Poetry


• American Scream - Rex Butters
• somebody keep the beat - Shanna
• History Lesson - John Haag
• GHOSTORY LESSON - John O’Kane
• A Dream - Hillary Kaye
• life and times of a Venetian Courtesan - Erica Snowlake
• God to be God - Swami X

American Scream

I missed the peace march
to see Zac
off to Iraq
to fight a war
for a core of elected
oil executive cowards
a cartel that smells
like death by greed
deaf to the pleading
of a million children
slowly embargoed to death
a hierarchy of hyenas
cracked crusaders
freedomphobes
led by a lop eared cowboy clown
deserter-in-chief
election thief
third generation career politician
elitist east coast college cheerleader
pr reborn Texas rancher
Hitler money fortune
cocaine maim brain
DUI dumb guy
like a chimp
with a chip on its shoulder
a spoiled boy playing
at playing soldier
unfazed by lack of facts
using meat and blood troops as photo
op props
ringmaster of fear
to the media zombies
his hypno sleep sheep flock
jolted to submission with terrorist alert
shock
slip slide skate to police state protection
surrender their minds to Asscrost and
Rummy
Orwell’s oil well a gusher
unattended elections held
ballots stolen
and the fainthearted media raising
their ad rates and fainthearted
Democrats watching their
polls roll
over on their backs

Oh, shake the Old Vampires
off the throat of my Nation

Zac,
when you get back
we’ll laugh
at how expensive your cheap education
became
I’ll show you this poem and
you can teach my son
your best skateboard moves
antigravity flips and jumps
and your lucky way of landing
lucky way of landing
lucky way of landing
you have a lucky way of landing
lucky way of landing
lucky way of landing
lucky way of landing you
home

– Rex Butters

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somebody keep the beat

just had a tribute
at beyond baroque
a play for the beats
kathy leonardo sang
some words to them...
those who never asked
for publicity but after
liptons book, got it
ride the tram
see the freaks
now they are gone
they are on public display...
honored as they should be...
ginsberg being the only beat
from the north beach....
to dance with us...
snapping our fingers
for applause
so the neighbors
wouldn't shut us down

no more
poetry
at the venice west

shanna

-----------

HISTORY LESSON

By John Haag

That little ape that came down from a tree
and used a stick on his enemy
and called aloud to his family
to show what a great brave ape was he
made followers out of you and me.

That little ape that got caught in the rain
and used some branches to cover his brain
and thought up gods for rain and for tree
to explain away the mystery
made worshipers out of you and me.

That little ape that had more than enough
and didn’t know what to do with the stuff
and instead of handing it out for free
put others to work for a salary
made employees out of you and me.

That little ape that schemed and planned
and put a fence around some land
and told his followers they’d be free
if they fought his next-door enemy
made soldiers out of you and me.

That ape whose stick is his bravery
whose ignorance makes theology
whose avarice makes wage-slavery
and makes a cause for nationality
makes monkeys out of you and me.

----------

GHOSTORY LESSON

For John Haag, the ethereal Venetian
By John O’Kane
I see John Haag on the Boardwalk near Big Daddys
lost in the toxic mime
meeting my look with those white holes
combusting Eros for the unfooled paradise in all of us.
I flash through the cackling sheen
frantic to capture this astral fume for the
Venice Historical Society archives as Eric Nord
corrals him up Market dogged by a streak of robotically
effervescing hare krishnas, pacing the parade
to Speedway and north against traffic.
Near Park it becomes a gyre of weakening whiteness
rising toward the leaden heavens to a
hovering copter
vanishing into its blades with a terminal swoosh.
As the machine lunges north like a beach crane
spotting the spume, I follow its racing rotors to a circling
slomo above Dudley where a bullhorn
berates the spectres below.
“Drop that weapon,” it echoes to one street-citizen near
Spontos surrounded by slouching gorilla-stick shadows.
“that little…ape…came down from a tree with a stick,”
he blurts between blows from a scrap of paper
projected on the Cadillac Hotel façade across the way
like a pulsating monkey-wrench
swelling to superhuman silhouette.
The scrap looses from his grip unseen
sucked into the blade-whirl of particles, freeing his
fury to finish:
“…to show….what….a great brave….
was he…and told…….his...followers they’d be free….
if…they fought…his next-door enemy!!”
he concludes to an enfilade of thud-syncopated-cheers
from a roving chorus of Make America Beautiful Again.

------------

A Dream

by Hillary Kaye

I marched out of favor with the stars and stripes
Got hooked on a different dream and left town.
Imagined stained glass windows glowing with the words
“America is sorry for its wrongs.”
It enumerated them starting with the Native Americans right
straight through til morning and mourning were joined.

I got a vision on christmas day....God was a shaman a sainted
Tribal Chief ...and the world went backwards til we were all sitting around a camp fire
chanting and smoking a peace pipe....chanting and thinking about how to finely live
with nature.

I got religion that day the kind that won't let one man kill another.
The kind that speaks of the earth as mother.
the kind that cares that man and child mother and daughter sister and son
can come together and feel as one.

-----------

life and times
of a Venetian Courtesan
homeless
well you know
gone are the grande palazzos
she makes love on the sand
or in the van
kissing delphic oracles
trading rings with the winde's
winged faerietale blings
wandering souls displaced
in time and space
a doom witchstalkes
the Beautiful People
believing
like Crazy Horse Dreams
one does not sell the earth
upon which the people walk.
red stilettos sparkling
there's no place like home.

– erica snowlake

-----------

God to be God, I declare, would have to be Everywhere, even in
quarks, strings, things, wings, flings, Jimmy Swaggart's underwear
Things only seem to be better or worse, the last winds up first.
The Big Bang could just be an orgasmic burst
She could be in paradise, while you fantasize she's in that hearse
Beneath all your minor ego tragedies there's a mountain
of ecstatic, spiritual mirth
Until you really know yourself, you don't know what life is worth
Some people don't seem to have completed the first, let alone,
The second birth
From the Goddess, of truth, good, beauty and compassion, there is never
a death
When we awake, we'll realize, in wonder; how we could
have failed to care for our Mother-Earth
I don't want to scare you any more, especially if you are
a religious friend, or a political whore; however, if the
worm should turn inside of you,
The Enneagram could serve to enlighten you
Eckhart Tolle also could've told you
But then again, it's always up to you
Atheists are fish deep in an ocean of bliss
denying the existence of water
--Soul is everywhere, in reality, there is no border
You're doing it to Him, so give up that dollar, or quarter
It may not be The Son; it could very well be The Daughter
Everything born--dies; the onliest remain--The Dindu Dot
And for Endless Light Life & Love; Dear Sweet Goddess, Thanks a lot
Peace

– Swami X

Posted: Mon - January 1, 2007 at 11:17 AM          


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