Hands Off, Ye Ten Percenters

Readers of BEATNIK might be interested to see this post at the Allen Ginsberg blog about a new, and I feel obliged to say, utterly stupid project by a "comedy" blogger in which On The Road is paraphrased into allegedly modern, and allegedly funny (actually it's rather racist), street talk. Kerouac's own image accompanies it with a sideways baseball cap photoshopped onto his head. Seems a ludicrously inappropriate and insulting thing to do to a serious writer, especially one who drank himself to death in part because of the mockery his life's work was subjected to after the release of On The Road. Peter Hale at the Ginsberg blog thinks it's funny, but I'm inclined to believe the folks at the Ginsberg Estate would.

What next, Gregory Corso in an advert for McDonald's?

Gerry Nicosia has been right from the start, y'all.

http://ginsbergblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/on-brod-every-sentence-of-jack-kerouacs.html

RUSSELL STREUR: TWO POEMS

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Numbers Game

I used to be somebody.

Had the figures to prove it.

Five nine six four on red

That’s Mister to you

Confirmation one F E and eight and eight and G

EMC zero zero four zero four three in LA

Eight two zero seven in gold

Get out of my way

Nine two double three to clear

And bigger numbers too

Ten pass to the Euro set

Channels on the satellite

Back door code

To the Diamond Lounge

Pins and passwords everywhere

Dot com planets at my fingertips.

Cashed in all my chips

On a Degas whim one day

For a place in the woods

And a river bed.

Now I’m off the screens

In a green ballet

Out of the loop

Up the creek

Without a mouse

I’m the man without a number

On the Quay D`Orsay

No more front row seats

No more safety net

No more cable TV

I’m disconnected

I’ve lost my place in line:

Add it up Bobby:

I get treated like I’m nobody now

Like I am just

Another name.

Thrill Ride 

(Greetings from the Mouse)

Caution:

This amusement ride involves

High speeds

Sudden drops

Sharp turns

And unexpected stops

In underground torture cells.

True believers

                        Move forward now.

Gates are to the left

                                For those with heart conditions.

Persons prone to motion sickness

                                                      May board the special train.

We’ll get the rest of you later.

MADE IN AMERICA by Robert M. Zoschke

A somewhat belated review

Street Corner Press
corner of Armitage & Clybourn
Chicago
Illinois
60614
$14

     I like this book a lot because it sounds like no one but the author. Zoschke doesn't pose: when he's pissed off, he's pissed off ('Bored on the Fourth of July, 2008); when he's tender, he's tender ('a dog of a poem'); and he's great at painting the Wisconsin landscape he lives in with words ('Ides of March sarong'). How often do you get that sort of range.

     He's a poet of place without the sentimentality that usually involves. We know exactly where he is -- what it sounds and smells like, who lives there with him ('the swords are in little hands'; 'are you a...';'Listen') -- and we know how he got there ('Elegy for the Pistol', among others). You could make a movie out of that last poem, no problem. It's almost an elegy for a better, bygone America.

     Rob's a poet of ideas too, maybe without wanting to be: Lawrence Ferlinghetti is quoted at the start of the book as saying, 'I'd rather be writing love poems'. The very fine and scandalously unacknowledged Dave Church is remembered in 'when the pen is the needle and the paper is the spoon', which contrasts Church's remarkable poetry with that of an English professor taking a workshop in 'rotgut academician flatulence'. Why's Dave dying at the wheel of a taxi when a poet not fit to shine his shoes thrives and prospers? Anybody who has read Church or been to a university poetry workshop will know Zoschke is telling the truth.

     But the centrepiece of 'Made in America' is the love poem he would rather be writing. 'What Matters Most' tells beautifully and forcefully of the birth of Amelia and Hannah, Rob and partner Joie's two daughters. You're there in the delivery room with them experiencing every nerve-wracking, hair-raising, heart-wrenching, joyful moment of the double birth, and the description never slips into bad taste. What a generous and brave man he must be to share the most personal experience of his life like that; and what art, not to let it get awkward for one minute.

     An extensive collection of pictures of family and friends completes the book nicely: he's a proud man and why not? Too many poets in the small press and the mainstream hide behind postures, and self-conscious trickery. As a squeamish Buddhist I could have done without so many photos of dead fish, but it's a small price to pay for these treasures.

GERALD NICOSIA IN ENGLAND

Gerald Nicosia, poet and legendary biographer of Jack and Jan Kerouac, will be in England at the end of this month to talk on Jack and take part in a poetry reading.I quote Gerry himself:


My talk on Kerouac—called “The Writer Kerouac, the Mythological Kerouac, the Popular Kerouac, and the Real Kerouac”-- will be at the English Faculty lecture hall, 5PM, Friday October 22.  The address is 9 West Road, Cambridge.  For further information, contact Malcolm Guite at St. Mark’s Vicarage, Cambridge, 01223 694249.  The next night, Saturday October 23, at 8PM, I will give a poetry reading along with Malcolm Guite and Keith Dersley, to the accompaniment of a jazz group called RipRap.  This will take place at the Memorial (Unitarian) Church in Cambridge, Emmanuel Road, near the bus station, in central Cambridge.  Again, Malcolm Guite would be the person to give more specific details.


I'm sure anybody who's in Cambridge that weekend will be glad to support these events. It isn't every day a writer of Gerry's calibre makes it over here to good old Blighty.

Donal Mahoney: Four Poems

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Love Is Another Thing


Sitting at the table
spinning the creamer
running her fingers through sugar
the kids spilled at supper, Sue

suddenly says, “Don,
love is another thing.”
Since love is another thing
I have to go rent a room,

leave behind eight years,
five kids, the echoes of me
raging at noon on the phone,
raging at night, the mist

of whose fallout ate her skin,
ate her bones, left her a kitten
crying high in an oak
let me free, let me free

Spider

Warm, wet, wrapped
in each other’s
arms, legs

still for a moment,
we rest

a spider spent,
lost in its web


Bending, Grabbing, Sorting

Chinese Laundry, Chicago

In a storefront laundry
on North Clark Street
brown draperies release
this quiet man

who has my shirts.
He smiles and bows--
how carefully
he wraps them.

Before the draperies
fall back, I see,
for a moment,
in a circle swirling

almost out of sight
three kerchiefed women,
glistening black,
bending, grabbing, sorting.

Those Poems, That Fire

I stood in the alley, still
in pajamas, somebody’s shoes,
another man’s coat, my eyes
on the bronc of the hoses.
Squawed in the blankets of neighbors,
my wife and three children sipped
chocolate, stood orange and still.
Of the hundred or more I had stored
in a drawer, I could remember,
comma for comma, no more than four,
none of them final,
all of them fetal.


Donal Mahoney, a native of Chicago, lives in St. Louis, Missouri. He has worked as an editor for The Chicago Sun-Times, Loyola University Press and Washington University in St. Louis. A Pushcart nominee, he has had poems published by The Wisconsin Review, The Kansas Quarterly, The South Carolina Review, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Commonweal, Public Republic (Bulgaria), The Beanik (U.K), Revival (Ireland), The Istanbul Literary Review (Turkey), The Osprey Journal (Scotland), Pirene's Fountain (Australia) and other publications

Peter D. Marra

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flesh


Needle
rain.

Cars
pavement
skin
roll around her brain

And the blood speeds

crash veins.

She is laughing
Looks at her fingers and sees what she’s done.

The heads are moving.

Clang. The heads are moving.
Walking along the beach she laughs.

As she walks
down the beach,

Needle rain and salt stinging.

Slowly walks in
smells the
salt
taste

The heads are moving

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Room

Lonely bed stained and
Sheets electric
Soft pain and fluid leaking from the walls

Silent crusty eyes
gazing down
and riding away

White fluid on
the walls
and red streaks

in the air clinging
to the purple darkness

Knife stab bed it’s gone

The mouths shoot anemia.

take away the forgiven
watching for their return.

Knives tinged
Shoot red and wait

The chains broken
into molten
things and

thoughts.
images
to follow soon

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Marra is a 51 year old writer living in Williamsburg Brooklyn who supports himself by trying to do computer-related work while trying to write, make music and create art. He is a fan of “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” general grindhouse fare, and art films. He has been published in amphibi.us, Yes,Poetry, Maintenant 4, Beatnik, Crash, and Danse Macabre and is working on his first collection of poems.

Peter D. Marra

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hiroshima


She
stares
at
the shadows

permanently
etched
in the sidewalk.

Blood and pebbles
laugh back at her.

embedded in the
black light glow.

the figurine smiles back at her;

Memories of where she went wrong:
Where
she
did
wrong and
When she did pain.

And she likes it –
the slight
spine-chill

Dark
eye
circles
and

the savory destruction.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


dr. schnooks

dr.
schnooks
the
cherub
tidbit

she writhes
in laughter and

writhes in agony
sitting in the antechoir

laughing
at
the
pious

dr.
schnooks
straightens
her
red
corset

and black stockings
the kind
with the seam up the back leg.

‘40’s

it doesn’t feel good anymore

the skin slips off
the darkness
comes.
out.

the body revealed

the skull and the bones

lie down in the arms of a mother

and try to get home
lie down in the arms and try to get home
to lick away the marble tears.