An Eastern Ballad

a miracle,

I speak of love that comes to mind:

The moon is faithful, although blind;

in imagination
anguishes

She moves in thought she cannot speak.

Perfect care has made her bleak.

till born
in human
looks out of the heart
burning with purity-

I never dreamed the sea so deep,

The earth so dark; so long my sleep,

for the burden of life

is love,

I have become another child.

I wake to see the world go wild.

but we carry the weight

wearily,

-Allen Ginsberg

and so must rest

in the arms of love

Song

at last,

The weight of the world

is love.

must rest in the arms

of love.

Under the burden

of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,

cannot withhold

-Allen Ginsberg

if denied:
the weight is too heavy
must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude

Humanity
What simple profundities
What profound simplicities
To sit down among the trees
and breathe with them
in murmur brool and breeze

in all the excellence

of its excess.
The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,

And how can I trust them

who pollute the sky
with heavens
the below with hells

the hand moves

to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles

Well, humankind,
Im part of you
and so my son

in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye
yes, yes,

but neither of us
will believe
your big sad lie

that's what

-Gregory Corso

I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

Three
The street singer is sick
crouched in the doorway holding his heart

Genius
One less song in the noisy night
-Gregory Corso

It comes blundering over the

Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire

Round About Midnight

Jazz radio on a midnight kick,

I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light
-Gary Snyder

Round about Midnight.

Turtle Island
Sitting on the bed,

The edge of the cancer

With a jazz type chick

Swells against the hill-we feel

Round about Midnight,

a foul breeze-And it sinks back down.

The deer winter here

Piano laughter, in my ears,

A chainsaw growls in the gorge.

Round about Midnight.

Ten wet days and the log trucks stop,
Stirring up laughter, dying tears,
Round about Midnight.

The trees breathe.

Sunday the 4-wheel jeep of the
Realty Company brings in

Soft blue voices, muted grins,

Excited voices, Father's sins,
Round about Midnight.

Landseekers, lookers, they say

To the land,
Spread your legs.

The jets crack sound overhead, it's OK

Come on baby, take off your clothes,
Round about Midnight.
-Bob Kaufman

here;
Every pulse of the rot at the heart
In the sick fat veins of Amerika
Pushes the edge up closer--

A bulldozer grinding and slobbering

of everything, going up, up, as we all

Sideslipping and belching on top of

go down.

The skinned-up bodies of still-live bushes

In the pay of a man

in the next century

From town.

or the one beyond that, they say,

are valleys, pastures,

Behind is a forest that goes to the Arctic

we can meet there in peace if we make it.

And a desert that still belongs to the

Piute

To climb these coming crests one word to you,

And here we must draw

Our line.

to
you and your children:

-Gary Snyder
Front Lines

stay together learn the flowers go light

As the crickets' soft autumn hum

-Gary Snyder

is to us
so are we to the trees
as are they
to the rocks and the hills.
-Gary Snyder

Blue Monday

Blue of the heaps of beads poured into her

breasts
and clacking together in her elbows;
blue of the silk
that covers lily-town at night;
blue of her teeth

For the Children

that bite cold toast
The rising hills, the slopes, of statistics

and shatter on the streets;

lie before us.

The steep climb

blue of the dyed flower petals with gold stamens

hanging like tongues

all week.

over the fence of her dress

at the opera/opals clasped under her lips

You paint my body blue. On the balcony

and the moon breaking over her head a

in the softy muddy night, you paint me

gush of blood-red lizards.

with bat wings and the crystal

the crystal

Blue Monday. Monday at 3:00 and

the crystal

Monday at 5. Monday at 7:30 and

the crystal in your arm cuts away

Monday at 10:00. Monday passed under the

rippling

the night, folds back ebony whale skin

California fountain. Monday alone

and my face, the blue of new rifles,

and my neck, the blue of Egypt,

a shark in the cold blue waters.

and my breasts, the blue of sand,
and my arms, bass-blue,
You are dead: wound round like a paisley
shawl.

and my stomach, arsenic;

I cannot shake you out of the sheets. Your name

is still wedged in every corner of the sofa.

there is electricity dripping from me like cream;

there is love dripping from me I cannot uselike
acacia or

Monday is the first of the week,

and I think of you all week.

jacarandafallen blue and gold flowers, crushed

into the street.

I beg Monday not to come

so that I will not think of you

Love passed me in a blue business suit

and fedora.

arteries and sends titanium

His glass cane, hollow and filled with

floating into my bones.

sharks and whales ...

Blue liquid pours down

He wore black

my poisoned throat and blue veins

patent leather shoes

rip open my breast. Blue daggers tip

and had a mustache. His hair was so black

and are juggled on my palms.

it was almost blue.

Blue death lives in my fingernails.

Love, I said.

If I could sing one last song

I beg your pardon, he said.

with water bubbling through my lips

Mr. Love, I said.

I would sing with my throat torn open,

I beg your pardon, he said.

the blue jugular spouting that black shadow

pulse,

So I saw there was no use bothering him on the

street
and on my lips
I would balance volcanic rock
Love passed me on the street in a blue

emptied out of my veins. At last

business suit. He was a banker

my children strained out

I could tell.

of my body. At last my blood

solidified and tumbling into the ocean.

So blue trains rush by in my sleep.

It is blue.

Blue herons fly overhead.

It is blue.

Blue paint cracks in my

It is blue.

-Diane Wakoski

Grey and white feathered bird

You lie there dead
for all to see

For Lew

in the sunlit morning

Lew Welch just turned up one day,

live as you and me.
Most people pass you by
"Damn, Lew" I said,
"you didn't shoot yourself after all.

for you are a dead bird

grey and white

"

"Yes I did" he said,

and even then I felt the tingling down my
back.

your feathers in the sun

The Negroes pass

"Yes you did, too" I said"I can feel it now.
"

The West Indians

The poor Irish going to Portobello Market

"Yeah" he said,
"There's a basic fear between your world and
mine.
The green stocking girl

I don't know why.

who sells her wares on the corner

bananas and dates and oranges

What I came to say was,

teach the children about the cycles.

they are selling in the market

The life cycles.

I bend down
on my knees

All other cycles.

in the sunlit morning

and kiss your wing
That's what it's all about, and it's all forgot.

grey and white

gleaming in the sun

-Gary Snyder
No more
Poem to a Dead Pigeon

shall you aspire

stop that bastard machine

air and cloud and sky

everyone is God and Holy

a spike is ripping at my throat

No more

I smell a fragrance of a rose

The noises of the rabble

everywhere I go is beauty

to wet your thirst

No more
on this earth

-Jack Micheline

Beat the Drum

With your short hands

poor bird
shall the light
blind you to darkness

And wide grin

My Grandaughter Nicole
Beats the drum For Me

No more
She sits at her small desk

poor

And draws her dreams

bird
No more

-Jack Micheline

makes butterflies and horsies

From the playdough machine
Makes pigs and ducks too

Everywhere I go
Lions and Tigers and The Little Mouse Too
Everywhere I go is beauty
trees illuminated
street lights glowing in the darkness
I want to run up to strangers and kiss them
but there is too much noise
men kill each other
I'm sick and tired of seeing sad faces

Hummingbirds and Elephants

And Wacky Dacky Doo
She has a dog thats Frisky Named Sangie
And A daddy named Vince
And A Moma called Sheri

And A granma Pat

They will come home forever

And once in A while

And all the boats that never sailed will sail

forever

An old MAN comes Around

And is name is Grandpa Jack
Beat that drum For Me Nicky
Beat the Monkey with A stick
When the moon is Funny

And all the flowers that have not grown will

bloom forever
A child walks in a dream
And all the stars that have not shone will shine
forever
And all the children that could not dance will
dance forever

And the moon is high

A child walks in a dream
When the moon is Full
-Jack Micheline
Well All get high
Ode to a Park Bench
Once in a while
To take the eyes of children
An old Man comes by
and leave them with dreams and fantasies
and his Name is Grandpa Jack
To be lost in America
Beat the drum For me Nicky.
To be lost in Siberia
Beat the drum for me
Without cover or country knoweth
-Jack Micheline
Without toilet paper
Poem for the Children of the World
Embracing the pain of the multitudes
A child walks in a dream
Embracing the sky over cities.
Her eyes dance in the night of stars
-Jack Micheline
Someday when the moon is full
Chasing Kerouacs Shadow
The gypsies come home
The alabaster city gleams in the sunlight

I am on a bus going to Santa Rosa

I seek the genuine leaf blowing in the wind

Away from the stinking hotel

The real person tapping a song whose melody

They tell me I am famous, like the Jerome

cookies

flows through rivers and time

The image that dances with stars

Streets, poems, nuthouses, jails, paintings, con
men and time
The sun that melts anger and harassment
My twenty years of poems and paintings
stored away in houses and cellars
relentless with anger and love
I ponder at life and the world around me
The bus speeds on the highway going sixty

Years spent begging and hustling

Carrying paintings on buses
Carrying mattresses through streets
Evictions, lost loves, hangovers, rheumatism,
hemorrhoids

For a muse that rarely pays off

I am fifty-two, live alone, considered some mad
freak genius
I must be mad, bewitched like a lost gambler
In reality I am a fucked up poet
who will never come to terms with the world
No matter how beautiful the flowers grow
No matter how children smile
No matter who blue is the bluest sky

Down to my last bet with no carfare or candy

I am not subtle or charming
I cannot lie for money or tell stories
I'm the gray fox some schmuck
The old pro chasing the mad dream

The harsh realities of life, that life is mostly a

The crazy Jew himself
put up job
The genius rain avoids us

Who don't know when to quit

The lone solitary soul that does her beautiful Who can't say die unless I die
dance for
It is all a mad dream
all to see
The race track full of maniacs

Lost gamblers living on hope and dreams

Wonder is the thunder

Tomorrow is never better

Wonder is the Spring rain itself

The same buses full of beaten and tired faces Wonder is the young girl in love
I only know when the cock rises and the crow Wonder is love
howls
The concerto
To eat, to drink, to take a leak
The hummingbird
And chicken is good to eat when one is hungry
The clouds moving across the night sky
Money buys everybody, that is why the world is
fucked up
It is raining again
That is why politicians have seventeen faces and
Light against darkness
speechwriters
And waitresses wear lipstick

Shadows chasing the sun

Why mediocrity rules

The sun chasing the shadows

Why poets hang out in groups for protection Man against the night
And musicians disappear faster than flies

Man and woman together with the night

And artists suck the rich quicker than summer The day awakens
watermelon
Let's sing a son
and bourgeois children
For those who chase the night
Why the communists and capitalists
For those that dance with light
Use the same deck of tricks
One speck of light
To hide the miraculous
No matter who is light
The magic of life
Light the unknown
The wonder of children and salamanders and
birds
The unknown, it is all we have

Anything is possible
Like new born colors flashing across the
Universe
The road

James T. Farrell chasing a waitress at Yankee

Stadium
Charlie Mingus bopping, chucking, eating a
steak
Playing bass with angels

The vagabond
Wilbur Ware
The dreamers

Gil Gaulkins

The dancers
Bill Bosio
The unsung

Al Delauro

Fuck the Gung HO!

Bob Bolles
Byron Hunt is doing a collage at the Goodman
Building
Charlie Stark
Ed Balchowsky is doing another painting

Sue McGraw

Raising his one arm to the sky

Linda

Rosalie Sorrells is singing a song in Kansas

Charlotte

Sam Shepard is smiling

Banana Boat

Rare birds are coming out with new coats of

color

Steamboat Jones
Jeremiah

Rainy Cass is alive and well in New Orleans

Valentine Chuzioff is sketching some blonde in
Jackson Square
Bodenheim hustling another poem for wine
Franz Kline singing a sad song at the Cedar
Kerouac talking to the moon again

Jerusalem
The light is coming out
I'll give the sun away
It belongs to everybody
It's not mine to give away
Those with the sun

Those seeking the sun

wretched

Those on the run in the Chicago night

tattooed

Those in jail

confused

Those in the towers

We are all the sun

Those chasing a ghost in the wilderness

You are the sun

Those on the road

This world is one

Those with dreams

Those with wonder, you are the sun

Those who will never give up

Shake the sun

Those who are learning to dance

We are one

Those perplexed

The moon and the sun are brothers!

agonized
whacked

-Jack Micheline