Money is just an excuse.
(Daylight come and me wan’ go home)
(don’t you got no shame?)
shades of grey

What if whores ran the world?
(Oh, wait a minute, they do.)

guilt
(gotta get me some o’ that)

[meaningless
worthless
garbage]

Dead whores don’t talk.
That’s why they’re so desirable.
What could be better than fucking a sack of shit?
A sack of dead shit?

[total rectal anger]

The powerless, the disenfranchised, the beaten, the wretched.
The needy, the impoverished, the desperate, the dirty, the shame.
The secret shame of ourselves,
fucked and fucked and fucked
by strangers
other than those we know
unknown strangers
not the strangers we live with
the ones who normally take the trade of love for money
and allow ourselves to be used.
(our secret shame)

[shameshameshame]
(it’s a cryin’ shame)
(what a shame)
(hidden secret denied)
inappropriate behaviour

we’re all afraid to say it
stinks worse than a dead whore’s minge
we’re all afraid to be it

[the dark serpent at the heart of things]

maybe she’s just brain dead
((is that enough to satisfy a man?))

– mindless porno-sex-bots –

“I saw what a whore she was” – Sal Paradise

of course, crack whores
(someone to look down on) )on look someone down to(
brain dead crack whores
whores crack dead brain
the perfect woman
now that should satisfy any man
any satisfy should man that now

the lowest of the low of the lowliest
blowjobs on demand
every man’s dream
dreamiest of the low lowest blowjob every

“you see how you have been indoctrinated into a value system in which one is worth more than another?]]
{an institutionalized hierarchy of personal worth}}
i.nst.i.tut.i.onal.i.zed de]gr(ada$$tion
worth.less.ness..

[so we’re told]
[it certainly seems that way]
[uh-huh, it certainly does]
[what a shame]

“I searched for my inner whore –
my inner dead whore –
and found that life isn’t a bed of roses,
it’s a bed of the seemingly random
interplay of moments and emotions –
in fact, ‘moment’ is just ‘emotion’ spelled backwards,
the way ‘live’ is ‘evolution’ spelled sideways,
or ‘forever’ is the reverse of ‘tomorrow’.”

flowing backwards
like a whore committing suicide
slow suicide

{no one told her she couldn’t play Russian roulette
with six bullets in the cylinder}

“After remains were found on his pig farm in Abbotsford, BC, Robert Pickton was arrested on Friday, February 22, 2002 and charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Sereena Abotsway, Mona Wilson, Jacqueline McDonell, Diane Rock, Heather Bottomley, Andrea Joesbury, Brenda Wolfe, Georgina Papin, Patricia Johnson, Helen Hallmark, Jennifer Furminger, Heather Chinnock, Tanya Holyk, Sherry Irving, Inga Hall, Cara Ellis, Andrea Borhaven, Debra Lynne Jones, Marnie Frey, Tiffany Drew, Kerry Koski, Sarah Devries, Cynthia Feliks, Angela Jardine, Wendy Crawford, Diana Melnick, and Jane Doe (unidentified woman) bringing the total number of first-degree murder charges to 27. It is suspected that he may have murdered over 60 women, all prostitutes.”

February 26, 2009 – Another body was found in the desert west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, police said Thursday. So far, 11 bodies have been found, including those of a first-trimester fetus. Body No. 8 belongs to Gina Valdez, who was pregnant. The remains of her fetus were found with her. Valdez had a prior criminal history, including arrests for prostitution and drug charges.


Earlier, another set of remains were identified as those of Victoria Chavez, a prostitute and drug user who was last seen in 2003 and reported missing in 2004. Valdez’s father, Dan Valdez, said she was 22 when he reported her missing four years ago. Despite her rough lifestyle, he said, “she was my daughter and didn’t deserve to be buried in the desert.”

We’re all committing suicide
which diminishes the tragedy
[tragedies which diminish the]

“I want a woman who wants me so bad she’ll suck my cum from a dead whore’s cunt.”

That’s my man.

[disposable people]

media whore
attention whore
dirty whore
whore of Babylon
’Tis Pity She’s a Whore
whorehouse – bawdyhouse – brothel – cathouse – bordello – house of ill repute
whoremonger
whore’s bath
just like a whore
the oldest profession
red light district
sleazy
[secret]
[shame][$hame][$$$$$]

to whore (third-person singular simple present [she] whores, present participle whoring, simple past and past participle whored)
Old English h?re; Indo-European root *q?r “dear”; akin to Old Norse hóra “whore”, hórr “adulterer”, German Hure “whore”, Middle High German huore, Old High German huora, Latin carus “dear”.
Noun, singular whore, plural whores:
A prostitute.
(pejorative) A person who is considered to be sexually promiscuous.
A person who is unscrupulous, especially one who compromises their principles for gain.
A person who does, or offers to do, an activity for money, despite personal dislike or dishonour.
(not a person, a woman ( ) a woman is not a person;)))(get your facts straight)

a pejorative term
because we’re all supposed to be moral and nice and composed and upright and proper and faithful and honourable and controlled and have self-esteem and be correct and appropriate and polite and modest and demure and prim and respectable and meek and obedient and submissive and respectful and compliant and deferential and subservient and amenable and do what we’re told and not question authority and do our duty and not question the authority of those who know what’s best for us and do what we’re supposed to do and not question authority

common derogatory sexual terms applied to women:
a girl, a babe, a broad, a doll, a cunt, a bitch, a witch, a whore, a skag, a skank, a slag, a sleeze, a mama, a honey, a chick, a gal, a slut, a slit, a cow, a cutie, a filly, a bimbo, a princess, a trollop, a hussy, a floozy, a doxy, a hooker, a minx, a love muffin, a slattern, a crumpet, a strumpet, a tramp, a harlot, a wench, a douchebag, a tart, a sex machine, a bit of fluff, a cream-puff, a slice of pussy pie, a beauty, a nympho, a ho, an old bat, an old bag, an old battle axe, a cock-chaser, an easy lay, a piece of ass, a ball-and-chain

[there is no comparable list of sexually degrading terms for men]

oh! to be a whore now that spring is here

the ragtag buds are curling under the light,
opening to the green mist of life

“Anyway, is whoring such a bad thing?” Ludwig asked. “I mean, when you think about it, we all use our bodies to make money. I sit in an office and stare at a computer all day, people work in garages, in restaurants, in stores; we all exchange our energy, our intelligence, our creativity for money. What difference does it make if you strip your soul bare in a factory or strip your body bare on a bed? We all spread our legs for cash. We’re all being fucked to death.”
Debbie gave him a long, steady stare. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

the leaves don’t wait for answers,
they infuse the light with green
clinging to life by thin stems
delicate as dancers’ legs
graceful as lover’s breath

it’s all about [money] = power = domination = slavery = whores
(((freedom is in there somewhere, but freedom for oneself, not for anyone else)))
(((one person’s freedom means another’s bondage)))
If there are the rich, there must be the poor.
We bought our freedom with slavery.
We are only free because there are whores.
Dead whores.

it’s all about penetration, giving it to ’er, sticking it to ’er, bullying, achieving, getting it off, getting laid, cunt, pussy, beaver, box, coochie, quim, snatch, twat, minge, aspiring, being ambitious, striving, getting ahead, being on top, making it, having the right, having your way, being right, doing it, copulating, fucking, masturbating, fornicating, sucking, poking, porking, thrusting, dominating, naked, taking, staining the sheets, pounding, grabbing, ass, god-damned-fucking-whore, punching, beating, anger, force, the dark serpent at the heart of things

“now look what you made me do.”

sex & violence = money & power = whores

“There’s a passage in Plato’s Phaedrus in which Socrates compares our appetites and emotions to an ugly, proud, unruly black horse and our reason and modest morality to a noble, well-bred, well-behaved white horse. The untamed black horse of passion is dominated and made to behave through brutality, by being whipped and beaten, by being reined in, by pulling on the bit until blood is drawn. We are taught to feel dirty and ashamed about our desires. The more we repress and control ourselves, the better people we are.”

power = need = need for assurance = need to dominate = need to control = need to dictate = need to win = need not to lose = need others to lose = need poverty and drug addiction and terror and fear and loneliness and destitution and hopelessness and degradation and futility and whores

We’re made to feel ashamed of who we are.
To make someone feel worthless.
To treat someone as worthless.
To denigrate despise scorn degrade belittle.
Treat them like dirt.
Dirty whore.

[meaningless
worthless
garbage]

the dark serpent at the heart of things

It’s all so fucked up there’s no way to fix it.

!![{(The world is a dead whore.)}]**

Th e ((W o r

Ld [Is] a

De

aD W. h. o. r. e

John C. Goodman lives in St John’s, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. His novel, Talking to Wendigo (Turnstone Press) was short-listed for an Arthur Ellis Award. Short fiction, poems and essays have appeared in The Fiddlehead; Otoliths; elimae; BlazeVOX; Istanbul Literary Review and numerous other magazines. He is the editor of ditch, (www.ditchpoetry.com), an online poetry magazine. Work is included in the print anthologies Ten for Ten (Wolfmont Press, 2008), Gulch (Tightrope Books, 2009) and Abandon (edits all over press, 2009).

wandering dark home
naked alone bare boned
nightmare after nightmare
after nightmare after nightmare
you suddenly look back and know
and understand your childhood
why you were so damn self-
destructive and accident-
prone and didn’t know
probably wanted
to just let go
to give up
to sacrifice self
to kill yourself
on a daily basis
wild child
you
were
so
out of
control
desperately
trying to gain
some form of control
and go to the refrigerator
to drink cold milk to hope
to heal soothe and coat
your beaten and
battered soul
the lights of
the paperboy
come into
the dead
end like
a film
noire
and it
is only
the deep
and rickety
rhythmic
breathing
of cicadas
which gets
you back home

5:00

acorns have started
to fall from the great
big oak and thud
onto car
outside
window

5:15

and think the only
thing you can rely on
the only thing reliable
are the garage doors
which go up just at
the right time every
time across the road
and babysitter who comes
out like some female super
hero with her perfect little
neat and tidy organized
steps and think i want
to follow them back
to where it all
went wrong
then forward
to try and make
sense of it all…

5:30

unable to sleep
i want to spoon
my wife ‘neath
the stars till
the end of
eternity

5:45

black velvet top hats
of jet-black crows perched
like puppets up on top tippy-toes
way a top ancient fuzzy lichen fir trees

who keep an eye out on me
who keep me from feeling excrutriatingly lonely
who keep me from doing something fucked-up and crazy

6:00

before you leave home
you put a little stickie
on the fish bowl

telling her
you love her

6:15

somewhere in florida, california
chameleons make their way in

6:30

when the sun comes up
you notice some flashing neon figure
of paul revere on his clattering horse

gracefully galloping
off over the colorful
dappled trees of autumn

in minuteman origami hat
perched, eager, reading
just below–”don’t litter”

sun rising over methadone
clinic of moby dick marina
golden arches of mcdonalds

and beautiful black girl
in silhouette shuffling to school
over the iridescent catwalk of rush hour

7:00

driving into work leaving
with the exact same primal scream
as upon returning like one of those
man-made mourning and
mysterious howling persian
holy pilgrim mecca cities

7:10


all the corn which has grown
out up over the gas station
has been taken out
of the ground

and all that’s left
are the brilliant copper
golden bamboo stalks like some great
glowing shroud from a post-apocalyptic town

7:15

dusty children faces pasted against windows
and whisked in school buses around dead
ends to lost vague amorphous destinations


they will get such reports back as–
“very nice kid but refuses to take off jacket
always feels the need to be the class clown

has such potential, needs to be tested
walks around the hall like he’s got the
weight of the world on his shoulders”

7:30

this morning while driving into work
out to the mental health clinic
right around plymouth
i heard myself
chanting rage against the machine
dedicated purely to abuse of power
breaking of confidence supervisor–
“fuck you i won’t do what you tell me!
fuck you i won’t do what you tell me!
fuck you i won’t do what you tell me!
fuck you i won’t do what you tell me!”
a modern day bartelby the scrivener
passing the pilgrim sand’s motel
literally right where the pilgrim’s
stepped off and landed thinking
of that teenager from way back
in the day from that great comedy
“fast times at ridgemont high”
who simply got fed up
delivering fast food
in his hi-ho matey
pirate uniform
and tears it all off
pirate hat and all
and chucks the
whole damn thing
out the window
and think how i’d
like to simply follow
that spar-spangled
orange corvette
wherever it goes
zooming off
all the way
to the end
of the world
somewhere
anywhere
maybe even
provincetown
or p-town
think that’s
what it’s called
but don’t know
maybe i’ll just
save up and settle
for a chinese meal
to try and make
sense of it all

7:45

inspector clouseau still in all his disguises
his moustache & beard & bifocals
drives his little white paint truck
through the village, suspicious

sincere & earnest
destined & determined
humming his harmless hymns
to keep himself centered, grounded

8:00

*
i know the fall is here by the density
strength and length of the opaque
clouds laying low in the morning

*
lagoon getting dimmer
and trees brighter

*
last dewy blast
of perennial gardens

*
when i see all these assholes tailing each other
i start to think about the concept of heaven and
if it’s all just attention-seeking behavior
who you know, nepotism?

i can’t even fathom
and if they’re admitted
pretty sure i absolutely
don’t want any part of it

*
instead of saying a prayer to myself
i hear myself muttering mantras
mumbling just to get by

*
the sign for martha’s vineyard ferry
ripped off and it just reads–

“eyard ferry” and like
that so much more

*
income tax & tea
thai bangkok cuisine

milk
lottery

angels
oils

roses
shiners
worms

welcome
pilgrims

bus reads–
mayflower link

*
you imagine the back of oil truck reads
“shipwrecked” and the last of the empty

flatbed dropping off remains
of carnival freak show set

*
they put the old timers
out in the cranberry bogs again

men in raincoats
in a field of pumpkins

Noon…

and get lost at last at the whitehorse general store
right next door to the post office and graveyard
with a dim light always on behind woebegone

ghostly time-stained curtains of lopsided
ramshackle rockinghorse shelters

on a seesaw ocean
of splintered stilts
and stray dogs

and shotgun seagulls
with soar throats wailing
soliloquies for the ages

bathed in opaque magnifying glass light
of some haunted season when the tourists
finally leave and natives gradually creep back in

young dirty down to earth
beat blue collar workers
already returning home
with booze and spirits

during dwindling days to fix
stranded shipwrecked souls
a cure to all those good
ol cold weather-worn
new england floors.

in the splish-splash somersaulting shore
you call up your wife to tell her–

“i loved your supper
last night, thank you!”

12:15

then hear yourself casually saying aloud–
“can you make a list to take out the lint?”
and even start to think is this what it all
comes down to, to this? then think just
a bit further and deeper and would love
to take out all the lint, all that built up
bullshit of all those past experiences
which never got healed or fixed
anger and sadness which still
sits stirs sticks right between
the stomach and esophagus
more specifically spoken
that place where we store
and keep it all in where we
always feel like we want to
just explode want to break
down and cry for no particular
reason restless and agitated
and can’t make sense of
it but just keep it all in
all that sadness and anger
more specifically spoken
and broken down and
sworn and articulated
which seems originally
like some idiot statement
but now that i stop to think
about it and dig a bit deeper
a pretty profound and trans-
cendent comment–
“can you make a list
to take out the lint?”

12:30

and it is only until later
until much later on
that you realize
everything is
pavlov’s dog
certain women
girls seasons
moments
transitions
cops
crab
apples
bagels
and lox
all realized
in revelations
at the drive-thru
during a rain storm
and even more so not so
much even these images and forms
but everything that came before
the cause and core the cause
to exactly what and where
and why and who you are

12:45

at lunch break sitting at the end of world
where they came in from the old world
searching for the new world and think

i really want to go back to some
form of old world way before any
of this folklore ever existed before

there is a broken window in a dim home
which looks out to the choppy ocean
to the sails and ghosts and seasons

where all the transcendent dreams
and nightmares and fantasies
and visions seep in

exact same seagull
simple skull and all
on skipping stone shore

who stands there
pensive reflecting
tender thoughtful

and wonder what it was like
when they first came around
spotless bend and spotted land

and declared land-ho!
which turned to holy cow!
to holy cannoli! to hidi-hidi-hidi-ho!

back to group home
boys and girls on the run
through thick pine and pachysandra

1:15

now all it is is perfect pachysandra
shrubs and hedges, dewy fences,
steeples, candles, pipes & ladders,
cops in drizzle, pretty jogging wives
and mothers, bed and breakfasts

1:30

you wonder when the stooges
are gonna show up with their
big blocks of ice and pianos

2:30

kids gone forgotten and unnoticed
enraged cause they literally really
are forced to fight the system

enraged from the original abuse
and neglect that put them in
enraged from all those

anacronyms which
could give a headache
to a god damn aspirin!

enraged cause of all the bozo idiot
clowns gathered around the clinical table
offering them old cliched hand-me down advice

simply following some agenda & protocol
& don’t know their ass from their elbow
don’t have the experience

don’t know the half
or even an inch

so decide just simply to go
it on their own, on the run
maybe for just one single
moment, day, even month

in one last mad
dash for freedom

last but not least seen
on the side of the road

looking for someone
some home they never had before
whisked from group home to foster home
from literal wicked step mom to aunts to uncles

so young
with spirit
and soul

the children & crows
& cat-calls & cathedrals
incarceration & resurrection
crushed dandelion & dappled specimens

2:45

beautiful tomboy
dogged us all
in basketball

(and let us all
know about it
leaving even

the toughest of boys
talking to themselves
muted heads hung low)

think they all
fell in love
with her

3:00

turkey vultures
come up to visit
from deep woods

then recede
just as natural
into the brush of trees

like some old
acquaintance you didn’t
even know you were missing

3:30

just started this job
and can already see
through the snobs & slobs

already–
“i’d prefer not…”
“i’d prefer not…”

already humming good old dylan–
“it’s just people’s games
that you got to dodge…”


already bullshit
already bloodshot
already brainwash

4:00

i literally find myself leaning back in clinical
chair gargling iced coffee aloud thinking
how i’m gonna spend my pay check
later on tonight and surprise the wife
hope she likes what i’m gonna get
her for the playroom and not be
angered or disappointed with
my impulse control disorder

4:35

looking out from my porthole
at the bottom of the ship
at the end of my shift

(where you see seasons shift
from deep beneath the trees
of basement)

i hear my colleague’s radio–
“boogie nights are always
the best in town…”

5:00

taking off to the smell of cinnamon
pop overs and pork chops and the enterprise
newspaper still wrapped up in a bundle on the porch

Sundown…

*
you want to grab
your wife’s hand
till the end of time

which ever one
lets go
first

*
they’re putting
back together

the sagimore bridge balanced below
glowing flow of twilight gorilla moon

5:15

to get a little feel and flavor
of the real world, of culture
whatever you want to call it
you always take the long way
and blissfully stray back home
through a very strange repressed
eccentric town of beautiful clowns
jesus fanatics
and dope addicts
firemen decked out
in their proud
buckle up
button down
firemen outfits
black and white bums
leftover gigolos by
the movie theater
judges with drinking
problems goth boys
and runaways
windy witches
wild-bearded
suspender wearing
whitman electricians
wino cowboy heroine
addicts in ten
gallons with
bo-legged
wooden
legs
shuffling
up from the river
beautiful young
pornographic
daughters
fragile fathers
good mothers
rich kids turned
to designer drugs
and self-destructive
behavior the joggers
monuments coming
to life on the corner
the paper-mache
cathedrals and
tin foil steeples
state hospital
state forests
and just around
the bend plymouth
rock with graffiti
scribbled all over it
as you return home
exhausted bloodshot
through cranberry bogs
and placid magic wand
paint-by-number ponds
gigantic splintered spindles
of real rough and tough
lincoln log rubber cement
sawdust fairydust forests
sea captain homes
bread and butter
butterscotch
bone-colored
with their great big
whiskey wraparound
widow watch creaky
candle hush hush secrets
in the waning windows
the little alabaster
ice cream girls
of the swamp
and sun-
streaked sun
pulled back
through
blazing
blonde hair
with silly
lily-white
seductions
in jackie o.
sunglasses
way before
the trend
even started
good clean-cut
boys diligently
driving trucks
as young as
newly-cut wood
just stacked up
the studs picking
up their liquor
and firewood
mischievous
flamboyant
delinquent
cops & robbers
pilgrim indians
crawling
on hands
and knees
through the
transcendent
pine needle brush
with foreign accents
and developing addictions
old antique book shop
and booze shop
in the dim
off season
golf courses
and resorts
ice cream
stands just shut down
the drowsy boxcar diners
and splintered homes
down long sandy
lopsided roads
last of pastel-colored
rafts of twinkling twilight
tucked into the setting
sun and when
you think about
this perfect neat
and tidy little part
of town can’t help
but to feel just
a little let down
a little down
and out
mild drab
flickering
brilliant sort of
somber reflection
shoving homebound
past weird mcmansions
of gleaming faux pillars
along side the highway
right past that little
piece of lake
where it always
smells exactly
like fried
calamari
corn bread
and cake
and know
right there
and then
you are
on your way
undercover cops
with nothing better
to do than pick on
pick up mexicans
in the dawn of dusk
in their sleeping bags
along the side
of the road
your down
in the dump
mug shot
redeemed reborn
laid to rest beneath
a beautiful blotted
long gone sun

Dusk…

it all smells like one of those
big old custard boston cream donuts
when the sun falls down and sky breaks opens
and the light like the aperature to one of those

brilliant 24 hour all-night diners lost and alone
and layed out in orange blaze sugar maples
horizon like a great big sloppy
cheeseburger with raw onions

a pretty young girl holds open the windy door…

5:45

that great big half wolf half dog
on his last leg still wandering
staggering tip-toeing proudly
sniffing exploring the dead end
and dappled leaves of autumn

just a bit slower a bit sadder
more pensive more reflective
a little deaf a little blinder
yet still so much
more alive

so much more
sacred caring
compassionate
kinder than any of these
so called upstanding citizens

6:00

you think you want to disconnect the dots. of these connect the dot people.
who live in their connect the dot worlds. with their convenient disconnects.
and try to connect yours. convenient and comfortable. ignorant and arrogant.
insular and delusional. phony to the bone. and play roles without soul. know
it alls who don’t know a thing at all. and pass judgment and passive-aggressive
behavior without an ounce of experience. integrity or honor. nor what they’re
most guilty of. don’t know a thing about you. your heart and soul. kindness
and compassion. your gut and generosity. everything you been through.
the suffering and struggle. and seen it all…

you think back to all those good ol episodes who was that?
the stooges? chan? chaplin? little rascals? abbot and costello?
really doesn’t much matter anyhow where there was one of those
man-made knotholes dug into ol black & white static depression
industrial residential picket fences and how these classic hysterical
slapstick thieves and delinquents sticking curious and mischievous
sockets through it would graciously let you in and find out everything
that’s really happening and very much feel that that’s the true core reality experience
if you ever really cared to look at it from the real righteous point-of-view and perspective

6:15

i love the image
of nodding out
on dope while
being whipped
around in the
tea cups in
the magic
kingdom

then haul me off
with one of those
humongous hooks
while still
nodding
out in
my mickey
mouse ears–

“book your own
special disney
vacation down
in orlando, florida”

6:30


fallen decorative pear
holds up the skull
of scarecrow
slouching in
lawn chair

as a kid couldn’t keep yourself
out of trouble just like these kids
but always knew how quick and
clever and smart you really were

7:00

drizzle falls
on the dwarf
watermelons

at dusk
on the table
on side of the road

7:30

the shadows of the dragonfly
and hummingbird buzz past
the last blast of geraniums

can’t tell you how much i miss
the aroma of formaldehyde streaming from
the windows of south brooklyn casket in brooklyn

along with the hanging puerto rican
sisters hollering their dreams
wishes and illuminations

when the last of the fall sun fell
on cobblestone creating pools
of deep splashing shadows

8:00

the homes stand out here
like mosoleums and museums
and man don’t see a single soul out
here but the gardener and mailman

garage doors
magically going up
then going down again

martian light on in the window
the neighbor on his tractor with
his light beer and lights on then
vanishes like a ghost into thin air

8:15

take to the top of my stairs
and just sitting there up on top
(like a pot of gold at the end of
the rainbow) is a little jar of vick’s
vapo rub and one of those nose decloggers

always know there’s a certain
part of the stairs a certain
part of the home where
the meals the stews
the casseroles flow

autumnal vegetables
the sweet squash
the eggplant
the turnip
native corn

the crows go in
and drizzle falls
on the hibiscus
in the midst of
misty foyer window

8:30

on kitchen island reads
a note from kid’s teacher–

“thank you for the
paper dolls & popcorn”

8:45

ladybugs creeping all over
the pastel-colored walls
of pink and pale-green
and blush and coral

buddha heads
resting their bones
on the coffee table
with son in bathtub

pointing his index finger
giving you permission
to dream of unicorns
and rainbows

9:30

dog is let down
scuttles down
down into
deep dark
basement
where just
the sacred
beacon from
tom & jerry
flashes all the day long
and will fall asleep down
there on the quilted rockers

10:00

all the haystacks
all the mums
all the white
and orange
pumpkins
have been
set and displayed
in front of the home
all the tulip bulbs below
all the acorns and pine cones
and pine needles have fallen
all the suns and moons
and widows and winos
all the leaves
and crab apples
and fall fast asleep
and sink into your
easy chair
right in front
of the great
red river rivalry
getting ready
for dreams
for nightmares
for a new day
of sleepwalking

Midnight:

it is true it is really only cumming
feeling like you’re going crazy
breaking down crying being
born dying dreaming that
are your one and only
instincts your fish
from siam every
evening keeping
you company
drinking
your wine
minding
his own business
me minding mine

what happened to those good
old chinese joints where
they used to give you
those warm and wet
wash cloths you’d
throw over your
head to hope
to heal all
the lies?

the stolen piece
of apple pie
and wine

Sunrise: morning tide

at dawn you sleep like jesus the night before.
it all happens in your dreamworld.
girl gets up and tells you–

it was all so real
and then it was gone…


Joseph Reich: is a social worker who works out in the state of Massachusetts: A displaced New Yorker
who sincerely does miss diss-place, most of all the Thai food, Shanghai Joe’s in Chinatown, the fresh smoothies on Houston Street, and bagels and bialy’s of The Lower East Side. He has a wife and handsome little son with a nice mop of dirty-blonde hair, and when they all get a bit older, hope to
take them back to play, to pray, to contemplate in the parks and playgrounds of New York City.

Up for five days-
I took a bus to Fremont St.

Jason Hardung’s work has been published widely through the American underground. His work has appeared in The New York Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Word Riot, Zygote In My Coffee, Underground Voices, decomP, Thrasher, Lummox Journal, Heroin Love Songs, Polarity, Up The Staircase, St. Vitus Press to name a few. He has a chapbook, Breaking The Hearts of Robots on Covert Press, and a full length book, The Broken and The Damned on Epic Rites. He has been nominated for a Puschcart. He is co-editor of the Front Range Review and Matter Journal and lives in FT. Collins, Colorado with a cat and a bird whose feet fell off.

by Susan Morgan Bosler

What is the difference between writing poetry and writing song lyrics?
How different are lyrics from poetry? Which produces a more emotional and
moving experience?

When I was in the seventh grade, my English teacher Mrs. Oliver, who was a
pleasant looking women in her late thirties, with brown hair that she wore
in a teased “helmet-style” page-boy cut, with big deep brown eyes that
looked three times their normal size due to her thickly magnified glasses,
decided to pass around copied sheets of lyrics of various modern songs. One
was by Bob Dylan, Blowin’ In The Wind. As we in the room were silently
reading to ourselves, she stood at the blackboard at the front of the room
and wrote these words “What is Poetry?” I think she may have even
underlined it a number of times before looking around the room to see if
anyone was ready to give an answer. There were a couple of “one is written
with music and you sing it, the other is written by dead guys . . .” or some
such flippant answer. Of course, this question was the topic we were going
to cover for the next couple of days before moving on to some other so she
wasn’t too unhappy that we didn’t know what the difference was right off.

Blowin’ In The Wind

How many roads must a man walk down Before you call him a man? Yes, ‘n’ how
many seas must a white dove sail Before she sleeps in the sand? Yes, ‘n’ how
many times must the cannon balls fly Before they’re forever banned? The
answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, The answer is blowin’ in the
wind.


How many years can a mountain exist Before it’s washed to the sea? Yes, ‘n’
how many years can some people exist Before they’re allowed to be free? Yes,
‘n’ how many times can a man turn his head, Pretending he just doesn’t see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, The answer is blowin’ in the
wind. How many times must a man look up Before he can see the sky? Yes, ‘n’
how many ears must one man have Before he can hear people cry? Yes, ‘n’ how
many deaths will it take till he knows That too many people have died? The
answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, The answer is blowin’ in the
wind. —— Bob Dylan (1)

We soon learned that Mrs. Oliver believed that Bob Dylan’s lyrics were
something more than just typical song lyrics. They were better. They were
poetry. She was the first person who brought my attention to not only focus
on the lyrics in the songs I was listening to, but to delve into the art of
writing poetry. To Mrs. Oliver, and many others, all poetry could be made
into a song, but not all song lyrics could be stand alone poetry. For this
reason alone, in her opinion, lyrics were second to poetry. After years of
weighing what the difference really was, I still have not been able to agree
that poetry is somehow more lofty than lyrics, nor do I feel that writing
lyrics is any less artistic an endeavor than writing poetry.

Recently I came across an interesting blog written by Andrea Stolpe in which
she shares what she knows about music and the differences between poetry and
lyrics.(2) She had many good points most of which are very astute. In her
opinion (as a lyricist) the difference is quite frankly the added artistry
of music. Lyrics are usually written to fit the melody’s musical phrases.
Lyrics are just not as important than the composition (music). Music is
king. But, she is not alone.

The late Steve Allen recounted many times, that he heard the music to his
famous song, “This Could be the Start of Something Big” in a dream. Upon
waking up, he composed the music and later came up with the lyrics. Perhaps
this is the way a composer thinks and this is why the music is more
important than the lyrics. Although I do have to contradict myself by
stating that Steve Allen was both a musician and a writer, as well as a
comedian and scholar. He might be the exception to the rule.

I listened to an interview from 2007, between Paul Simon and Charles Rose in
which Mr. Simon recounts how he wrote Mother and Child Reunion. To shorten
the story, he basically said that first he created the melody and he wanted
to record it in New York but could not find the right backup drummer to lay
down the exact beat he was looking for so he went to Jamaica to find a “ska”
drummer. When he got there he was told that ska was no longer in, they were
now doing Reggae. He asked to hear it and decided that, that sound was also
good. He then recorded the music with a Reggae Beat. The musical part was
done but he did not have any words or lyrics written for the piece. Much
later while in a Chinese Restaurant in New York he saw a dish on the menu
named Mother and Child Reunion. While he did not order the dish he did
borrow the title, and subsequently wrote the lyrics of the song. The music
came long before the lyrics of one of the most popular Paul Simon’s songs
were written and while we may not always know the words, we can hum the
melody and sing a few lines (which is part of the repeating chorus)

But I would not give you false hope
On this strange and mournful day
When the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away,
Oh, oh the mother and child reunion
Is only a motion away
Oh the mother and child reu-nion Is only a moment away

Perhaps this explains why the song has such a sad message with such upbeat
music. If you ever wondered why, now you know. The music was first, the
lyrics came later.

Many musical composers feel the same as Paul Simon. The composition of the
music is more important than the composition of the lyrics. Lyrics are
something that is considered second, it is no wonder that lyrics seem to
have a lower standing than does poetry.

Andrew Lloyd Weber first composed the music for the Phantom of the Opera
before hiring the first lyricist and than a second, Charles Hart, to write
the lyrics for the songs including The Music of the Night. Originally, the
song was given as a gift to Mr. Weber’s first wife, Sarah Brightman
entitled Married Man (with vastly different lyrics) long before the Phantom
of the Opera. Lyrics are often short changed, squeezed, averted and avoided
to match the redundancy of the “rhythmic phrases” of the composed music. In
other words, to many composers, music is the star while the lyrics are the
supporting player. Often in songs, lyrics can become sophomoric or silly,
but sung along with the music, the lyrics seem perhaps much better than they
really are, and together with the music there is no denying that lyrics can
give rise to heightened emotional feelings. Also, lyrics usually have a
“catch line” that sets the mood of the song. Often the audience may not
know the entire lyrics of one song, but they certainly can sing the repeated
refrain over and over again. It is this “catch phrase” that draws us to a
song and keeps us singing the line repeatedly (including those aggravating
moments when we can’t “get the song out of our head!”).

Continuing with this line of thought, that poetry is a stand alone art form,
unlike written lyrics, which are made to be a part of a whole (many part)
composition, one may begin to understand why there is the opinion that
poetry is more elevated than lyrics. Poetry is a deliberately constructed
form, where the use of specific words is written out in a unique manner to
capture and cause a rise in the emotions and feelings of the audience.
Poetry, both written or read aloud is usually driven by a very internal
process. Poems are a lonely stand alone creation of art. Rarely, save for
some kind of reenactment of an Ancient Grecian Play would groups of people
recite the words of a poem out loud (together as a group) as they often do
when singing a song. Then again, would a Grecian play be considered poetry?

An example of a recently popular song by the Frey, entitled Never Let Me Go
is an example of a song with lyrics that are sung with “individualized
phases” and an emphasis on the words, which causes a very heartfelt
reaction in the audience:

Never Let Me Go
Some things we don’t talk about better do without just hold a smile we’re
falling in and out of love the same damn problem together all the while you
can never say never why we don’t know when time and time again younger now
then we were before don’t let me go, don’t let me go, don’t let me go, don’t
let me go, don’t let me go, don’t let me go picture, you’re the queen of
everything as far as the eye can see under your command I will be your
guardian when all is crumbling steady your hand you can never say never why
we don’t know when time and time again younger now then we were before don’t
let me go, don’t let me go, don’t let me go, don’t let me go, don’t let me
go, don’t let me go we’re falling apartand coming together again and again
we’re coming apart but we pull it together pull it together, together again
don’t let me go, don’t let me go, don’t let me go, don’t let me go, don’t
let me go, don’t let me go(x2)


The song is about the ups and downs of a relationship and the melancholy of
the lead singer obviously leads us to understand his desire to maintain the
relationship even in the face of life’s problems. Yet, if one were just to
read the lyrics (without the music and the singer’s voice) although there is
still an idea of what is being expressed, the lyrics are much better with
the music and the singer guiding us. This is where lyrics are not poetry.
Just reading the lyrics to this song, as if it was a poem, really does not
produce the same effect as reading a love poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(Sonnet 21, Sonnets of the Portuguese) as it was meant to be read:

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
Should seem a “cuckoo-song,” as thou dost treat it.
Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
Belovèd, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt’s pain
Cry, “Speak once more—thou lovest!” Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me, love me—toll
The silver iterance!—only minding,
Dear, To love me also in silence with thy soul.(3)

Of course, it is not only modern musicians who feel that lyrics are second
to music. There are many folk song melodies, such as Greensleeves and
Barbara Allen, that have been taken and re-used over and over again. In
this case, the words were changed but the melody which was popular remained
the same.


Of course there are some pretty well known musicians, composers and singers
who might disagree with the idea that lyrics are not as important as music
composition. Tori Amos and Carly Simon are both credited with having
expressed the idea that creating a song is like constructing a building from
the ground up (see Tori Amos). Whether it starts with music or words, the
foundation must be strong and from there the structure takes form and rise
up to its full potential.

“Usually (and normally, for me) it is the other way around: I write a lyric
first and then fit the music to it. A lyric doesn’t always originate in a
particular “form.” Often I will put down the words as if I were telling
someone a story. Prose. Two of my own songs that come to mind are “Two Hot
Girls” and “In Honor of You, George.” Carly Simon(4)

In the end, it is the composer or the lyricist who decides how significant
their lyrics are to their musical creation. Written poetry is considered a
standalone art form and as such it is the completed creation. But, this
alone does not make it a better medium. Lyrics may not be as well written
(although there certainly are exceptions) as poetry because much of the
emotional response a listener gains from any song depends upon the delivery
of the music in a total package. Sadly, it is almost like comparing apples
and oranges to talk about the differences between lyrics and poetry. It is
almost like comparing sketching and oil painting. They are two very
different forms of art. I personally love both mediums of expression and
hope to one day be very competent in both.

___________________________________________________
1 http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/blowin-wind (Copyright ©1962; renewed
1990 Special Rider Music)

2 http://andreastolpe.berkleemusicblogs.com/2008/02/14/lyrics-or-poetry/

3 http://poetry.about.com/od/poems/l/blebbrowninglove2.htm

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8569 (Interview of Paul Simon by
Charles Rose)(Video)

4 http://www.doubletakemagazine.org/articles/html/simon/ (Carly Simon
Article)

Amos,Tori and Ann Powers. Piece by Piece. (Broadway Books, New York. 2006)

Zollo, Paul. Song Writers on Song Writing. (Da Capo Press, NY, 1997)

The Melrose pavement was shit hot
as a lost boy beat his brains with a pay phone receiver-
Jesus called collect again,
always drama with that guy
he has great abs though.
The art gallery in the tranny’s backyard
was post-modern grudge fuck,
the dead beetles encased in amber
the cat skeletons for sale
the syringes of Burroughs’s youth
all in cases under light
and I wanted to buy you that ring
made from brown recluse bones
but I was broke.

The cars on Sunset
ceased to exist
it was all lips and cigarettes by then
the two eyes veiled in plastic hearts
with more star power
than the walk of fame
we got used to talking without words
the whiskey brought courage
and I finally kissed the smog
from your lips.

Hungover in the sand
I watch sea gulls run on knobby knees
the ocean eats itself
flesh surrounds me
and I feel I’ve been here before.

I pull a stray white feather from your back
maybe from a pillow
or a pigeon
nothing can sway my opinion-

I still believe
this is the city of angels.

Jason Hardung’s work has been published widely through the American underground. His work has appeared in The New York Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Word Riot, Zygote In My Coffee, Underground Voices, decomP, Thrasher, Lummox Journal, Heroin Love Songs, Polarity, Up The Staircase, St. Vitus Press to name a few. He has a chapbook, Breaking The Hearts of Robots on Covert Press, and a full length book, The Broken and The Damned on Epic Rites. He has been nominated for a Puschcart. He is co-editor of the Front Range Review and Matter Journal and lives in FT. Collins, Colorado with a cat and a bird whose feet fell off.

I remain there forever.
I am not of them and they know not
of me or mine.

Once having soared,
we can never be happy on the ground.
It’s why the good die young,
burning and shining and
crashing to the ground in spectacular fury, while
the shadows laugh at our folly.

Most of my friends have settled down,
comfortably,
at ease with the choices that they made,
I hope a few died young and
never had to live long enough to
live the compromise.

I was twelve and thirteen when Janis and Jim died,
eleven years after Buddy Holly and ten years
before John Bonham and John Lennon.
I was only five the year that Robert Frost died and three when
Ernest blew his brains out.
Cobain called it quits when I was 36.
I’ve almost lived his lifetime and Jim’s too.
Sylvia gassed herself at 31,
the year that Frost was busy dying and
I was only beginning.

I came to ground of my own free will, but
that does not guarantee happiness, but I never wrote
a damned thing while
high or happy.

Now I am neither happy or ever high and
writing the shit every day, just like before but
not, because the world has moved on.
It’s a beastly thing, writing and bleeding
all over the page and still,
I can’t tell you what happened when I was five, but I remember in November
the President visited Dallas and Walter cried and mom passed out
while ironing,
something happened in the neighbors’ basement,
we all die a little every day,
some choose not to.

Mike Carson
7-8-2009

Beneath the robes of clergymen
a tangent fiction oblique, strained
paternal totality pursues cultural agnostic
violence of repetition of difference
destroys the chaste hopes
of the innocent child, discursive time
a zone of localization where morality is seized
held captive in a textural field of delirium
where dreams die and only bullets fly
suffer all you immobile machines
beware deterritorialized breaks, no flows
Oedipal regressive hatred soars
indigo rage of the singular object
moans excessive frenzy
beyond the wail of dying albatross
ragged, weary flesh tones speak of sensorial input
mystic opaque presses rapacious lips to ear, whispers
“Necessity is not all, yet nothing escapes it”
the transcendental criminal speaks
warns of barbarian times
single cell consciousness, fragmentation
violence breeds its tireless deficiency
the supreme madness of the flesh revised
body of the mind, tear me up tear me down.
Another structural casualty of an ominous desire.

© Copyright 2010 Justin Lee Brown aka Desiderata

Justin Lee Brown lives in Los Angeles, Califrornia with her four beloved dogs, a million books, and a piano. When she’s not working to support her poetry habbit she spends her time composing music, painting, sculpting, illustating, and writing the odd tracts of flash fiction.

I like to think that there are connections in time to all that happened at that moment. A senseme is a frozen moment And that makes me think it is possible to create a universal thought or feeling by using the details and the concrete images of that moment, and yes even the sounds in our individual heads which it just occurred to me are “feelings.” that have not been articulated much like the feelings felt by an infant that burst forth as cries which we learn as caretakers to interpret as hunger, fear, or…calls for attention. The baby is teaching us how to listen and laying the groundwork for their own learning of sounds that become the common language in the house.

After all, words are meant to share something. Ideas, yes. Emotions, yes. Feelings for which there are no words, yes. I love Robert Frost’s example of a conversation almost overheard behind a closed door. I say almost because the tone (anger, frustration, whatever makes it through the door remain, but the actual words and their context have been blocked.)
I first started writing poetry in college. It was at the University of Oregon in Eugene. I took a 3 quarter class in literature, a survey class, starting with Beowulf and running up through TS Eliot. We looked at forms and my nature is to try things out. It wasn’t part of the class, but I experimented with forms as they were introduced because you can’t know if you understand something until you use it.. Nothing out of that time period survived. I was interested in process, not product. I was particularly interested in the possibility of using words to create a feeling.
It occurred to me that maybe a collection of sounds could function as a poem. No need for words, but I was never satisfied with the results I achieved. I consider that experiment to be unfinished. One of the requirements for a poem is to entertain at some level. I get
bored if both parts of my brain are not engaged. The Four Horseman had some success with their wordless experiments but their actual performances were what made it work. You had to see them.
That has always been my way of working. Get a new tool and see what can be done with it. I have a lot of tools and no particular favorite. I am a writer who makes a lot of poems. I think because they’re short. I can write something I have time to read.. And more and more I write for myself and a few readers that don’t let the words frighten them.
I particularly don’t write for literature teachers. They try too hard to tame the work by interpreting it so that it fits in with what they have learned to expect from a poem. For Example, a poem is expected to look a certain way. This is particularly true with the free verse kind of poem — the one that doesn’t rime or walk in a certain meter. — If it doesn’t sound like a poem, It should at least look like a poem with chopped up lines…to give it the appearance of a dance, a rhythm, you know, be a poem (or so we are told).

So where do I fit when compared to other poets?
I think perhaps it would be helpful to walk you through a process for writing a poem, one that includes many of my ideas about what a poem should be, sound, and look like.
Here’s an actual example of how I might make a poem from Bukowski’s statement that poets today can’t even write a simple sentence like ‘the dog walked down the street.’
Don’t over think it, just read. First I created the core of the poem.

a dog walked down the street
on his way to a hot dog stand
where the owner was bored
and liked to feed him.
an old drunk
running a hot dog stand
is a dog’s best friend.

As great as that poem is not, it would be even harder to read as a poem if it hadn’t been cut into short lines and had a stanza.
a dog walked down the street on his way to a hot dog stand where the owner was bored, and liked to feed him. An old drunk running a hot dog stand is a dog’s best friend.

Of course, it might be called a prose poem and could be further “poeticized” by cutting it up and reshuffling it. I used a Burroughs cut up machine to do that for me, removing the original farther from the world of prose that makes sense. The result:
way to walked street on a owner down feed bored and hot to dog’s down is the feed stand where feed to him. an him. an dog the him. an a hot feed the friend. was street on
But now it looks wrong, so let’s do a syllable chop for line breaks; 5 syllable lines and two quatrains.
Way to to walked street
on a owner down
feed bored and hot to
dog’s down is the feed
Where to feed to him
an him. And dog the
him. An a hot feed
the friend. Was street on.
It looks more like a poem, but now I really miss the drunken hotdog vendor and the little anthropomorphic assumption that a dog might think like us. So I go back to the original. I need a hook, some kind of twist. I need to find the senseme to hold it all together. Notice that it comes with an accumulation of more concrete detail. A sense of story unveils a senseme of sorts. Read on.

a dog walked down the street
on his way to a hot dog stand
where the man liked to feed him.
a dog is the drunken
hot dog vendor’s
best friend
the drunk
running a hot dog stand
is the dog’s best friend.

certainly not a cat
a cat would just as soon
eat the vendor
A teenager might
mug him because
they always need money

The drunk couldn’t stop them
and they didn’t like
him or his
hot dogs
the cops might arrest him
selling meat without a license
on the street
they don’t like
his cart.
but the dog likes the hot dogs
and the old drunk
who likes to feed him
likes the dog
he’s a good
friend with
very good food
the dog thinks
the dog sees much
invisible
hunger
as he walks
down the street
in plain sight
It’s beginning to resemble a poem. It has a senseme. I’ve walked the dog down the street to a poem. So back to the question: “how would you describe yourself in terms of poetry? If you had to be placed in some context, where would you like that to be?”

That is me in the act of writing. So how would I be labeled?
I would describe myself as a writer who makes things with words. I know of no critical context that would be a comfortable fit for me. I don’t always know what I am doing until I’m done, and then I’m liable to redo it.
The process I have just walked through, “Invisible hunger in plain sight” is simply one method I use for making a poem. The opening lines came first this time. Sometimes the senseme (the moment) comes first, and I have find the details, the images, the words, or the story in the senseme. What is it that I want to share.
Sometimes I write in a fixed form just to get at the idea. I will use whatever tool is at hand… I write free verse, sonnets – I have a great sonnet exercise, but it requires a group — villanelles, haiku, senryu and several of my own inventions like the 20 word narrative poem, or most often I’ll just write the words that come to me because they sound right, because I like them.
The Small Presses have been my publishing home. I think perhaps I’m best understood in the context of Coyote poet/editor. Like coyotes, I scavenge, sing, and make the academics very nervous because I won’t stand still. I have nipped more than one of them along the way. To wherever I am in the stacks.
The Plebian Rag: I’d like now to drag you back to when you first started writing poetry. What sparked that? Who and what were your earliest influences, and what made you want to write poetry?

Stephen Morse: Remembering is hard work. I’ve told various stories about my beginning interest in poetry. One is that I always wanted to. My dad was a visual artist. I would spend hours watching him draw and paint. As a painter, he was drawn to things that told romantic stories. His craftsmanship sucked, and his themes were corny, but I liked watching the process.. My sisters were as usual, invisible. No memory of their existence in the house. This has led me to say that there were already too many visual artists in the family. My mother painted grapes and vines on bisque ware. And my first wife went to Oakland College of Arts and Crafts and painted a number of life sized elephants. That added to the story of too many visual artists. Michael McClure taught basic composition at CCAC and I ghost wrote one of my wife’s first essays for here.

As an essay it sucked because I was trying to be a poet for McClure. I knew who he was.
He hated it. I have no idea what the assigned theme was, but it came out like this:

A Short Play Frog and Monkey Poem War Dance | Stephen Morse
(traditional)
(in honor of Michael Mclure, the 60’s, the Oakland
College of Arts and Crafts, and the next great War. )
[scene-a 9x12 cement cubicle furnished with only one steel table which
is bolted securely to the floor and directly in the middle of the room.
On the table, wrapped in yellow velvet, is a generic green male frog
which may or may not be wearing a beret and smoking a corn-cob pipe The
scene opens as the frog speaks. The tone of his voice indicates that he
feels he is not alone ]
Frog: He that drives risks
his life on the highway
in the manner of a fool
with a mission. If you
must be a fool, try to avoid
becoming involved with a
mission. Fools and their
missions soon create a danger
that inspires other fools to
action.
I saw three mice
driven to their death by just
the thought of a mission and
mice as you all know are
the wisest of fools.
[ At this point there is a dusty pause of insignificant dimensions that
is interrupted by the appearance through a hole in the ceiling of a
white monkey wearing a sweater with the pattern of a dollar bill woven
into it. the monkey drops onto the floor in front of the frog and
begins to chant and play with its genitals. ]
Monkey: Trip out — run fast
be yourself — think artistic — trip
out — run fast — be yourself —
think — artistic — trip out — run
fast — be yourself.
Frog: (screams) Green is
a sacred color. Don’t jerk
your dinky dot in time to the holy
chant!
Monkey: (obliviously) Trip out — run fast
be yourself — think artistic
trip out.
Frog: (sullenly) A fool has been
born that should be
dead because that fool
believes in frogs. I know
a mission when I see one.
(shouting) Missions are deadly!
[ Meanwhile the monkey self-stims in to ever higher waves of feeling and
the chant changes, increasing in tempo and volume ]
Monkey: (drooling and loudly now ) Trip out — Love —
I Love you — Run
Fast — Trip out —love
( stops abruptly and ogles Frog )
Frog: Be careful fool or
you will smear me
with your mission
[ whiteness explodes, soaks, obliterates, and covers the frog; and the
monkey falls to the floor softly mumbling ]
Monkey: You don’t know
where it’s at do you?
Even something is better
than nothing. . .
Oh blessed be,
I die
( gasp, choke, sputter,cough ‘and stop the war again, please,’ an
unidentified woman’s voice wails in sorrowful synch with a guitar and a
fiddle somewhere in the world. )
[Closing scene: The frog is dead. The monkey continues to mumble
incoherently as two young monkeys, who may or may not be wearing berets,
wander on to the set, doodling their dinky dots wildly; and the curtain
closes in a flurry of patriotic marching tunes and fireworks.
That was the last time I wrote a paper for her, or McClure.

I was busy enough at Cal State University, Hayward, working on my BA. As a Junior I studied under George Cuomo, Thom Gunn, and Charles Simic to name a few of the better known writers of the time. I fell into poetry because those were the classes offered that fulfilled my graduation requirements. Poetry just happened to come first with George Cuomo. He was a high energy Italian American with good technical skills. My first assignment for him was much more successful. And it came easy; that ensured I would concentrate on poetry.

This was the 60’s and my initial idea of becoming an attorney evaporates in the smoke filled gatherings out at the Simms ranch in Hayward. It was a couple miles off any road, and became the gathering spot for poets, musicians, and wannabe hippies. We’d stoke up, smoke up, play music and spout wild theories about the Arts.. We didn’t think much of Ginsberg, Kerouac had already died, and the whole San Francisco party struck as ego time for a large number Artists, poets and musicians attracted by drugs, sex and rock and roll. It came as no surprise to any of us when things started going bad too many borderline personalities pretending to be part of some sort of intellectual revolution.

Eventually, I had to transition into that group in San Francisco. I wanted to get my MA in Creative Writing and San Francisco State University had this star quality….somewhat undeserved at the time. It was at the peak of student protests. The instructors were intimidated by the students. I remember sitting in the back of a literature class on Stephen Crane; wearing dark glasses and boots which I propped up on the chair in front of me. Thanks to some early publishing credits in places like The Saturday Review, and The Best College Writes in America, I had an attitude and wore it most frequently in classes. I don’t remember the instructor’s name, but we a class had a discussion about the Crane’s poetry. I argued that he was a gifted hack with a hearing trumpet for his sounds. I answered the same way on a test that he gave and he almost wimpered,”I thought we discussed that.”

“Yes, we did, but I never agreed with your position and I still don’t. He gave me an A.

That sort of thing happened frequently at State. Even one-eyed Bob Creeley asked me what grade I should assign myself, “An A,” I replied, in spite of the fact that I mostly drank wine and listened to poetry in his advance poetry craft class. It was held off campus because we were all over 21 and saw no reason not to drink. We just had to do it off campus. That’s how I got to know that little group. His friends would drop by just for the conversation. And by the way, I got an A.

Friends included, Ginsberg and his entourage. There was one long haired young blonde woman who wrote a carpe diem in an attempt to seduce Creeley. It was a snake charmer poem, thinly veiled sexual metaphor.

Somebody shot a hole in the ceiling in one of the class meetings. It was hard to keep track of who was who.

I was used to the more craft oriented Oakland/Hayward side of things. We actually studied how things were done.

S/F was my first real intro to the gossipy side of poetry, talking about poets and their foibles rather than their craft. That was largely Alan’s influence. Beat poetry, for Alan, a term that he encouraged, was mostly a group of people who liked his work and agreed with his life style. He was actively gay and wanted to change the way we looked at the world; he wanted people to see things his way. He also wanted be a part of the younger generation and its rock and roll soul. I’m not sure that I qualified for the mantle of “Beat” He and I rarely agreed upon anything. But I knew him, drank with him and we both were serious about writing in our own ways.

My sphere of influence was too eclectic for then, in that it included all media, and worked developing a craft with some core belief.. All of this with a back drop of the Vietnam War which we protested and the hippy movement, earth mothers, gypsy folk singers in a string of coffee house. When we gathered at the Simms ranch it was a musical circus. There were even quarter horses to ride. We were grounded. It was a real blend of my background and I loved it.. Ginsberg hated horses. Probably penis entry.

And there were readings by visiting poets like Robert Bly who for a time wore animal masks in an attempt to get connected with their persona. I often wore wigs and other eccentric bits and pieces from the older west. I played guitar and sang. I was never great at either one. If I remembered the words, I’d forget the music. If I played just the music, the lyrics disappeared. There is a combination of acting and being a musician involved in performing a song. The left brain/right brain coordination that I worked so hard to integrate never came easy. I think I had a secret desire to be a coffee house singer travelling from city to city. I think this desire lurked in the hearts of many poets because we saw the romantic role of bard be replayed in dimly lit coffee houses.

It still exists. Particularly in the South. There are greyhound bus blues, rockers and folk singers that annually tour and sell their CDs. These venues have much the same flavor as the old coffee houses. Everyone knows every on the tour and they learn from each other. One of my favorites is Bo Bice, the Idol runner-up to Cary Underwood. He is a musician and a father and a little bit of a story teller ala Arlo Guthrie. He is a charismatic young musician and is not afraid to admit that he loves God, although his work doesn’t fit into the category of Christian Musician. Nothing preachy in his work. There are busloads full of independents.

All I can do in this short answer is to give a feel for what it was like to be a poet when people took it seriously. Unfortunately, attempts to commercialize it, to turn it into money were largely the realm of Rock and Roll. It was the energy and volume that won in the end. The punk movement tried to put the lyric back.. Groups like Black Flag, and the Dead Kennedy’ did so satirically with heavily ironic songs like “TV Party Tonight” and the Kennedy’s “Trust your Mechanic.” All a kind of anti music. Poetry was rapidly developing a weak image and depended largely on the personalities of the poets who were beginning to write. The star power of the poets carried the weight. Bob Dylan with one foot planted firmly in American Folk and other in the joyful noise of Rock and Roll.

Dylan’s song lyrics were often hand me down American blues and English traditional before he developed a voice of his own. His strength was a musician. He could sing, but not with any beauty.
I saw myself more a poet editor. I had already published 5 editions of a mag called the White Elephant. 500 each issue. There are no known remaining copies of that series.
It later became Juice when I divorced and married Judy Lynn Brekke. She too was involved with Art and artists by way of the California College of Arts and Crafts and introduced me to a number of new artists and musicians. Joe Rees was the guru there, and he created a video production company called Target. His studio became the afterhours place to be with legendary punk rockers just beginning. We were occasionally pressed into service as videographers. I was the anchor of a local cable show that did 60 minute type news features before there was a 60 minutes so I had some experience with how to light and frame a shot.

There were several competing creative groups at the time. That’s the point of this rambling answer. We were loosely connected by a desire for an alternate way of living; one that didn’t put so much emphasis on product

The one common writer for these groups was WC Williams on our side and Ezra Pound on both sides. San Francisco, thanks to Ginsberg leaned to the wide open sexual side of Whitman.

The Plebian Rag: Staying with those early times, please do tell us about your experience of “the beat poets”. You were part of it, and for poets now you are a connection to it that cannot be over-stated. For me it was like finding (in English terms) Simon Armitage on MySpace when I met you, and I know there are many who feel the same. Poetry is a continuum, a journey, and you have become part of that. You have connected to a new generation who are just discovering “the beats” and you have done that through the electronic online medium. So please take us back, and tell us about those early experiences. Who did you work with and what were they like?

Stephen Morse: I worked with (as a student) Charles Simic, Thom Gunn, George Cuomo, and Robert Creeley.

Simic taught by reading poetry written by his influences: W.S. Merwin, Robert Creeley, William Carlos Williams, James Tate, are the ones I remember most vividly. There were others. I just don’t remember at the moment. His actual writing class consisted of his giving assignments based on the poet of the week, and a round table discussion of the results. Small class size (usually about 10) made the process workable. He was a bit of a con man that played the political part of poetry quite well. Knew all the “right” people and acted the part of being a poet in residence in a sophisticated way. Dressed as you would expect an intellectual, academic poet on the cutting edge to dress. Sports coat, slacks, no tie. Definitely not a hippy or a beatnik. He was a good literature teacher. But really taught nothing about writing. I had already been published in substantial journals, and I think perhaps that fact always made him uncomfortable.

Thom Gunn: similar teaching methodology so I’m assuming there was a universal template or syllabus that they were required to use. I was a bit dazzled by Gunn. He wore a sports coat, but leather pants. His approach to writing was more traditional. He was very much in the tradition of Walt Whitman in terms of subject matter. He wrote about contemporary experiences and what was around of him. But he worked in verse and managed to do so without seeming forced.

George Cuomo: Italian American rode a motor scooter to campus, wild curly hair and one of the most likeable people I’ve met. I worked with him as a student and a friend. His critiques were very craft oriented. My own style of critiquing is based largely on Cuomo’s. Talk about what you like; explain why. Talk about what you don’t like, and why. We’re all in this together and the comments are given to help even if that means talking about a poem negatively. Saying good things to be nice does not help. If a poem is bad, it’s bad. The poet may be a sensitive person pouring their soul out on the page, but that doesn’t mean that it’s good or bad.

Robert Creeley: He was a great resource for meeting the San Francisco writers know as Beat Poets. His class was held off campus at a convenient apartment. Bob didn’t like classrooms and we drank wine and took turns reading poetry. Creeley always knew someone that wrote poetry similar to ours, and we’d talk about what that meant. He and his friends like Ferlenghetti (poet, publisher, owns City Lights bookstore) were an important part of the poetry that came out of the San Francisco Bay area in the last half of the 20th century. Bob had a great memory for people, particularly those involved in poetry. And there were a lot of innovative, breakthrough poets around at that time. We spent a great amount of time telling stories about poets we knew. It seemed like every poet we knew was doing something with the Small Press, publishing their own literary magazines. A very rowdy bunch indeed. They had little in common except poetry and strong opinions.

I had my small mag, The White Elephant which later became Juice, and strong opinions. So I suppose it was inevitable for me to meet Creeley. I know that people are interested in the social side of that time period; what it was like and that sort of thing. It was a different culture. People were more open to trying new things, and not overly concerned about their personal images. They were one and the same.

The Plebian Rag: You were influential in the early days of the small press. How do you think the poetry will develop through the small press now. Has the internet changed all the rules or is quality still the heart of it?

Stephen Morse: I didn’t have any idea where things were going in the 60’s . I see it as a whole now, but when you’re in the middle of something, it’s hard to see the end. Kind of like living with cancer. Gonna die, we all do, but what’s going to happen between now and then? Hmmm.

The internet has been a fantastic way to distribute poetry. Much of it, quite bad. Some of it is very good. This unfiltered distribution on a global scale has to change poetry in some way. The Small Press always had one huge problem; distribution. Libraries were always interested. Most of our subscribers were libraries. A few bookstores were specialized in selling Small Press. A lot were distributed by mail; we always paid in contributor copies (2). This created a lot of word of mouth demand because there was always one to give away and this was new, new, and cool’s.
The Plebian Rag: You are a teacher and a communicator. You have worked for many years sharing your knowledge with others. If you had to give just one piece of advice to an aspiring poet what would it be?

Stephen Morse: Know yourself. What your goals. Be open to criticism. Most people aren’t very good at articulating what it is that they don’t like, and their suggestions are of little practical value. But they can help you see an area that is problematic for them. You can study that area and determine for yourself if it is doing what you wanted it to do. Sometimes, a reader simply misreads, but other times what you have done is created a “live spot” a place in the poem that calls attention to itself because of an unexpected turn of language, subject, or tone. This can be good if it’s a place where you want the reader to slow down and think about what’s going on, but it can be a problem if it is not a point you meant to emphasize. That’s where the criticism becomes valuable. Never argue with the person. Thank them for their response. And don’t explain. A poem explained becomes a frozen poem. If you quarrel with a critic, you simply cut yourself off from potentially useful feedback, but you don’t have to agree with them. It’s always your poem.

The Plebian Rag: “It’s a lot easier to talk about gutters than it is about stars”……is one of my favorite parts of the poems of yours, from “Shadow Dancing”. Do you have a favorite poem you have written, or one that you are most proud of?
Stephen Morse: Actually, I like the poem you quoted from. Because I write so many different ways, I don’t really have any favorite poems. If I get to read it aloud, my favorite poem to read is a “A Mosquito sings…” It’s just fun to read. For the same reason I like “Leprechaun” when it’s displayed with my granddaughters drawing. It makes me smile.

But generally, I like most of what I have written or I wouldn’t keep it.
Shadow Dancing – take 1

it’s a lot easier to talk about gutters than stars
gutters collect the runoff
the excess water that falls from the sky
carrying leaves, sticks, small dirts and
if there’s enough of it around, blood
washed back to the
the ocean we came from.
the gutter’s clogged
with excesses of our dead parts.
But we can’t drown stars.
their lights shine and as long as we can see them
the gutters will only collect the small parts.
of the glory of the explosions in the sky.
in the beginning there was light
the lights in the sky are stars
no gutter can hold the fury of the coming of the light
we burn and boil and rise in to the air
nothing can hold us in this universal bang
the stars would kill us if we got too close to them
the gutters are safer.
we can float there and drown the streets
with parts of once living things
killers, presidents, butterflies, and kings,
leaves, and waste…
Oily bones and vegetable power
in starlight
we cast shadows on
the gutters under our feet
and dance in the familiar waters
of the small dead things there.
The Plebian Rag: You know that I a little in awe of your skill with seemingly any form you choose. How have you achieved that, and still managed to be seen as an experimental poet? Is one a prerequisite for the other? You have to know the rules before you can push the boundaries, or is your experimentation simply a leap of the imagination?

Stephen Morse: I can’t tell you why so many experiments work or even why some of my work is considered experimental. Anytime I read a poem that I like, the first thing I think about is how did they do that? And I look for a structure. Even the freest of verse has a controlling element, sound, rhythm, or something that holds it together. Free verse is more organic. Its roots are often buried in the earth. I then try out the technique twisting it to my tastes and senseme.
The Plebian Rag: I have been reading “The dark Spots Are Crows”. It is for searingly honest and at the same time musically beautiful. “Clutch Me” for instance is beautiful to read and hear, but almost breaks the heart to understand. The same applies to the sonnet “Accidental Hell”. Was this a deliberate theme within the work, using the beauty of the words as a stark counterpoint to the darkness they describe?

Stephen Morse: Juxtaposition of unlike elements has been one my most consistent ways of writing. I rarely rant when it’s angry topic. I think it works better to use a smoother tone that highlights the anger. It’s the contrast that makes the tone stand out.
Clutch me

— claws polished
little bone hook
fingers
flesh rolled back
skeletons of
young animals
sweet fat of life
burned off —
it is too late
your hands have died
crows will eat them.
Accidental Hell
Transcendental clock time dark computer
words spit in yellow random crow feet
slip in to soft soft velvet lips and pewter
figurines on a shelf destined to meet
life’s surface in silent sound bubbles truck
rhythmically in big claws around willow
miracle with large eyes awe stricken buck
surrounded by pine and moss green pillow
manifestations,champagne and cigar
sully the night smoke darkens the door
demanding white turns grey; crisp black is tar
feathered reptilian claws spawning spoor
ownership makes love a twisted creature
with obedience its supreme feature
The Plebian Rag: My favorite poem of that book is the last, “Willow Magic”. It seems to me from the photos you post on MySpace and from reading you when you mention family at all, that her “magic” has done a lot to sustain you in your fight with ill health. There is gentleness in that poem that you do not always show. Would you agree with that, and if so is it a choice you have made in your poetry or a necessity brought on by having many battles to fight?

Stephan Morse: I agree that Willow and my family do bring out a gentler side. I would not have made it to this point in my life without their support and understanding. A psychiatrist friend says that I write with two distinct voices; one is angry, the other romantic. He was fascinated by the difference. I admit to not having a lot of conscious control of the voices. The senseme seems to dictate that, and I guess many of the things I remember clearly are the battles I have had to fight. I am not by nature, a confrontational person. But I don’t back down when attacked.
Willow Magic
I open the door
small pink hands are waving
microwave popcorn
wispy blonde hair sails
over blue eyes and a smile
paint fills the paper
princess boots sparkle
lighting the cold basement floor
seeking Dairy Queen
sit down here grandpa
how many times do I have to say it, grandpa?
can you find cinderella, grandpa, please?
grandpa’s home, look guys
grandpa’s home he’s really here
Dairy Queen, grandpa
princess eyes sparkle
turning the cold basement floor
to magic carpet
Willow magic
flies the day crows
away..
The Plebian Rag: Those who know me describe me as lazy and disorganized. You and Judy are two of the very few poets whose work I have sought out beyond MySpace. How would Judy describe your work? And I would happily take a direct answer from her, or you can tell me how you think she sees it.

Stephen Morse: Judy will answer this if she has time. Taking care of my needs and medical schedules is time consuming, so she might not have a chance to get it done. Thanks for including her in your questions.
The Plebian Rag: You have a as good an understanding of 20th century poetry as anyone I know. Who for you is the most significant and influential poet of that century?

Stephen Morse: I won’t give you one. But I’ll give you four good influences: William Carlos Williams, ee Cummings, Robert Frost, and William Blake; two bad influences: Sylvia Plath, Charles Bukowski, a handful of hard to define ones that everybody read, but few did much with: Ginsberg, Whitman, Kerouac.

I don’t know how to classify T.S. Eliot, but he along with William Blake, and Ezra Pound have enriched my poetry, but I don’t see as much of them in the works of others.

The Mother goose nursery rhymes certainly were an influence. I’d say that Dr. Seuss probably replaced Mother Goose for the boomers.
The Plebian Rag: I have been hunting through your work online for this interview. Do you have one collection that defines you? One set of poems that you would say “Yes this is the one I want to be remembered for”?

Stephen Morse: The Dark Spots are Crows is my favorite collection. It contains many of the forms I enjoyed working with side by side on the same general theme/senseme. I think it gives a pretty good idea of my range. Places that Linger I like for many of the same reasons plus I like my poetry placed with Judy’s poetry. I think it gives people a good idea who we are as a couple. Very different, but we complement each other.
The Plebian Rag: Lastly looking ahead, are there any poets writing now who you particularly admire, and if so why?

Stephen Morse: Read through Juice online and the print issues if you can get your hands on them. I wouldn’t have published them if we didn’t think that there was some likeable about their work. I don’t know that I am a prophet or that I can say who will be remembered in anthologies in 50 years from now. I’d guess that Hugh Fox, Gene Fowler, Lucille Lang Day, and Jared Smith are good bets. But I hate to get into judging my peers for fear of overlooking someone. The internet will change things in ways that I can’t even imagine. The poets I have mentioned have been primarily American poets because I am an American poet and that’s what I know best.

Lucid, muse, I have become my father
Sans the heroin, happiness, and the discomfiture of the mental institution
I am the disjunctive synthesis of abandonment
In an age of promises, I have long since turned to stone
The memories of ghosts have become the foreboding
Of my consciousness, groped by the extremities of fools
A sphere of relentless dysfunction forced
To perfection, through an aperture of time

I am the point of departure
Stepping beyond the oedipal matrix of cultural law
I am the imprint of Zero, the shape of days to come
I am my own dominant fiction, my instincts
Honed from undifferentiated energies (cathexes)
My plane of implication shreds through
The panic of a textural madness
Through the tender, primordial fission
Spit into fragments of asexual reproductive process
An isotope of desire, revealing
The singularities of my commitments

Bearing the weight of the counter cultural truncheon
I peer through anthropological space
Beyond the horizon, into a haze of moveable text
A metalanguage excoriates an intentionless sky
At once the retroactive illusion of blindness is lifted
For the first time perspective becomes conversion
The high functioning autistic daughter speaks of symbols
Writes of light, the deception of her father finally realized.

© Copyright 2010 Justin Lee Brown aka Desiderata

Justin Lee Brown lives in Los Angeles, Califrornia with her four beloved dogs, a million books, and a piano. When she’s not working to support her poetry habbit she spends her time composing music, painting, sculpting, illustating, and writing the odd tracts of flash fiction.