BROKEN GLASS

RWP#99... using the prompt... two people stting
at a table with broken glass on the floor.


BROKEN GLASS

There is more than memory
when it's lost
Edie and Jack
sitting
at Figaro Cafe on Macdougall street
staring
at Washington Square.. speechless...hopeless
hiding
thoughts never spoken
forgetting
promises never given
remembering
lost moments of yesterday
waiting
for the old dead poets
sitting
on their suicide pact
dreaming
of their sexual repression
discovering
Jesus had no religion
praying
for mysteries and non believers
smelling
their smoke and dirty feet
hating
the Yankees and their stolen bases
pretending
the past had square faces
hurting
in unknown places
singing
with sounds without noises
running
with bare feet and bleeding noses
waiting
for the desired streetcar
taking
shortcuts to empty spaces
struggling
with no memory
talking
without tongues of the church
staring
speechless and hopeless
searching
for lost tears
holding
emptiness of broken glass...Edie leaves
walking
towards lost memories and forgotten fears.

ROLLER COASTER

RWP#98....using this photo

by auburnnewyork

ROLLER COASTER

It was the year I ran away from home

leaving my rotten days of boredom behind

to join the bright-lighted carnival

the year the clown interviewed me

smiling and smelling of wine

with a perverted look in his eye

the year I traded my wool sweater

for a leather jacket and black denim jeans

and the lady of nicotine

the year I failed juggling

but passed kissing the elephant girl

with her fragrence of mustard and fries

the year the hot dog-faced boy

locked me in the monkey cage

barking with an illegal smile on his face

the year I walked the sideshow alley

mingling with the freaks

howling with the alley cats

the year I found the shooting gallery

where the clowns shot heroin

while eating cotton candy

the year I rode the ghost train

before falling from the roller coaster

twisted

the year I won the doll prize

kissing the bearded lady

where nobody wins

the year I learned games are honest

but the carnies steal candy apples

from kids

the year I woke up in some alcove

under a roller coaster

wrapped in feathers and caramel

the year I ran towards the sombre sunrise

like a monkey through fires

towards a fortune of boredom

leaving a broken roller coaster.

ISAAK

RWP#97...using the cut up technique
I cut up a page of Sailor Song by Ken Kesey
page 371 and randomely using words for this poem . I added the word
SKIN.....after slicing my finger with the scissors.

This is a draft



ISAAK

Ike had suspicions
about everybody in Kuniak
especially that goddamed newshound
who stood still
publishing dirt
about
green stuff
about
the dead friend in the limousine
about
the old squid
about
Isaak's soul
about
the old dog in the limousine
about
skin in the poem
about
the carcass in the limousine
about
the dead brain with no glasses
about
the dirty dish with paranoia
about
seepy skin in the limousine
about
the poor that conquer skin
about
his maniac brother without skin
driving the limousine in Kuniak.

SUMMER OF LOVE

RWP#96
using all the prompt words
in bold


SUMMER OF LOVE

Rolling up into the land of purity
searching for that awakened state of bliss
and some cosmoramic exhibition
of shocking enlightenment
listening to Mother Tuckers Yellow Duck
giving us insight into irresistible false kisses
from their invisible memory candles
before it exploded inside the jars of our head
then surrender to the long tailed thrasher Bill
and his non vowelized poetry
who would always croak in a language
of a capricious professor
from the progeny of some learning school
then surrendering in vehement denial
to Mock Duck and circumcisions
while bleeding insolent behaviour
towards the prison farms
and asylums using a therapy of chelations
to detox the chemicals from brains
not allowing a socially responsible investment
in free speech
we were the Kitsilano reprobates
exulting peace love and pot.

THREE AMIGOS

Amigo on seawall

Wayne and amigo on bench

RWP#95.."mash" 2 poems together. Poems not satisfied with. I mashed SLEEPING ON THE EDGE and OPPOSITE SIDES OF BENCH (in italics) then every 5th line I added a new line (BOLD)..anyways this what I came up with

.

THREE AMIGOS

Above the saffron pavement

sitting on a bench in Havana

all I can see beyond him

drinking rum

I am a happy stranger

with Jesus lying on the malecon seawall

we talked about poetry

the Havana coastline retreating like a hem

like beat poets

getting drunk to get thirsty

covered in the cobwebs of the breeze

cultivating a rose by Jose Marti

enclosed in turquoise they slept

revolutionaries in love

having nothing having it all

along the malecon

we attracted kindred spirits

from the patches of seaweed

and Hemmingways for whom the bells tolls

writing when the writing was done

I saw at first glance

baseball Castro and Cuban music

azure ripples of the Carribean Sea

a common destiny

three amigos rum poetry and dreaming.

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.