Beatnik Alien Super Bowl !
They Might Be Giants or Patriots ?
or
or even
The Beats ?
Funny that doesn’t look like Jersey to me…
*
Super Bowl XLVlll (48)
When the New York/Jersey region
finally had Super Bowl 48 played in 2014
it was a remarkable, unforgettable event.
But not perhaps for the reasons
one might expect.
No one even remembers the final score.
Maybe that was because there wasn’t any.
Fact was the two top teams that
year never even took the field.
What happened instead was
a long lost batch of Alien in laws
showed up on Christmas Day
pissed off and indeed ready
for the big game.
They had their own specific plans for that.
First thing they did
was finish the holocaust
of the 20th century by
quickly wiping out every
single human being of
Jewish decent with
a blinding flash of light.
Seems one of more prominent aliens
was related to Jesus back in the day
and still held a grudge over the crucifixion.
After some debate the Aliens decided they
might as well do the same exact thing to
all the Christians while they were at it.
It was thought it would be a nice Christmas
present and they would all think it was finally
the Rapture at last.
Next they announced a new date for that year’s Super Bowl.
Was going to be rescheduled for New Years Day
Kick off time would remain the traditional 6 PM
Few changes in the format/line ups however.
This year the 80,000 plus seats would be
populated with every CEO of the worst
most reprehensible corporations on Earth.
All the worst worthless miserable bastards
would be compelled to attend.
It would be mandatory.
Just like the old Night Rallies in the Father Land.
Of course all the Major Media outlets
would be broadcasting
on all frequencies.
If it had a signal on earth.
It would be there.
And you would watch it.
One cherished tradition fell to the wayside however.
No clever 2.6 million per 30 second behavioral suggestions.
This spectacle would be commercial free.
It was announced that this year
that every single Son of a Bitch CEO determined
to be guilty of murdering, polluting, decimating
plundering, exploiting, ravishing and in general
destroying the Aliens garden resort planet
was to be presented at mid-field
and vaporized instantly in a pillar
of fire and plume of smoke to be tinted
in the same exact uniform colors of their
favorite team.
(One of the aliens in charge of
entertainment details thought that was a nice touch
and downright funny.)
The game (if you could call it that)
would last as long as it took to execute
every single “fan” in attendance.
Everyone in attendance was going
to have their ticket punched
till all 80,000+ seats were empty.
(On a side note all the concession stands
would be fully operational and totally free.)
All networks would carry a live feed of the
empty stadium as a closing establishing shoot.
The Post Game Analysis
would be centered around
the game plan for earth
and its’ inhabitants
for the foreseeable future.
As of the Date January 1st 2014
The global thermostat for the
most populace regions of the planet
was going to be set at 70.
The environment had been cleaned up
and restored to roughly 17th Century conditions.
All weapons, from hand guns
to nukes no longer worked.
Bye-bye to internal composition engines.
All computer systems were going to
off line for a very, very long time.
As of this moment
all money was worthless
in fact it literally did now
burn a hole in your wallet.
It was combustible.
And then ?
They just got back in their
shinny space ships
(they looked like over sized Ford Escalades)
and left….
without a further word.
Seems that one aged alien aunts
had to pee and she could only
go on Saturn.
Something to do with the rings.
*
*
From Sometimes Grief-barks up the wrong tree -2011
*
*
Orange Crush Bottle in the Snow
I’ve got…
used rear struts
and a brand new dueling scar
on my right cheek
There’s this pool of neon
that calls my name
and right after I get those stitches out
I’m going to catch the next train.
O Baby.
I’ve got everything.
I’ve got…..
A knock down dragged out
thirst for Miller High
in tall neck bowling alley bottles.
Going to ride my Camels
off into the emphysema sunset
Put away your badge, son
and your threatening warning label
Gonna ship my skinny ass
off this virtual Nintendo smegma earth
just as soon as I am able.
Because O Baby.
I’ve just about had it
with everything.
I’ve got….
Students
Inmates
Correctional Officers
Wives
Kids
Lovers
Skeptics
Critics
An Indifferent Audience
Mechanics
Bartenders
old drinking buddies
new drinking buddies
estranged drinking buddies
and dead drinking buddies.
O baby
can I buy you drink ?
I’ve got…
a photographic memory
with an extensive collection of
Incriminating negatives.
I’m a walking base line
Abstract Painting
orally fixated
existential dilemma
I’ve got a face that
that can stop a clock
and a die-hard battery heart
just waiting on your jumper cable.
But don’t you start anything with me
unless you’re ready, willing and able.
O baby
Turn that ignition key.
I’ve got….
Poe
Pollock
Picasso
Charlie Parker
I’ve jumped off that bridge
with Berryman and Kees
Dove in the Outfield
at Shea w/ Swoboda
Spartacus was my baby sitter
in the lodge of the old Prudential Theater.
Music of the spheres plays in my head incessantly
Drive-in movie dreams now showing nightly
Leave your ticket stub and reservations
on the doorstep at my ids door
but I warn you I’ve installed a turnstile
and don’t have keep score anymore.
Because O Baby
I got everything.
Except you.
From Grief Barks…- 2011
*
*
Kees left in Ignition
In the early evening
of a San Francisco bay
suppertime fog
I can see myself walking
on the bridge and him
silhouetted there ready to jump.
His foot up on the rail.
You would have had to move fast.
because he certainly was going to
……before he lost his nerve.
Perhaps if you had called,
Robinson Don’t!!!!
It might have startled him
just for that brief second.
Thrown him off his resolve
to do this thing
to bail
on all the poetry
ignored and unread
or just not written yet.
Abandon
Fats Waller
De Kooning
The Asphalt Jungle
The Narrow Margin.
He’s looking down into the water
smoking a last cigarette I suppose.
The bay breeze upon his face
the smell of salt, somewhere a gull calls
then impulse propelled
him to silently, quickly, simply
climb up and hop of the rail
to drop below into the water
a shadow dart enveloped in gray
and probably be knocked out
instantly by the concussion
of the impact
and drown.
Quickly.
With a decided lack of
theatrics or dramatics.
No one saw anything.
Investors never turned up a body.
It was 1955 and I was just over a month old.
Newly born into his used up world of despair
and disappointment.
I wish he
hadn’t been so quick
to jump the ship
of the flesh
leaving the only door
left open
to conjecture
over a staged suicide
or a vanishing act in Mexico.
Maybe he didn’t
really leave the engine running
and the keys left
swinging in the ignition
of the 54 Plymouth
on the approach to the Golden Gate
shrouded in the July Fog as
night fell like the closing scene
in a RKO Mystery movie
as the Detective writes
in his notebook…
…But why did victim
make that last payment on the
car a week before ?
*
From Grief Barks…..2011
*
*
Poet Down !
Did you see that ?
That guy over there
on the next block was striding
down the sidewalk with
all the purpose in the world
and when he came to the corner
on 14th Street…(near the park)
Then he stepped off the curb
into the air!
He was flying!
He was taking off!
He flew!
He was catapulted
like a black arrow
shot off into the night
out of a beatnik cannon.
And he looked great!
And if it hadn’t been for
all that gravity
I’m sure he just would have kept ascending…
but that’s just the thing with gravity
here on earth
it’s an equal opportunity buzzkill….
So down he came landing
face first into the intersection crosswalk
his books and CDs flying in all directions….
Now he’s prone, laying there stunned in the intersection.
There’s a POET DOWN!!!!!
Get up Poet! Get up!!!!
Do you have any idea how hard he kissed that pavement?
And just how hard that pavement kissed him back?
No. He didn’t bounce.
He stuck.
He’s still not moving…
The light’s going to change
There are rows of taxi idling
ready to run over his head and
leave tire tracks all over his beret..
The lights going to change!
Is he going to make it?
Look. They are starting to count him out…
1 – 2 – 3………….
THERE’S A POET DOWN!!!!
He looks dead.
He looks finished.
Could this be it?
Wait.
Look.
His boots just twitched.
His shoulders are arching.
4 – 5 – 6………………..
Look. Look
He’s starting to get to his knees.
Sure he’s shook
Shook to shit
Quick somebody
call his handlers
his wife, his agent
his kids, his lover,
his students, his old pals
Look!
He’s up on his knees…
He’s shaking…..rubbing the back of his neck…
7 – 8 – 9………..
HE’S UP.
ON HIS OWN !
Sure he’s wobbly
But he’s back up on his own two feet
gathering up his books, his CDs, his note book
the light is changing
this is going down to the wire
he’s staggering back to the curb..
(You know the one the stupid SOFAB tripped over.)
He’s seeing stars!
They are in orbit around his head like in cartoons.
He’s weaving back and forth…
THIS IS SO COOL!!!
What’s he going to do next?
Is he going to pass out?
Is he going to break down?
Is he going to burst into song?
Is he going to write about it?
THERE’S A POET DOWN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s finally clear.
He wants to go like this.
In the midnight concert saddle
with his boots on
at Christmas time
looking for his old friends
in search of an audience
any reason will do right now
better than the obvious explanation
the old fool tripped over his own feet
his own story
his own inability to let go of the past…
Even if the very worst had happened tonight
and he had been lower east side road kill.
A tragic paragraph in the morning Daily News.
If anyone remembered they saw
and told it to a reporter covering the story
(he would wish they would say this…,)
“ You have seen it… the unseen hand of fate in the night picked his ass off sniper style like the second reel of the Zapruder Film.”
YES! THERE WAS A POET DOWN!!!!!
But now he’s up.
Seeking medical attention
at the nearest bar.
The bartenders prescribing Rolling Rocks
Poet is making out the injury report:
Bleeding knuckles
Black & Blue shins
Small abrasion on the bridge of the nose
Impacted incisor into the gums
Wretched back
Misc. bruises, scratches
And there’s good news:
No torn fabric
Minimum of visible blood
Jacket and jeans didn’t get too dirty from the street
and considering the licking he just took
it’s a miracle.
He’s sitting there looking as composed as he does
drinking that beer wishing it was a Miller High Life instead.
He looks like he was in a minor bar scuffle….
None the worse for wear.
He survived.
This kind of minor accident kills people around the holidays all the time.
But not him.
He survives to have to tell us
aaaaaallllllll about it.
There’s a poet down.
A veteran of the old Rubber Rodeo
taking the ceremonial literary swan dive
header for the team.
Somebody.
Call Edger Allen Poe
Call Charles Bukowski
He’s leaving the bar.
Heading back to that intersection
on 14th street, near the park
where fate just put his dick in the dirt
and his face in the asphalt crosswalk.
He knows his old pal will be there this time.
Waiting to take him to some party in Brooklyn
This just isn’t over yet.
You see.
THERE’S A POET DOWN !!!!!!
…but not for long.
Just try and keep him there.
*
From Cyberstein -12/06
*
*
Baby Driver
(For A.)
It was a mild December in the East
when she loaded up her 97’ Escort
with fresh retreads ditching the
balding baby boomer basket cases
and headed south to hook up
with Route 66
and head West.
She was dreaming Clint Eastwood
She had designs on an assistant position.
She was going to write him when
She arrived in LA.
Her 97 pounds of soaking wet
gleaming seal slick skin
clear eyes that shine
with a brimming
kind sure no bull-shit light
were going to see
every wild thought that ever
escaped her lips
first hand and in person.
This one was a throw back to another time.
Tom Wait’s niece maybe….
Or Jack’s daughter’s youngest girl
This one was going to find a way
to have a good long look at what she wanted
of the future first hand.
Not nearly content with the array
of weak adoring shaky men-boys
clamoring to suffocate her with
their needy weakness.
Their nothing couldn’t hold her back
So she sent her dad’s paintings out ahead of her
to pave the way
and left in the dust her mom who did some time
to have it out with her brother
in the trailer park
Tonight she rides Route 66.
Taking service station showers
in the sink
for 3 bucks
and emerging
wet, gleaming and beautiful
grinning at herself in the
mirror of that road.
I haven’t met many like her
I think they are very few and
even more far between.
She should have met Quinn.
Who liked to hop freights
and deadhead in the second B-Unit Diesel
out to Colorado while collecting discarded
workings man gloves scattered on the rails
to nail them to the kitchen wall
like an Art Project Montage.
The “throw-backs” always seem to resurface
And run into you
And if they even run into each other ?
Everybody better run for cover.
*
From Cyberstein 07
*
July Abstraction
Muted phone ringing from the shower nozzle
announcing her flat tire in the Doctor’s Office
for a routine visit parking lot ordeal.
I was all wet and
failed to hear the distress beacon.
Meanwhile her Daughter struggled
with an important message and remember
her mother’s name.
I was never informed.
I was only taking orders.
Releasing the proper identification code
Triple A was dispatched and was in route.
When I arrived at work
Mental health was waiting
with a video-artist who wanted me
to talk off the top of my head about
involvement in the arts being a bridge
between sanity and the local homeless
populations struggle for employment,
rural reality with an urban contextual equilibrium
and intellectual/spiritual community based identity
supported in a half-way house residential setting.
After the camera stopped rolling
he pulled me aside
reassuring me that the independent film
project was still a go, my role in it assured
and no it wasn’t my fault the
leading man had gone insane last Fall.
The balance of the rest of the work day
operated within normal parameters.
The general population of the incarcerated
wanted no part of my services. Multiple refusals.
Only Mr. Clutter elected to be escorted by the guard
from Pod B to my basement facility to continue work
pursuing his goal of obtaining GED and compose poetry.
Driving back home in the late July
sunshine I experienced a rather unsettling
vague sixty mile an hour accelerated confinement
and isolation from everything Summer was
except through the concurrent
concrete ribbon sentence appearing
in my windshield like asphalt cell bars.
Mid afternoon I went to the bank
withdrew a large sum of money.
Seven new crisp one hundred dollar bills,
with enhanced security threads
and holograms to discourage forgery and a loan
dirty, limp, crinkled, worn, tired gray lettuce
tinted fifty with Ulysses S Grant scowling.
I immediately turned over this amount
representing half of the nearly bankrupt nation’s
economic stimulus stipend to all citizens
to my daughter’s mother in hopes the disappointment
of the mornings amnesia would be forgotten.
She took the money out of my hand.
Remarked she needed new tires for her car.
The phone was ranging again.
This time it was dry.
I hear it distinctly
I was at the sink practicing
my best Prufrock imitation
carefully counting spoonfuls
while making coffee.
It was him.
The son of a great brilliant Jazz musician
presently composing infinity.
I had listened to his old man’s music my entire adult life.
His son wanted to talk.
I was glad to hear from him.
It had been a long time.
However he was in an extremely agitated mood
His voice exploded in the phone.
Didn’t I know about the fuel cells that were methane based, people building cars with toilet bowls in the driver’s seat, Hydrogen on demand, the mutant killer seaweed of doom that was choking the oceans, the hand sake between Prescott Bush and Hitler and J. Edgar Hoover’s head mounted on a turtle’s shell draped with a pink lace pinafore ?
The government’s new Active Denial System Ray Gun,(Actually I did know about that one, the only problem was you had to catch your enemies in tin foil hats), what about his abacus beaded with skulls ?
Had I seen Raw Man around anywhere lately ?
What about Columbus signing off on a deal with Spain to buy all the souls in the new world before we even got here, that all our hearts need to beat with a hedgehog’s intensity to increase the amount of compassion in the world, we had the memory span of goldfish, we better start learning to float in our imaginations like porcupines, stop breaking all the octopuses’ hearts while remembering that ants don’t sleep. Armadillos can house broken. It just takes time and patience. As the icebergs are melting, they are making a fizzing sound. Betsy Ross was born with a full set of teeth.
I was lost. Grappling with the meaning of it all. It was no use. And then he said….
And of course….What about all the Blue-eyed Macaroni !?!
And last. I understood and calmly replied….O….now your talking the Four Horseman of the Semolina.
Finally we had found common ground. The conversation ended on a positive and friendly note with his request I contribute an essay to a new project of his addressing a post-modern socio-political perspective comparing the Chicago based artist Dwight Kalb who had created a statue on Madonna out of 180 pounds of ham and the Greek Painter Zeuxis from the 5th century who it is alleged literally laughed himself to death.
It was approaching supper time.
Ill relevant to me as I was fasting that day.
Went to the Supper Market in observance.
Had my favorite Cashier de jour scan my bag of ice
while discussing people who peeled their bananas
to eat stark naked discarding nature’s perfectly designed napkin.
She referred to me as dear, handed me my change.
Before I went back to work
I stopped in at the house
to find her car parked in the driveway
with three new tires and one worn defective
thread bare one that had been left on for
sentimental reasons…..
I went up to the University
to finally work with an electronic device
that could keep up with me.
I reproduced hundreds of copies
of lessons needed to start the semester
the following month.
The place was deserted.
I was the only one working this time of year
at this time of night.
Completing my task
I discarded everything in the recycle bin.
After all I had done all this before
and if I was lucky
would be able to again.
What better way to insure the possibility?
Now the sun was really setting on this July Abstraction
in great sideways shafts of yellow light.
I found myself with great thirst.
Drove straight down to the Dive.
Discussed baseball with the bartender.
We agreed in principle that 3.25 million
dollars was reasonable for a middle aged
middle infielder batting somewhere in the mid 250s.
I produced my notebook.
Two young tough looking barflies
started complaining about their warm beer to the bartender.
I took note of this.
One of the guys glanced over in my direction
And sneered, “ And just what in hell are you writing ?….”
I glared back at him over my sunglasses and with a bright menacing grin retorted…
“My Doctor thinks it’s a good Idea if I write…”
They tipped and left.
Just then a trio of young Harlots saunter in the bar expressly ignoring me as I wrote
as the old man I had become which might have been true enough
but I sat there ablaze in the sunset glare from the windows resplendent in
the glow of a July abstraction diminishing me however, but now I could clearly hear
the orange and red disappearing ball of molten flame ringing in my name.
*
*
From The Terrible Now -08
*
All Outta Orange
(For F.0′ H.)
I walk into the corner bar. Young artist are hanging their
work on the walls. The appear quite serious and sullen.
The dinner crowd strolls in. Ignores the paintings.
I have a look around at the art. Some styles appeal to me
more than others, however, I like the whole idea of it
just fine. After awhile the artists get up at the podium
down the far end of the bar to make a statement about their
work. Dinner crowd buzzes with small talk. Ignores the
Artists. Artists respond by cutting their mumbling short and
retreat to an especially dark corner in the back.
It’s business as usual. Bartender comes over bringing me
a fresh bottle of beer. I say, “I need you to do me a favor,
it’s opening day, could you put the baseball game on the
television.” She shrieks, “I hate you. “ My eyebrows flip
up. This is serious. I’ve devoted the better part of a
lifetime living by a simple, moral code: “Never piss your
bartender off.” I scramble for an apology. She meanwhile
is dutifully changing the channel while whining, “but
there’s a HOCKEY game ON.” I recover. “Not to worry, change
it back I only had a cursory interest in it anyway.”
She looks at me as her face twists into a question knot and
says, “A WHAT INTEREST???”
I give up. An “orange” interest, I riff out loud.
She shrugs. Tends to other customers. I scribble in my note
book;
“When Poets speak in color they are stuck with ears.
When the Artist paints with pigment the picture is at the
mercy of the eyes. So it stands to reason that the latter
is an image with no sound and the former is all hearsay.
The punch line is, however, you can’t dream of deaf
awake anymore than you can ignore the blind into seeing.
The bar starts to fill up. A quartet of beautiful
women arrive. Sauntering studs strike attitudes
accordingly. Dinner crowd ignores them. Young poet takes
the position at the podium. Tries to work his stuff out.
Dinner crowd manages some variation on a theme. One of
them makes a snotty aside. Poet cuts it short. Smattering
of indifferent applause percolates like stale popcorn
smothered in excess vegetable oil.
Man next to me in backwards ball cap and earring smirks,
“Enough of that sorry ass shit,”scans the hockey game and asks
“so what’s the score?”
A twilight tide leaks into the bar room, it’s last gasp coats
customers, artists, poets with a radiant fragile vermillion
shroud and for a shimmering instant a brilliant painting is
born, gasps and dies. Dinner crowd ignores it.
Bartender comes back with a cold one on the house.
I sigh relieved. All’s well. We’re pals again.
Host of the evening lurches up dejected. The night that
showed such promise is deflating rapidly. I try and help
by saying, “You know this reminds me of last night. I woke
up at three in the morning and couldn’t get back to sleep.
I’m worrying. My wife has the baby in less than a month.
Not only is our house a little brown shoe box that needs
a new roof for a couple of grand, it’s way too goddamn
small. I’m worrying that the new kid’s bassinette will have
to go on top of the television. I’m worrying that any day
now an inter-galactic kidney stone asteroid will make mice-meat
of this teetering global psychoses and some anchor person
on CNN will shit their pants on air, live in front of
40 million viewers. And then what? A nuclear free
winter for the next four years. Might be a little rough
ordering a pizza. So I’m worrying more. What if I loose my job
teaching in the jail? Worse yet, what if I keep my job
teaching in the jail? I’m worrying. I’ve still go
many bad habits. I drink too much. I smoke too much.
I’m never gonna pass muster at the social behavior
inquisitions of the new witch trials of the year 2015
And to top it off, Bernie Madoff destroyed
N.Y. Mets !
So I get up and go into the living room and turn on
the TV. I find Fredrico Felllini’s Satyricon blazing away
life with the characters speaking in cryptic poetic verse.
As usual every other scene there is this set of eyes staring
out at you, watching you as you watch the scene. It took me
away. I forgot my troubles as I immersed myself in the story
of two young men having an epic adventure in grotesque Rome
as it shattered and collapsed under the sheer weight of
perversion, ignorance and brutality. It was great, ever
see it?”
I looked up. I was getting the hairy eyeball all
around. The woman sitting next to me was looking at me like
I was an escapee from Heaven’s Gate and was fixing to order
a round of Phenobarbital and vodka’s.
The bartender was polishing the glasses
shaking her head, she had heard this all before; nobody
within earshot had the foggiest notion of what the hell
I was talking about. And my young friend, the host of the
evening was giving it his best shot, “aaaaah, think I can
rent that down at “BLOCKDUMPSTER?”….”and what was the name of it again?”
“Orange” I said, “just ask for ORANGE.”
Guy next to me had heard enough. “You know I’ve seen you in here
before, whatyamean Orange, Orange what? Oranges are fruit
just like you are, you fucking windy old weirdo.”
“Nah,” bartender interjects dumping my ashtray, “Orange is
just a color, not my favorite one at that.” Woman next to
me dismisses the entire discussion with a hiss, “and you
don’t know your ass from an Orange hole in the ground.”
Subject gets dropped. Hockey games ends in a tie
in overtime. Artists take down their paintings. Poet
disappears into a pitcher of beer. Dinner crowd is
already home asleep in front of the tube.
Owner of the bar walks in.
We pass as I’m walking out.
He asks “Hey, how ya doing?”
“Not sure,” I go, “but Samuel Beckett would be proud.”
Owner yells after me as I walk out the door,
“Now don’t you fucking start with me!!”
From Another Rubber Eden
Rubbereden 
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