FILLING STATION POEM by Michael Thompson

Questionable-looking hoodlums
linger like sewer rats
in the parking lot
of a filling station
next to I-80

It’s not Bethlehem
they’re slouching towards
when the highway patrol
stops in for coffee

Around the corner at Chris’ Bar,
ex-cons unable to get straight
set up a base of operations,
but beware that undercover narcs
are never in short supply

Someone’s mother
whose shirt is grossly inadequate
for the belly she’s acquired
pulls up to the curb
on her son’s Huffy

A pregnant working girl
knocks on every windshield
to rustle up business
and blithely offers
to wash windshields
until the proprietor
chases her off the premises

There’s nothing incognito
about these turns of events

Three Poems by Michael Thompson

THE BLEAT GENERATION

The dilapidated hotel
reeks of rotted flesh
and is more rusted
than a Studebaker
decaying like cancer
in an old junkyard

It’s plain to see why
beatniks fled to Paris
and engaged in cut-ups,
the French notoriously embrace
all things bland

When sissies drop
what they figure
is a mean line,
their heads sit lodged
too far up assholes
to notice that their gristle
severely lacks heart

Fools seem convinced
that Corso was worth a damn
so I read Mindfield
against my better judgment,
but being recommended
and hailed by Ginsberg
should have been enough
of a red flag to stop me in my tracks

Allen should have started
his well-known poem
by admitting he saw
the best minds of his generation
leave his ass in the dust,
but if the old queen spent more time
learning from Jack instead of chasing Cassady
and recognition around like a school girl,
he might have thrown down a decent line

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A WANNBERG-INSPIRED POEM

I took Jesus water boarding
for his role with televangelists
and the tabloid rags hailed me
as their new messiah
even though misogynist temples
burned me in effigy
which didn’t cause me any bother
since I’d torched their existence
a lifetime ago
as I have free will
and am not a card-carrying member
of the Kool-Aid swilling herd,
but I’ll use my newfound position
to push 8-track tapes
into making a come back
if just for the struggle
to find favorite songs
between four programs

____________

 

JACK OF HEARTS

The loveable hooligan
hummed 12 bar blues until the last
even after radicals from another age
dropped just like flies
and only after the last ride
was taken on an eastbound train
from the Spanish quarter
did periodicals dedicate space
that was long overdue

Bohemian like Rimbaud
even when it wasn’t hip,
the legend of the Coffee Gallery
burst with even more bluster
than New York City,
but too many Jacks in the deck
left some bewildered just who was who

If the city’s fathers have the nerve
to earmark a lane for Rexroth,
the least they could do
is rename Grant or Green
after ol’ Micheline
who, at this very minute,
is closing down every bar in Zion
with Kerouac and Cassady

HOLY WOOD by Michael Thompson

Fear gripped a pig society
From the valleys to the canyons
And the love generation
Came to a screeching halt
In the summer of ‘69
As the fault line
That runs through Holy Wood
Was exposed like a raw nerve

The sound of flies swarming
Onto decaying bones
Of an actress, an heiress,
A gambler and candy man
Fueled an apocalyptical vision
As revolution number nine festered

Messages for the cops
Were scrawled in blood
From the lost and aimless
Who peeked over the edge
Of the fire
High on bad religion
And orange sunshine

Gilded idols were torn
From their pedestals
And a subculture
Of polygamous sex
Was thrown into
An unwanted spotlight

When the fringe groups
Began to get ugly
In the city of love,
A misguided legion
Was led down to Holy Wood
For a day of reckoning

Two Poems by Michael Thompson

SIXTIES

Jack and Bobby
Took their turns
With Miss Monroe
Before making it look
Like an overdose
In 1962

Charlie and his family
Lived lawlessly,
The voices in his head
Felt like screams
And the only way
To shut them up
Was to paint the walls
With ink and blood
While singing Helter Skelter

The summer of love
Was sandwiched between
The assassinations
Of MLK and the Kennedys
And the man
On the moon
Was tempered
By Hell’s Angels
At Altamont
In 1969

All those hippies
With their flower power
Couldn’t offset Vietnam
And if the Beatles
Wouldn’t have come
To America,
Maybe John Lennon
Would be alive today

_______________________

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UNWORTHY BEATNIKS

Rexroth, Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti
Are so-called poets
That should be cast with stones
For breathing their names
In the same sentence
As Micheline, Kerouac,
Norse and Bukowski

Allen was a hack,
Kenneth a bully
And the only thing
Worth a damn
That Lawrence did
Was open up City Lights

Some might say
The only reason
That City Lights exists
Is so old Lawrence
Would have somewhere
To publish his mediocre poetry

There was nothing poetic
About Ginsberg’s work,
The irony of him
Outliving Jack and Hank
Borders on the criminal
Since he’s never had
Anything of value to say
And he continually misdiagnosed
The artistic direction
Kerouac’s novels should take

In the end,
The legacy of Allen Ginsberg
Is one of a bloated bore
And a disingenuous queen
Petty to the point
Of manic neurosis
And just because
A street is named after him
Doesn’t mean Rexroth
Could write worth a God-damn

Despite all of their posturing,
The torch was never passed
Since they lacked the clout or charisma
Of the true giants

This might be considered blasphemy
Here in poetic San Francisco,
But those who call these literary rapists
Anything except ordinary
Are ignorant at best
And I hope they refrain
From buying my books
Since I don’t want readers
Who don’t know the difference
Between poetry
And their assholes