Starfish-headed crank fists
bang on my
door mind
keys of plasma bubble w/ the ventilator
laying finger-rhythm
to my music
Pinboys rows encourage fluxus
of volleyballs dropped by lazy
children
slowly, empirously, towards the
sun, dancing now in a Russian
cornfield
bobbing w/ the funk
DJ
Further images, dunes & sandpits
crackle w/ the current of snow
that frozen summer
whirlwind
lost in the war
plastered internal travelers
whispering thru the megaphonic
starlight
A simple melody, moon-beheaded drop
of lava
on my midnight companion’s
suppressant
head
goes further into the twilight
sleeks, peaks & vanishes
streakily, pursuively
Where pick-blue tiles pave morning
stirren walkers
into the desert
I’ve spilled from the trench pump
last rumorous
affair ago
bleeding w/ the summer
blowing w/ the corn
“The Standard of Anatomy”
A girl w/ a pink balloon
said “they don’t understand
you”
They, who “save their best
lines for later”
& dine beneath the bridge
in imagination
only
“I pity them”, she smiled
& the balloon floated over
my bridge
where Warta played beggar
to the celestials
I looked at the girl & celestials
landed, ‘twin my drink
& lard sandwich – ‘twin rich man’s
herring salad
w/ peaches & apples
on yogurt
Girl said “I’ve read your
poems abroad”
wish I’d known you
some sweet years back
I’d have warned you
of one liners
Sure, the cut-up of city
sounds great, though
too much risk
involved
stops me
& madness tastes good
in theory only
“back out” she cried
celestials took form
Bodies appeared
& voices asked for a guide
thru a city so well described
&, in certain parts of the
universe,
sacred
The river didn’t move
I noticed girl’s balloon
on the other shore
far above cathedral’s
towers
gone
“You picked up the worst place
to land”
tenements fell
into the lazy
water
& there was no trace
of my former friends
celestials
shook off flesh
& gaps
were filled w/ dog howl
They came here
looking for truth
leaving their own
behind
met fleshless communion
blazing
up in their alien
stars
I laughed into girl’s mirror
she held up to my scars
& on a drunken morning like that
I thought of holidays
calling me back
from my childhood
I used to have a pink balloon
like the girl’s one
lost it talking to teachers
studying
finding jobs
“I came not to teach” she giggled
“I came round to learn”
& the morning rolled
into night rolled into evening
’til suns were rising again
in couplets
Celestials moved by wonder
blessed the girly forehead
& stared at me w/ disdain
as I walked the balloon home
to a second story
Chwaliszewo
room
My eyes stopped on the guests
visitors from behind
the Maya curtain
mystic bombers from the
black hole patio
& I laughed in their empty
faces, masters of one liners,
saving best lines for later
There is no later, & the pink balloon
was now
well beyond the towers
hardly visible
carrying girl’s message onwards
Amused by all I’ve heard
said & written
I dreamt of being
back in the shell of my chair
draining the last bottle of
Kadarka
living up
to the standard
of my poor
anatomy.
“King Kong Blues”
Browsing old books
catalogs of donuts – my coffee break has
ended, so did the twang song
smogging the radio, draining the sky
from freshly fallen policeman – feet in
donuts, old catalogs of books, in the library
of excess, whoever reads the story
flushes wind through a random chimney
the story’s a robe of lawnmowers, speeding
thru the main dream, sobbing, drowning in drifting
slangs of e-music
Freedom not only means
being free
of the rushing street, of the soft race
it means kissing the coyote’s forehead
howling w/ him and the antennae, not so far
from your bed, which lover poppy took outside
so you could write w/ the stars
I miss the odd flow of eons
parachuting memories
on nosy thinkers
who’re sure they’ve seen thru my world
I found a well-used book
too torn for me to take home
too dirty
to read in bed
& way too expensive for a random whistler
of a soupy poetic song
but someone once read it, & someone once had it
w/ her, cause traces of lipstick, for him, cause
nicotine spills, who bought this damn thing ages
prowler before – bather in the sun street
sleeper in the star saw noise
tried selling it back to me
Bad deal, brother,
me I got my case
of King Kong blues back home
where goddess black of swamp realms
beats my voodoo nihil
years & years & on, waiting for the ship
to chain the ape back home
“Rock in Opposition (or an Ode to the Corporate Macho)”
Oingo Boingo
on the radio
it must be christmas
my woman’s listening
to quiet days in Clichy
& my pal is writing
a poem
somewhere in far-off Nantes
so much for the canvas
of reference
Anyway, we are trapped here
w/ a class of men
worse than proverbial rednecks
& their ritual grill – thanks god
the rain keeps falling; oh,
they won’t grill this Sunday
& the odor of dead burnt cow
won’t reach my compassive
nostrils
Is this a Dick world?
are those people living
the supermarket holy skies?
I’ve read of them in history books
on 50′s 60′s America
heard their shit sung about
on avant-garden records
of the era
have I jumped in time?
is Poland a heritage park?
if so, of what heritage?
For I have come a long way
from In Utero via Rushdie
to Gysin to freedom
& my beautiful woman
planted mexican flowers
in our sonic garden
a pity the neighbors
are corporate assholes
but we got rich too
& now live in the same district
My dog hates their dogs
I guess that’s so
punk rock
& if I had a son, he’d grow to be
a queer, just like his early
dad
he’d write songs, unlike a macho
daughter
kids would spit in his face
& he’d sing lines from Berry
wearing pajama dresses
I’d crack a can of beer
to paint w/ it generous sketches
but I’m too old for that – the janitor
thinks I’m 30 – must be the drugs
taking shaking baking
after all, opening a gallery
wouldn’t hurt
now, if I had the money…
Art Bears & I wonder what station
have I tuned onto; I wonder what happened,
now that Hawkwind’s in Ford commercials,
insincere business of freaks
grows on the backs of saints
& money’s the landlord
the serf never sees
things might be collapsing
just keep his belly full
& he won’t think of protest
or plot some sort of vengeance
which side am I on; what kind of an ode
I’m writing getting up each morning?
Rock in opposition
word in opposition
flesh in opposition
what? in opposition
form? meaning? ode? freedom?
no – a simple thought I’ve scribbled
on a Chesterfields pack:
In opposition
to some folks
I am not useless
my
dick
completely
is.
“A Psalm for Richie Havens”
Can’t express how you
touched the roof of tongues
no matter the language
& raised awareness
no matter the experience
& kept it simple
for the folkman to enjoy
& the workingman
to get it
poet to pass on the word
victims to stand against
masters
clouds to echo the tune
& stars to resound
w/ amazement
Can’t describe the loss
but am I egoistic?
no such loss occurred, just that
space took its motherless child
back to the soil & seed
perchance to grow more
on other gifted lands
with gifted hands
& voices
where you could smoke on songs
& star out words
for countless future generations
fluxes a-movin’, winds a-blowin’
under alien suns
we’ll never sail to
Can’t pay you back, you accept
no payment, no checks from
woedown poets, sleepless on the tired
angelic moonshields, on a pink moon
night, sinking under
the joy of your freedom
you know they’re too poor
to bless you w/ checks
you know you blessed them
enough
& your respect for tradition
should keep the cosmos alive
The generation dream might have
ended in Altamont, or so the scribblers
said, after your brother got murdered
& books were written, plays & musicals
staged
in places as far off as Hungary
of that fateful day
I’ve read’em, heard’em but the dream goes on
in a folk song
it needs no media to survive
wherever throats are free to sing, no
matter how oppressed
& hands can weave on strings
fingers circle in orbits
around simple D major, things are
usually good
& you, Richie Havens,
are born.
“Van Gogh”
In my favorite bar
there’s a ghetto for smokers
we wear yellow patches from matchsticks
And when our numbers are called
we take our place by the window
rarely seen from outside of
the building
There are joyful shouts of raw dogs
waiting for their meal
of pink slim dwellers
on the fated ark
And the bareness of the waitress smiles
on hurried sunflowers gracing our heads
differing us from the rulers
It knows the ladder down
is turning us to smoke, that will, in time
stick to walls like glue
And those who shoot us ink hypes
know we’ll write their stories
before the last grave is dug
And who is to dig that grave
but ghetto dwellers of my favorite bar
smokers, madmen,
writers, communists,
idealists, realists,
patriots, anarchists,
gurus, shamen, mystics, warriors,
all with a proper patch, stuck on the train / All who are first on the train
to extinction
And who am I to protest?
poet? give me a break -
haven’t heard that word since 1939
And concepts have changed
since then, with the context
“Alleys Behind”
Thought I fell outta
write timeloop
& missed a lot of action
thought the world moved on
w/ its art
I wasn’t around for
years, but nothing really
changed
same stuff excites me; push
it to diners, I can’t get enough
of routine
I sleep in the ugly hat
of serum
drawing conclusions
w/ a chamomile stick
while priests & prophets’
drug & faith play
drag this corpse forever
through ghosts in the sunrise
sums of my beings
rotoscaped on slimy
hotel bedwalls
X-rayed pushers of poppies
dream over roof
tops, cracked from seething sunrays
boiling eyeballs
grilling inners
w/ the poetboy of urbia
vomiting/eating back words
he heard/read or said
aboard the lonely sputnik
Picking up hit & miss transmissions
like an antenna, without sorting
the trash, picking the fruits
accepting as is
the given noise
of space
without own thoughts I’m hurried
back to my boxlike room
to write on the clatter-wall
I’m sorry to say I’m one
some ages after
& alleys behind
from where I’d like to be
“The Rebel”
Koolest old words
brace aerosols
spray the subway
entrails
ice cream sky
outside the station
exists once
or does it, in dream zone
where cheap drug tentacles
‘ve stuck
in
wrung stoic space
dead static air
Feeding on meatball brains
mock angels of drainrails
swimming w/ the dishes
of yesterday’s god
I dreamt of Aztec
fiestas
African rains
& actresses I’ve screwed
in this
underground world
wasting years of experience
serving poisoned flesh
on thick golden sheets
Hunting the chlorophyll
speeders – me, myself, vegetarian
waits for another
u-bahn
w/ a bag full of books
hat on my halo
dog companion sleeping
I sell my story to buskers
glad to say it
upstages them
koolest phrased stalkers
greet me, turn to molehills
of ash
There are hearts, they say, that
never leave existence
souls that never break
the barrier of light
waste their time dying
die away dreaming
of lifting the void
off their body
But koolest kids screw on
they cherish simple art, one I
push for, work for & draw on
plexiglas palms of
order – distinguishing
voices of reason, me, myself,
a rebel,
I move back to my pencils
relaxing sweet Jamaica
I step back to the womb
leaving laughter
of games
behind.
“Sun Solitary Tramps”
Bright Mexican dawn: pastel
bloodbath
feather cordial
dead engines drill
plateaus, october
on king
sings in the valley
of wombs
priceless views
of rebirth
crowd imperial skulls
w/ knowledge
I once wrote ’bout myth
& how it’s pronounced
in these
cruel realms
cruel, in a child’s way, wild
in a death’s way
where nothing returns
unchanged; where prices
are paid thrice, & the clouds
uncover snake queens
worn behind pale windows
of rain; guitars
play on, the drum
from behind the mountain
shakes the cynic’s tree
& whiteman’s fact falls off
rotten, bitter & deadly – the venomous
taste of failure
you’ve lived in for thousands
of years
here schools didn’t exist
church didn’t exist
one law of love
was the only holy way
& other ways were wings
of a serpent – ugly souls
were devoured, sky immortal
saved
but no-one sacrificed
on structures madmen call altars
in fact, lost cities are stations
of space communication
soul exploration
where mountains were flattened
& platforms erected
for brave
in eternity basking
sun solitary tramps
landing on gears
of blood
“Busy Sunflower Bees”
I shouldn’t be sitting
lapsing, again
on this bench
but I am – envisioning lazy
Sonia in every woman passing me by
car hiss honk – sketching
birds
in every beige or white
costume;
cool Germanic dawn; bright autobahn
love –
I shouldn’t be drinking this hard
shouldn’t do stuff, but I do – just
bought a Gillan LP for a friend;
but in my head golden heels
& silk trombones
play VU songs
to diameter of afternoon heights
raw heat
ideas
I took some pictures of buildings -
boredom
& filled straw pages
w/ bullshit
only my dog can read; who can order
this? I’ve nothing for the people
in fact it’s not a poem
& it shouldn’t be writing it
but I do; bus
stop high,
every time a beige suit or blouse
pops from inside the tulip museum
opposite my shoe – hanging
on a bell
singing a blues for jesters
busy sunflower bees
laughing at
a retired writer
“Henry Ford’s Epitaph”
May your food turn to blood
may your cars
never rust
may the rural tune of speed
rotate each orbit
of your tired
bosom; may you find
a material
that never wears out; a metal
that doesn’t melt
in the 50′s atomic sun
of a never experienced
future
let it soar, soar!
written in autobahns
by Mercedes engines
Volkswagen wheels
& nazi pamphlets
no one pays
attention to
we should
when he had a chance:
they were the epitaph
of a legend; labor
devil, dictatorious friend
of the plum knife night
impressed
w/ his dream clod
devoid of life
‘cept conveyor belts
& android manpower
I ran w/ the peaks
he leveled
his spark
automobiles hum
on flat automated lanes
veins of a bright illuminated
city
that eats & shits itself out
each cycle
passing this globe
international Jews
of an alien world
paid no attention
to the requiem
radios kept playing:
bright pop songs w/ volk
melodies; strict vocoded voices
carry
incomprehensible
words
up to the tomb of Henry
words like
explo
itation
futur
ism
no longer make sense
in sterile
Plexiglas wombs
w/ looped tapes
of banned speeches
spinning ad
lib, w/ the wisdom of
his medals
on an after-life
dreamwave, he’s chasing death-white
Tibetan demons, beasts from under polar
ice
a horror to behold – his
& Von Braun’s dreams came true
for the good of us all – Luddites,
the non-producers
you, lucky ones escaping
thru the narrow
planetary
chimney
leaving automated
streets
to greater devils
than us
will you write an epitaph
for Henry
on another
virginal planet?
"Extracts from a Drunkard's Twilight"
My mouth, open
breath stinks of the whole
ugly day
that day stinks of
man's whole history
stinking of
chance, unnecessary births
to the bog clouds
of exhaustion, warehouse
blitz & humorous
obituaries
once the music stops
playing
Remnants of matches
stick out like crosses
from my pockets
twirling the highway roaming...
cars - the birds of the handicapped crescent
feeding sky w/ remnants
of someone else's
dream
making that someone happy
bookstoring out of the rust
in my burger
toothpicking ash from the heart
Ugly the word on the block
death in the schoolyard, uninvited
teacher; kids the glorious leaders
of rebellion, now grown up & married
to sex-shop telecoms
transmitting orgasms like candles
sometimes transmit
the bareness; nakedness of priests
tied to perfumed chairs
of lottery; honesty of night,
drawing straws; the lucky ones
are on fire
drink that hard, I dare you
live that quick, you're doubled
My fist, open
used to contain the plot
tables of planes & footprints, left
cautiously stabbing the sky
my only friend I witness, my only
silver girl; companion through the summer
downer, drag corridor, base cake growing
in the oven, someone made dinner
for drunkards, someone took care of my
crosses; & ugliness pales
in the small unhealthy visage
of a sailor
who first brought dope to town.
