from two sources

In the plush, red evening
a lass lurks meekly
in the corner-bar --
inquiring with a glance

her words render themselves so true
and lightness
can shine so brightly at midnight,

She tries to understand meaning
of the words
like a cock
between her thighs -- but alas !
she is stupid in the heartaches
of the divine

While Kathleen comes
a-courting
through the meadows
and the street --

her hungry eyes wander
like an orangutan

the apricots of the morning
rested as a happy breakfast

their fuzzy skin
along the surface

and they sing
as morning
swinging through
the branches

the orangutan bustles
through the bushes

he searches
endlessly
for endurance

the apricot is a seed
pondering itself

and still I cannot
find myself
among this heap of ashes
and clay

and cannot lay hands
on the soul
the spirit, itself,
among these seeds,
these thoughts
tending toward
enlightenment --

the hope of seeds
bearing fruit in the winter
is too much
for the winter mind to handle

how can roses bloom
in the deep freeze
of ignorance and ice
through the bellows of our age

how can the cattle call the dawn
and the cowboys corral the shepherds
who lead the sheep - excited
by Nietzsche --

in the guise of a dream
the torch is passed ...

the limbs are piled
with winter snow
and the cat claws
as jazz

snap trigger and
smiles , , imagine
interpose
engaged in
mythic attributes

clause of final breath
snow contemplates
breath final breathed

as Billie Holiday mourns
her attributes
her robust tundras
of thighs

the midnight jazz
cannot be
so kind
as the silent
midnight moon

when viewed from tressel
with the raging
Stillwater
gushing underneath

only then do two sources meet
the sacred in the profane
leaving us with a dream

and philosophy
in its wake ...

By Josh Harriman & Randy Billings .

How Cleetus Found Compassion

so that the discovery seemed more
prominent, he
re-approached the object and this
time appeared more surprised.
reaching, he
grabbed his diamond
sky and rattled it fierce- as to make a statement
the heavens could hear.
pleased, he
went to wine and drank from
wine til morning.
he found this the world. he found this the object the diamond sky. the gods drunk, slobbering.

as poets would once be.

Winter Night

driving in new snow
tire tracks crossing up ahead
this way and that way

in the throes of booze

in the clutches
of a great distress
it falls upon me
like some nightress -

voices
hushed in whispers
like a wanning breeze
at noon

the mast is erect
the sail's in tatters
the rudder is strong
in the high-run tide
at dusk

dreams linger
no longer than nightime,
sleep
no longer than
a breath unconscious

my love lies
in forgetfulness
like memories
long-bereft

I cannot recall the last
time we spoke truth
in the throes of booze

yet fondness pervades me
makes proud
this ego
well-bruised, well-learned
in life's gamming

a spade is a spade
and a queen is a king;
there are no bounds
to what
pleasure brings,

even in freedom
we find slavery,
a way to be -
different from the way
we are

and for that
this offering arises
like the luke-warm
sunrise of spring

no God in Bukowski

there is no God
in Bukowski
like there are
no more drugs

howling pangs
of bawdy thoughts
breed silent - 0
once again.

man's beauty
is his beast
he is starving now
in the cold

dark isolation
pleasure's tomb
desolation : discontent
the brood of creativity
making myth in mind -

those blinking lights
cannot be seen
from the desert
of death

"kill the body
and the head will die ..

"here's mud
in your big red-eye ..

"he-who-makes
a beast-of-himself
gets rid-of-the-burden
of being-a-man ..

"he who
is not
angry is not
l i v i n g .. "

thus spake the epitath
as a child is born . . .

and only now
in the setting sun
I realize this,
the nature of life
is often cruel
but always worthy
of the living only

dead men do no walking
in these fields
and poems do not write
themselves

January, A Poet Too

if even the snow a tear
and the years the wind
behind me
the plow left a bank as tall as
my son and the mountain
still there- huge and dusted with sobs.

i can't imagine
having two days
off in a row
anymore, but if i did
i would be more studious. Who then, was Ted Berigan?

the woods could use a chopping or two
the flowers could use some sun
the brooks bedapple as the birds loft by
am i the only one
looking at mountain still?
the morning, as most mornings like this,
brings chorus of becoming the great hero immortal,
tells Calypso to clean her thighs and then spread them,
sings the sound of silence in calm measured breaths,
yells that my daughter singing prooves she knows eternity.
Asking this and only this
and kissing useless by now
how is the poet ever to sin? And who then, is Ted Berigan?

beyond you, me
these words too scattered
but hopeless as a poem
written in the morn, written
for hope that scent is not shit
or far worse than the future may be.
for i recall a friend once
entirely like this, like this moment
by Ted Berigan,
A Mongolian Sausage
By definition: a long stocking: you fill it full of shit,and then you punch holes in it. Then you swing it over your head in circles until everybody goes home.

and that i tell you was a friend you could trust.
anytime.

watching the wind

I sat up last night
watching the wind
blow thru the trees

Saw a cyclone
of snow turn
fluorescent
beneath streetlights
then vanish in the dark

The frozen bows and
tawny fingers scratch
at the windowpane

They have no business
to do this now
that I am blind and cold
like death

no business
breaching the buffer
of air -- sweet ether
of solitude and solace --
to haunt my mind
w/ ambiguities

Winter has confined me
in smoky city dins ---

locked me in a coffin
never to rise again

even faith in spring
cannot win trust
from mind's reason

Tho experience shall
vindicate it, as always,
again and again

The dewy meadows --
salacious valleys
of once virile youth
seem now
a distant memory
nay -- a vague theme
u n r e m e m b e r e d

like this war, waged
in a coldsweat -- w/
nocturnal hallucinations
as reason lets down
its guard

as I succumb to thee
wind blowing thru
the icy, icy trees . . .

The Jedi

There are tragic forces about
the windows this night this
day they acquire doom, a handshake and

a whisper

in the windows force in the wind
a-bellowing like jazz horn admonishing
the white bowels of America

a doom

and bartering whiskey for pills
and russian pussy for $19.95/month
and we must remember the indians
go to college for almost nothing
even though
their
great spirits
find their chiefs slain
and the
almost
bottom of bottom

in the wind and the ashes
each blowing the other around in
a sort of dance like Obi-Wan around the death
sabre of Darth Vader in the Jedi Code. The Jedi Code.

Dharma Lyric of Flesh and Bone

Hush! Mercantile mayhem of city streets!

Unchain poetic delusions! -- Unfetter their fancy!

Let run loose -- bare-footed -- bare-breasted
bare-bodied Divine Holiness!

Child of Moors! UnDivide me!

Enrapture my being till bleeds bright light
unto darkness of my age!

Spill expectation like blood to teach Zen-like
wisdom to temptress -- wailing stick to crotch
howling -- yes master -- teach harder!
Bury your destiny in the field of now!

Ruminate mystic Divines! -- DemiGoddess
of mankind -- spirit displaced and long-lost
memory seeping into day-dream, unlearning
mysterious sensation in the dawn!

Do not be unkind to my demand -- I conjure
revelations of beauty out of your concrete,
vomit and ashes --

Asphalt arteries of city, your cholesterol is your brutality!

Visionary bard of the sea, at bay is your reason!

Unsheathe your essence! Bare me your vulgarity!

Saturate me in your foulest fluids and drench my eyes
like moon drenching sun at hightide midnight!

Drown my lungs with your flatulence and phlegm!

I will make these rivers -- cascading fountains of pure-Bliss
and return you them unharmed - in a maelstrom of rose
and Lotus blossoms!

Dionysus has finally been won over by meditative kindness!
No more wine and mountainside orgy, making Myth
with demands of desire unruly ! -- Uncorrupted by tempests
of want!

Becoming -- in motion
Poetry
Dharma Lyric of flesh and bone . . .

January 10, 2006

It's January 10, 2006
Feels more like March
as the sun is warm
the sky is blue and people
joyful
as they move, unhurriedly
through the streets

Upon seeking alternative route
to Old Port office
I cast a gaze deep into Casco Bay
and see the slivers of light
dancing atop wind-brushed brine
like minnows in a bait bin ;

This scene once was
Penobscot Bay, as viewed
from Camden Hills
when stone-eyed and back-packed
I snowshoed up the steep slope,
with beard Frost-ed
with breath-gusts -- resembling then
the pinebows that overtake the birches
with the achievement of altitude ;

But now the brick mason's mechanical saw
shrieks through crooked Old Port streets
as art galleries wipe the sleep
from their sleepy sleepy brows, hoping
today is the day they'll be worth their rent

Bean-pole grimace of Conn.-bred Irish Pub owner
saunters across icy asphalt - his ass still tender
from the previous night's pounding -
His eyes -- precious heirlooms
of hoodlums and poets - at least - should be ...

Impostors outdo genuine Gems
beneath a cloak and disguise ...

Maniacal magistrates of the law park
illegally
then waddle to donut paradise where
accomplices await - mistress of the streets
metermaids looking for a quick warmup
before going home to their husbands

That Great Eye sees all of this
from the crows nest of solitude :
Great Roving Bark that is rooted
All-Seeing but blind to particulars!

The Great Eye sees all of this
like the moon over-sees the sea, monitoring
the allegiance of the tide, seducing
Proserpine with Pheobe's lesbian musings!

The Great Eye sees the bleakest hours
in the brightest days
unable to separate Beauty from the beast!
Poetry from the slang!
Beggar from the Aristocrat!
Harlot from the queen!

The Great Eye wants no more reason!
No more Apollonian insights! No more
sculptors erecting boundaries
and illusion wrapped
in aesthetic delight!

Great Eye wants no more bosom of kindness!
Kindness of Etheral Plains - Kindness of Vision
Has used too much already - Wanting no more ;

A hard describe is the certitude
with which the hand clasps the bottle
with anticipatory look in the eye
like spying Virgin Mary, slipping
out of her robe, through a chink in the door
in the head-pounding afternoon
still thirsty for experience,
still thirsty for enlightenment . . .

In a room with no doors

I await the Arrival
of my muse like
a condemned man
awaits
his hanging ,

in the final moments
of normalcy
the heart beats faster
like high pitch and rise
of inspirational song
sung thru vortex
of sound running
into gale-wind
like a dingy
in the rip-tide . . .

RedTide dream at sunset :
Ominous harbinger - O
Impressionable mind to think
whilst visions permeate and steep
clouding the eye with perceptive fogs

A blanket of inebriation w/ musty smell
moldy mushrooms and Spanish tea . . .

Although Spring arrives
there is no Hope
of a sunny day coming

there is no hope
in the re-emergence of our Savior

The people are Hopeless -
with emptiness and ignorance ,
chasing each other's tails ,
bedazzled with bells and whistles
as they pass . . .

the Heart's pine.
the Mind's quagmire.
the Thistle's heal.
Dead bouquet of roses.

Whether it is now
the day or night
it matters little
in a room with no
windows

One has little distance
to travel
In a room w/o Doors . . .

Mission Statement

This space has been designated to give voice to poets fallen, poets existing and poets yet to be, honoring the expansive stream of consciousness poetry of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Henry Miller, Celine and others. Furthermore, to combine these existential improvisations with wisdom -- well-placed symbols : an unwavering belief in the Scared Mythic Unity - Unity in the profane -- a benevolent utterance of true poetry will usher forth like a translucent butterfly in the moonlight and wither before it could ever come to be. And Blake, Baudelaire, Shelly and Rimbaud will nod their heads and roll in their cold, sober graves .. .

Cheers!

R-