Rapid Ronnie Rap Back Jive: 1955 by Charles Plymell

Doc Moonlight bought brand new T-Bird from writing scripts
For Bennie-hard bodies dancing.. digging the Bebop steps
Long ago Granddaddy bought a paint horse in Dodge City
Wyatt Earp’ s grandson now sells used cars in Wichitity.

Life on the high plains, hot checks & pile of loans
Ronnie read hot chicks Pound’s Selected Poems
Outside Zip’s Club smoked boo & pissed
Inside, Pack Rat picked his bass in bliss
His eyes rolled back, into bouncing fret
Scoo bop to do diddy bip bop…next set
From hep to hip cat combo characters sit
Swiiinging go man go! work! bass man star
His nose Inhalers stashed behind the bar
Candy wrappers, cosmos and Benzedrine
Dragnet, luncheonette & make the scene
Play it straight if fate say best stay clean
Really bad,half sad,oh fay,oh say, Ms.O’day
Scuffle on down & slide away from the mass
Wanna smiz -zoke a jiz -ziont of griz -zass?

Rapid Ronnie Rasamutin Runamuck:
Thief, pimp, artists.. hood
Alias Barbital Bob….stood
Under the neon of Zip’s Club.

His subterranean boyhood bellhop forays
Found Kansas’ big vortex of wild of mores
By the light from the stained glass windows
He drew cartoon characters between shows
He saw all his dreams flyspecked with glory
Filled his pockets with dope & dates of whores
And gazed far beyond the gaily painted doors.

Rapid Ronnie rode on the moonlight highs
Pack Rat scoffed pills and played melodic
Drank Oxybiotic that made him neurotic
Jimmy Mammy, just outta the joint, heard
Big Indian was gonna steal Doc’s Thunderbird
Ronnie went along reciting Pound’s verse
Into the crashing crossroads of the universe.

Big Indian let out a yell of centuries of pain
Drove into the Bulldog’s tractor-trailer’s lane
Jimmy Mammy broke his jaw & lay in years of highs
Ronnie grew old and secret under California skies
Big Indian lay dead..his eyes..confused
Staring at the heavens,,,,forever wider
Than the moon’s new earth that refused
Him shelter from the great white spider.

( Reprinted and newly edited from FOREVER WIDER by Charles Plymell
published by Scarecrow Press. London, Metuchen. N.J.,
edited by Robert Peters for Poetry Now Series)

The Words and Art of Robert R. Branaman Issue

I came across Bob Branaman from a photo of him and Charles Plymell taken in the 1950s.  His name is also CCd on emails I get from time to time  from Charlie.  I quick google brought up the world of Bob Branaman that I had missed–that much of America missed also.  The ones that didn’t are the lucky ones.  When S.A. Griffin talked to me about him and when I learned that S.A. had promoted his art, I knew  it was time to meet him.  There is so much more to the man, the artist than appears here.
The Rusty Truck began as simply wanting to gather the family in one place, kinda like grandma did at least twice a year and publish the best poetry out there.  Now, the Truck wants to add to this–to chronicle a part of history.  Robert Branaman among others are part of that history.

The Words and Art of Robert R. Branaman Issue

I came across Bob Branaman from a photo of him and Charles Plymell taken in the 1950s.  His name is also CCd on emails I get from time to time  from Charlie.  I quick google brought up the world of Bob Branaman that I had missed–that much of America missed also.  The ones that didn’t are the lucky ones.  When S.A. Griffin talked to me about him and when I learned that S.A. had promoted his art, I knew  it was time to meet him.  There is so much more to the man, the artist than appears here.
The Rusty Truck began as simply wanting to gather the family in one place, kinda like grandma did at least twice a year and publish the best poetry out there.  Now, the Truck wants to add to this–to chronicle a part of history.  Robert Branaman among others are part of that history.

Charles Plymell on Bob Branaman

The first time I remember Bob’s drawings I was sitting in a club in the early to 50’s in Kansas. There was the typical live combo of sax, bass, drums and singer. Bob had some paper and a pen and began sketching. We were among a large post-war sub-culture that associated itself with drugs, whores, and jazz and cars. We saw a lot of each other and went to parties and clubs and enjoyed the Benzedrine and Boo and cartoon life the nights had to offer.

Charles Plymell on Bob Branaman

The first time I remember Bob’s drawings I was sitting in a club in the early to 50’s in Kansas. There was the typical live combo of sax, bass, drums and singer. Bob had some paper and a pen and began sketching. We were among a large post-war sub-culture that associated itself with drugs, whores, and jazz and cars. We saw a lot of each other and went to parties and clubs and enjoyed the Benzedrine and Boo and cartoon life the nights had to offer.

Beat Filter of the Wichita Vortex: The Continuing Impact of Robert Branaman’s Films, Text, Paintings and Assemblages by Marc Olmsted

I first heard of Bob Branaman from L.A. performance artist Milo Johnson, who said to the effect that I “had to meet this guy, he knew all the Beats.”  I have to admit to a certain cynicism – such claims of Beat friendship are made by people who might’ve waved at Allen Ginsberg across the room, let alone had a few sentences with him.  My cardinal sin here rebounded in my face like an elastic band with an iron anvil on the end: “Well, how come I don’t know about him if he’s so fucking great?”  Not only do I now stand corrected, but it proved a profound teaching for my own poet’s obscurity dark to the horizon as well.  That Acme Dynamite roadrunner cartoon moment – the whites of my eyes blinking from a sooty, burned carcass in a moment of clarity – if you can’t make this American culture money, accidentally or otherwise, it has no interest in your droning commentaries.  You are a ghost.

Robert Branaman Videos

For Bob’s 60s film Burn Karma Burn

Click here

Robert Branaman–The Art

Robert Branaman–The Poetry

Her last orgasm

I’m pretty sure
She faked it
Usually she conked right out
Now she wanted to talk and watch TV
O the apocalyptic signs were there
I just don’t want to see them
Denial, Denial it’s not a river
It’s an Ocean
She told me it was over
And
It was like a door opening out of hell
I didn’t want to leave
I had grown accustom being there

____________

I painted over one hundred thousand paintings

I painted over one hundred thousand paintings
Just this morning
When I ate breakfast at two PM
They disappeared

I painted over one hundred thousand paintings
This morning before breakfast.
And I’d like to think they’re still there
Somewhere unseen
Like the rest of the world.

____________

Beautiful Blonde

She said
She just had too much on her plate
(There was no room for me?
How come there was room for me earlier
When she thought I was a heartthrob?)
And I understood
I had known since Monday, this was Friday
Yes
It took me a few days to get the picture
I am sort of slow but I know.
Kept tryin’ to justify it
I knew all along it was all-wrong
Never love a Blonde
Yet I just had to hope
I wasn’t a dope
And
This time it would be
Different.

____________

An afternoon painting

Sometimes it just flows effortlessly
Today I felt I was pushing it
Up hill
Had something in mind
Based of the last few days of work
Of what I wanted or expected to get
Pretty much unsatisfied
Till I gave up completely
Stared cleaning my brushes
Then scene I didn’t care any moor
It was already a frailer
I got back into it
Dripped a few things and let it be.

Now sitting in the back yard
Watching the flowers and butterflies
Sway in the wind

Happy Birthday, Dear Bob by Milo Johnson

Branaman!
I sing thee praises on thy birthday, stealing
my tune from your friend Ginsberg.

Branaman!
Prana man!
Great gleeful spirit of thunderous laughter
And Jovian benevolence!
Painter, printer, sculptor— Deliriumist—
Maker of hypnotic moving movies—
Art Beast with flying eyebrows—
Grandmaster of Introductions at Any Opening—
Storyteller weaving name draperies
Into time tapestries.

Branaman!
Manna man!
Survivor of sadness, sorrows, Death, and stupidity—
Father and son, grandpa and chick magnet—
Always hopeful womanizer,
With hundreds of snatches in digital harem electronic stash—
Die hard pussy fan.

Branaman!
Kansas man.
Previous incarnations include but not limited to:
7th grade music scholarship winner, reform school prisoner,
Wichita hood, estudiante en la Universidad,
Bona fide North Beach Beatnik as seen in famous photo outside City Lights,
High Priest of Haight Ashbury Oracle who taught R. Crumb to draw,
Big Sur Tribesman raising a family living off the land,
L.A. movie man, shit-assed junkie fuck, and there’s so much more to love…

Branaman!
Will get good deal on car soon.
Will drive Shiri to Oakland with tear in eye.
Will dismiss demons of disease and age.
Will get a piece of the Dragon’s Ass, and, alas, always want more!

O, Big Heart of Sunlight,
Great big mind of heart,
Branaman,
My friend.