The Improbability of Poetry as Religion by Scott Owens

Poetry will never be a religion,
though its adherents are zealots
and believe it can lead to epiphany,
salvation, the thing with wings,
though its mythology is complete
and just as sordid as any
faith worth its salt,
full of desire and incest,
fallacy and betrayal,
though it engenders spirituality,
morality, sanctimony,
though it places the word first.

Still, none have gone to war for poetry,
or hell for not believing in pantoums.
None have been denied matrimony,
public office or citizenship
for practicing metaphor, assonance,
the shameless pursuit of meter.

No, poetry will never be a religion,
for it knows no heresy or sacrilege,
asks no one to die for it,
and offers no unassailable answers.

Beat Memior ( part 2) By Marc Olmsted

AMERICAN MUTANT SPAWNED

By Marc Olmsted

Costanzo Allione, Italian documentary filmmaker and future husband of meditation teacher Tsultrim Ewing (They met here for the first time), was shooting what became a great film on ’78 Naropa, Fried Shoes, Cooked Diamonds.  Beat translator Nanda Pivano came along.  She was the connection between Allione and Ginsberg, and had set up this meeting in Ginsberg’s apartment.  Allione was in Allen’s apartment with his crew catching the conversation of Burroughs, Timothy Leary and of course Ginsberg himself.  Part of the time, I was also running around with a Super 8 camera making what would become my short collage American Mutant.  Gregory came in with his 16mm camera and announced, “I’m gonna shoot everybody’s feet.”  And proceeded to do so.

The  film crew caught me over Burroughs’ shoulder.

The New Wave hip look came up again when this interesting queer had wrangled his way into Allen’s kitchen to hang with Leary.  The guy had a weird sort of glam look, not quite on the money with it – but he was clearly not a hippie even with Prince Valiant hair – maybe it was vague eye make-up or his clothes, but it was some different quality that was glitter queer like the New York Dolls (whom I didn’t even know about yet and were actually straight anyway).

AMERICAN MUTANT

For Glenn Todd by Charles Plymell

We’ve seen the trace of tears on dusty Texas cheeks

      and cliffs of far away Pacific spray

            eat away timeless Redwood scented root.

We’ve caught the salty tang of brine

       diffusing on our tongues for all eternity.

Innocent, foolish fun loving seekers

     mixed our presence in the hot baths

   cleansed the poison from our spores

         before the new age occupied Big Sur.

____________

Commentary–

Thanks, Charley. It is indeed a beautiful poem and it touches me that you recollect that weekend. Of course I too remember the Big Sur hot springs. How we stood that night on the wall above the bath, overlooking the dark Pacific without our clothes — you, Maureen, and me, our bodies outlined against a starry sky. A voice (Alan Watts) from the recess of the bath telling us how beautiful we were — like Grecian statuary, he said.

 

Glenn

Los Angeles Drowning by Bradley Mason Hamlin

On the little TV
with rabbit
ears we watched
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
in our quiet
small Los Angeles home
(we would soon lose)
with the chain-link fence
instead of white picket
but flowers did bloom
and my mother
looked pretty
in 60’s sun dresses
and watching Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
listening to my father’s jealousies
for David Hedison,
the captain of the Sea View
because he had flirted with my mom
at a
David McCallum cocktail party
(grandma was McCallum’s housekeeper)
and my dad didn’t like Elvis either
because my mom liked the way he
moved his hips
and my mom never met Presley
but he probably would have
liked her
and watching
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
as everything we knew
slowly then quickly
sank deep down under
all down
under alcohol
under anger,
lies, fear, betrayal,
the violence of neglect
and the mutant monsters
at the bottom
waiting for usdown
in the depths
of the last breath drowning
all of us
the bubbles rising
as the Sea View dived, dived,
dived …

A Poem by Virginie Colline

Haiku on the Road

the sun is melting
into a black mouth
tarmac liquorice

Photograph by Eric Mencher

Virginie Colline is a French translator living in Paris. Her poems have appeared in The Electronic Monsoon Magazine, Mouse Tales Press, Frostwriting, EgoPHobia, Certain Circuits, Spinozablue and Prune Juice, among others.

Hickory Poems 4 by Tim Peeler

The flaming July sun
And the red dust rose
Every time a grounder
Scooted toward the shortstop’s glove,
Glancing sometimes off a bit
Of dust red granite into his naked chest
Or off his chin, and he came up
Throwing and spitting blood
From a bitten tongue.
He wore a boy’s work pants,
Cut off raggedly above
His bruised ankles
Hiding the electric cord stripes
That daddy put there last night.
He had a broken upper tooth
And the finger he held outside
His glove was jammed and swollen blue.
When it was his turn,
He leaned over the plate
And holding the bat cross-handed,
He swung at every pitch.

Three poems by Karl Koweski

apt 402

I tend to my rectangular plot of sky
adorned with distant pine trees
and a hint of mountain
jet planes make an Etch A Sketch
of the light blue tableau
and I smoke cigarettes
as the sun shifts perspective

this could be some sort of life
a balcony seat to this
theatre of apartment existence
murder behind every door
and television windows
offer mute witness, empty eyes
leaving only the sky
immune to the drama below

there must be an escape
from this domestic retreat
how was I capable of
leaving a family I love
while resisting the need
to quit a job I’m miserable with?
the quick succession of days
leading to a rectangular plot of soil
and a black immutable sky
____________

………………….death by Splake…………..

 

 

“nada mas”

dying final breath

first caught my attention

after hemorrhoid surgery

battle creek hospital

suddenly aware

not bullet proof

years later

marquette morning darkness

chilly loneliness

following mri scan

loving beautiful woman

relationship sadly ending

moving on to other things

immediately feeling

life’s black hole

hoping a little more time

poems yet to write

Kissing Carol Ann by Donal Mahoney

Back in 1957
kissing Carol Ann
behind the barn
in the middle of
a windswept field
of Goldenrod
with a sudden deer
watching was
something special,
let me tell you.
Back then, bobby sox
and big barrettes
and ponytails
were everywhere.

Like many farmers,
Carol Ann’s father
had a console radio
in the living room,
and every Saturday night
the family would gather ’round
with bowls of ice cream
and listen to the Grand Ole Opry.
It was beamed “all the way”
from Nashville I was told
more than once since
I was from Chicago
and sometimes wore a tie
so how could I know.

On my first visit,
I asked Carol Ann
if the Grand Ole Opry was
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
of country music and she said
not to say that to her father.
She suggested I just tap
my foot to the music
and let him watch me.
Otherwise I’d best be
quiet and say “Yup,”
“Nope” or “Maybe”
if asked any questions
which she didn’t think
would happen.
No need to say
much more, she said,
and after a few visits,
I understood why.

Over time, I learned
to tap my foot pretty good
to the music because
when I’d come to visit,
her father would insist
I have a bowl of ice cream
with the family.
I liked the ice cream
but not so much
the Grand Ole Opry.
I’d been weaned
on Sinatra in the city.
Big difference,
let me tell you.

But back in 1957
kissing Carol Ann
behind the barn
was something special
since we couldn’t do
much more until
I found employment.
Only then, her father said,
could we get married.
I found no jobs
in town, however,
for a bespectacled man
with degrees in English.

Still, I always found
the weekend drives
from Chicago worth
the gas my Rambler drank
because kissing Carol Ann
brought a bit of heaven
down behind that barn,
especially on summer nights
when fireflies were
the only stars we saw
when our eyes
popped open.
It was like
the Fourth of July
with tiny sparklers
twinkling everywhere.

Now, 55 years later,
Carol Ann sometimes mentions
fireflies at dusk as we
dance behind the cows
to coax them into the barn
for the night.
I’m still not too good
with cows despite
my John Deere cap,
plaid shirt and overalls
which proves, she says,
that all that kissing
behind the barn in 1957
took the boy out of the city
but not the city out of the boy.

“Hee Haw” is all I ever
say in response because
I know why I’m there.
It’s to keep tapping
the cows on the rump
till we get them
back in the barn
so we can go back
in the house
and start with
a kiss and later on
come back downstairs
for two big bowls
of ice cream.