LAST CALL

RWP#94 The prompt was this image...
My angel and my devil.....by Thomas Hawk





LAST CALL

Uncrossing my legs from the ball of twine
arching my back
taking a satisfied breath
looking like the spectre of death
I gaze at her
I don't need another drink
I'm high on iron spiked with red dye
honoured she is here
to see my life in full view
dressed in red
frozen in fear
as the transparency of my nakedness
and my guiding light
allows her to see
who I pretend to be
the invisible poet
with my cathedral of memory
lost in the acid of religion
needing prozac pills
to fast like a monk
to walk on water
towards the valley of yesterday
and play the moonlight sonata
and sing with Sinatra
then shave the head of an atheist
who needs it laced up
before joining the communist party
to find out the diference between left and write
and meet the mystics and senile poets
who are learning to read write poems
remembering the last time I saw her
wearing her soiled white apron
disguising her crooked crosses
tired of being white
listening to Ray Charles crying
inside that rejected church
drinking rum
smoking cigars
aging rapidly in her silence
yearning to be a poet
trying to sober up
frozen in the eyes of the beholder
and staring through the hole in her bosom
caused by the shot of sorrow
and the collapse of religions that collide
remaining silent
she has now heard last call
the game is over
checkmate.

Speed Reading In A Limousine

RWP#93

This week the poem was to take the form of a "whopper". So here is truly a whopper. Book titles and poems I red are in red.

This is a draft.









Speed Reading In A Limousine





We were bubbly drunk last weekend
when the limousine arrived
to take us to San Francisco
we told the chauffeur
as we loaded the boxes of books

case of wine

bread and cheese

in the back of the limo

twenty five hours of reading

as we headed down the gravel rod

with wine glass in hand

she started reading Alice Munro

The Love Of A Good Woman

for this road trip

I had Kerouac's On The Road

to get started

from our small town of Golden to San Francisco

The Town and The City by Kerouac

was next

speed reading to North Beach

with The Subterraneans and

Doctor Sax with

Visions Of Cody

Visions Of Gerard

Tristessa

Maggie Cassidy and the

Dharma Bums with the

Desolation Angels singing to

The Good Blonde And Others

Atop An Underwood as

Orpheus Emerged crying

The Mexico City Blues

San Francisco Blues while eating

Pomes All Sizes when

Orpheus Emerged the

Lonesome Traveller reading

Scattered Poems along with

The Scripture Of The Golden Eternity truly a

Book Of Dreams

Book Of Blues or trying to memorize

Vanity Of Duluoz while remembering

Satori In Paris then forgetting the

Pic of

Old Angel Midnight

Trip Trap

Heaven And Other Poems

as I poured more wine for

the love of my good woman

she reached to

Pull My Daisy from my lapel

to use as a bookmark in

The Handmaids Tale

finishing Kerouac's books

I began reading Grishman's

A Time To Kill which I threw out the window

then quickly turned to Hemmingway's

Men Without Women and

Truce Withouut Light

then a change of pace

Erle Stanley Gardner's

The Case Of Long Legged Models

as we entered Northern California

then some beat poetry on this

Sunday Evening where the

Junk Angel sings the

Blues For Sister Sally a

Benediction for

The West Coast Sounds and the

Abomunist Manifesto

Sex And Desire and

Mexican Loneliness while watching the

Migration Of Birds before the

Sunflower Sutra needs to

Howl and pray for

The Rain

For Love before writing his

Preface To A Twenty Volume Suicide Note after learning

How To Medidtate and sing a Sunday

Hymn

as our limousine reaches North Beach

and turns on Columbus Avenue

stopping at City Lights

books all red

wine all gone

passing the Zapatista mural

on Kerouac Alley

we went to the front door

posters of anarchism mucktracking and

class warfare

lead us upstairs to Ferlenghetti

sleeping on his sofa chair

baseball on TV

popcorn and beer

dreaming of Ezra Pound

we slouch beside him

exhausted

from a weekend of speed reading

in a limousine.

PREACHER OF WALL STREET

RWP#92 using all of the 13 word gems shown




PREACHER OF WALL STREET


Trapped within the head of his madness
contemplating thoughts of poetry
never written
a temporary remedy for despair
for last nights death confection
a hip hop poet
a scofflaw
who would rather drink plum wine
than sleep
or conform to the laws
of prohibition
or be in the limelight
for killing a snake with a bible
at a born again funeral
or having a blockage of the bowl
and starting a war in Iraq
or extend a hand
to the preacher of Wall Street
who has only a pittance
for the poor poet
but bails out the vomitting multitude
bourgeois bankers
who run off with the money
and burn in their fields of clover
with the preacher of Wall Street
a husk of himself
afraid he might be liable
for the poets madness.

MEMORIES OF AN OLD POET

RWP #91 using the two photos Light Window and Light and Trees as prompts.
credit Greig Fraser for the photos



MEMORIES OF AN OLD POET (Draft)


The old poet remembers
the memories he memorizes
forgeting the dream
he forgot he had
but are there in his mind
as he rests on the bed
as the night light shines
on the early snow
reminding the old poet
of the first morning in Old Havana
open window
full moon shining
rooster crowing out of tune
with last nites musica
the olor of last nites rain
sweet diesel smell
from morning autobus
the olor of petrol
from Miguel's 52 Chevvy
smell of cigarro
mixed with olor of last nites rum
as the vendor on calle Consulado
cries pan pan pan
as the smell of his fresh bread
means desayuno will be coming
and the fresh jugo
looking at my lover
smelling her avocado cream
I close my eyes and doze off
travelling to some other place
down some dusty road
the dead woman
lies under the trees
one leg flexed
the other extended
pointing towards the early sunlight
as her red robe flutters above her head
there are more dead ladies
scattered under the trees
with one lost dog barking
and running all around
if anyone had the power to wrench me through despair
and arid helplessness
and into prayer
it would be them
but it is the beautiful lady beside me
in perfection
that holds me to the ground
with grace
as I awaken
to the barking dogs on calle Consulado
and the start of a new day in Habana Vieja
an old poet who likes to remember
even what he might want to forget.

RINGS OF FIRE

RWP #90 inspired by this photo (bradleyolin's photo)



RINGS OF FIRE

Sunday night church
rings of fire
town of multitudes
under a full moon
howling hosannas at Johnny Cash
as the church lady balances the glowsticks
to the new ritual
everything is lost
nothing gained
as greed is the new law
opened then closed
by the rings of fire
chanting
burn
burn
burn
sureal and romantic
rejoicing with Jesus and Shiva
drunk
with Brahma beer
cheering Johnny Cash
and the ring of fire