tube last night
showing him starring in some comedy film; an otherwise poorly acted
"b" movie attempting to strike it big on
his name. hell, he may have even wrote the damn thing,
I dunno.
it looked like it could have been a
by-product of thought
secreted from his amniotic brain.



what humanity. schleps like him make millions
on talent-less shit. talent-less, and
separated from the rest of the talent-less with shameless promotion
and a comatose audience
ready to laugh on cue. what's worse is
it's everywhere; the sitcom, the evening news,
meetings of congress, the FDA, late night talk shows, sports, music.
it goes on and on.
the comedy isn't funny
the music has no rhythm
government has no sense, even
the news doesn't tell us anything
of value




everyone is so worried about the war
and terrorism and their finances that
they'll swallow whatever you feed them. heads like glass and
half full IS half empty and the smallest shred of
originality sends the agents scrambling for a contract so that
millions more can fool their senses
into stimulation.



"you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours,"
and ain't that the way it goes. I'd sure hate to
be around
when they take all the books away.




setting up in the mold




spun on the rotisserie
never ending
me and those four walls
that room, my home then
no bigger than a large table cloth
with a slender bathroom and a spit
of a kitchen that doubled as a hallway
and sometimes study




nights there were good times
the six of us stuffing our mouths of fungus
staring at Mt. Vesuvius from the
back
shaking ripe dreams
from the branches of youth
as time stood completely still



there was just enough room
there
to squeeze in a sleeper sofa
when it was unfolded
it became the floor
and we all had to duck
a little lower
the black and white 15 inch
didn't receive shit
so we made our own fun
and sometimes the girls would come
though not very often
it was always something
to try and impress them
with that little room
it made everything else appear
so much larger though
which never hurt



$325 a month and with that you got;
water, trash, electric and
lousy fucking neighbors
up at all hours
at each others throats
some of them were ok but
they had the thermostat on their half
and their kids
would always be fooling with it
my door would be wide open
in the middle of February
just so I could fall asleep
without being cooked
alive


those four walls of
that square little room
I'm thankful now that it wasn't circular or
any other shape then the square it was or
these words might still be floating
like a memory tied to a something that's
never even been
this page would be empty and
I'd probably be supervising
someone
somewhere
doing less with their life
than they'd like

Friday, March 14, 2008

Michael Grover

Trane Blew

Smooth like Trane
Blowin' chaos
Translated to sanity.
Expression,
Communication,
Art.

What is art
But organized chaos?
Sometimes organized
Better than others.
Always struglin'
Fighting to be free.
Take this to forget,
The real american dream.
Come rich man,
Come poor man,
Come privileged whiteness,
Or darker oppressed.

Trane blew,
Through all of the madness.
Money sickness,
True american religion.

Trane blew,
Through everything
To help him forget.
Which ultimately led to kidney failure.

Trane blew,
Emancipating,
Liberating,
Everyone but himself.

Trane blew,
All the way to the grave.

He survives,
In headphones of this walkman.
In the middle of a noisy coffee shop.
Trane blew.



Blood

Spit my sorrow in the sink.
Whats a little blood to a Poet?
I return to my room
Jazz piped though
Cable that we just got
But we cant afford.
What is with this american need
That eats at me like hunger pains?

Tip of pen meets page.
Whats a little blood to a Poet?
Write with pressure,
Little wasted movement.
Ive got a sickness in me.
Ive got lethargy.
I am writing it out.
I am sweating it out.
I am writing so hard that I sweat.

Who am I to fall in love anyway?
Only a distraction from the work Im doing.
Temporary illusion.
Distraction from
The real world of concrete and asphalt.
The world a Poet should always stay grounded in.

I walked into the matrix
Perfectly aware that everything was an illusion.
Still I came out of it wounded.
Maybe I fall too fast.
I do crash.
I just follow natural instinct.
I refuse to conform
To a mechanical world
Where people where lifejackets into relationships,
And nice guys finish last.

I have not forgotten what I am.
Not perfect
But perfectly hu-man.
I will trust again.
I will love again.
I will probably be hurt again.
Still I would not wear protection,
Cant afford the insurance.
Maybe I need a break.
Maybe there is nothing wrong with the rest of the world
Just with me.


Loving In the Class War

Every day.
Every minute.
Every breath.
The rent was hangin over us.
Utilities were hangin over us.
Getting food was hangin over us.
Beer money was hangin over us.
Extra money for the movies
Was hangin over us.
Everything was hangin over us
Just like a dark cloud.
We were livin in the class war.
Survivin in the class war.
We were livin in the class war.
But we were living.

We were loving every night,
Laying sweaty.
I would go to work the next day
Smellin like pussy.
I could still smell you.
It got me through the day.
Evening on the fire escape
Watching the sun set on the hills.
Then when the sun was gone,
I would watch the bats dance in the sky.
You were always scared of bats.
We were livin in the class war.
Survivin in the class war.
We were livin in the class war.
But we were living.