Sleepwalking into disaster . . .

[REDWAVE]

Does anyone else have the feeling that we are sleepwalking into disaster? Every day the lines to the flophouse get longer. Every night the screaming and caterwauling of the cool cats grows louder and more raucous. A searing flame was rising from the center of the fountain outside my villa this morning. All the comics in the neighborhood had dour faces, while the "wise men" were all babbling nonsense. Every week it seems the official explanation becomes more bizarre and convoluted. And always above me I hear the beating of the drums going louder and louder . . .

Surely some major conflagration is near at hand. Surely the beast has been released from the cage, the one that lies beneath the silken throne. Surely there is being born somewhere unimaginable sorrow.

Yet I also see a quickening and a falling together that is unlike anything that went before. Thanks to the juxtaposition of the spheres, possibilities have opened that were always closed before. Now I am grasping the golden key that lay at the end of the stairway, dimly groping for the winding ribbon which leads to the unlocking of the titanium vault which was never, ever unlocked before.

Please continue on in this vein . . .

 

[Angeline]

Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote this poem--which makes me cry, at least when I read it at 4:56 a.m.--when Eisenhower was president.

Sometimes when I cannot sleep I come here and lately I have been thinking that my beautiful beloved son, who does not have a mean bone in his body, will be old enough to be drafted in a few short years.

Same as it ever was.


I Am Waiting

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder


I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep thru the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am seriously waiting
for Billy Graham and Elvis Presley
to exchange roles seriously
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder



I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the living end
and I am waiting
for dad to come home
his pockets full
of irradiated silver dollars
and I am waiting
for the atomic tests to end
and I am waiting happily
for things to get much worse
before they improve
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the human crowd
to wander off a cliff somewhere
clutching its atomic umbrella
and I am waiting
for Ike to act
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes
and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder


I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and save me forever from certain death
and I am waiting
for life to begin
and I am waiting
for the storms of life,
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder


I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am waiting
for Ole Man River
to just stop rolling along
past the country club
and I am waiting
for the deepest South
to just stop Reconstructing itself
in its own image
and I am waiting
for a sweet desegregated chariot
to swing low
and carry me back to Ole Virginie
and I am waiting
for Ole Virginie to discover
just why Darkies are born
and I am waiting
for God to lookout
from Lookout Mountain
and see the Ode to the Confederate Dead
as a real farce
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder


I am waiting for Tom Swift to grow up
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty's clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder


I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth's dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am awaiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

~~Ferlinghetti

 

[Floater]

In Babel and Byzantium
And the topless towers of Ilium,
The endless hours of valium
The millstone of millenium.

The ominous weight of silence
The seeping stain of violence
The black magic of weapons science
The conspiracy of blind compliance.

The Cockroach and Chihuahua dance
Knowing neither stands a chance
And move without a backward glance
To the twilight of numbed ignorance.

Both Dylan and Delilah know
There isn’t anywhere to go;
We grimly reap what we did sow
In forgotton fields so long ago.

The writing on the air is clear
The letters form and disappear
The voices cry too loud to hear
So no-one even listens here.

The signals blur in the forward rush
What we believe cannot be touched
The ocean trembles the sky is hushed -
But nothing really matters much.

 

[karmadog]

Not for nothing, but neither for something...

Ferlnghetti's an ass--to wait
for someone to discover the thing
that was infront of his face

Ferlinghetti's an ass--to look for someone else
to kill his anxiety.

Ferlinghetti's an ass-- to whine like a pussy

Ferlinghetti's an ass-- to wait for anarchy to be safe

Ferlinghetti's an ass


ferlinghetti's an ass--to think Bily Graham can dance

Ferlinghetti's an ass--because he'll eat cheese fries in hell

and Ferlinghetti's an ass--because he'll actually wonder why

You know what I'm saying--Ferlinghetti's an ass

Not for nothing, but then again, for something

Ferlinghetti's an ass for thinking Salvation can save us.

Ferlinghetti's an ass--cause I fucking think so.

Not for nothing, for something

Ferlinghetti's an ass

he waits

for animals

he waits

for lemmings

he waits

for a South he doesn't even know

No Yankee should talk

after the New York riots

No Yankeee should talk

about shit they don't know

Ferlinghetti's an ass

But I like his poem

 

[REDWAVE]

Very good, everyone! Welcome, Floater. Hope we'll hear more from you.

Karmadog, do you know the story about Coyote chasing his asshole down a river?

 

[Angeline]

Dear Kdog

I know and I know
he's naive it is so
to believe that this
mess of a world could
be a safe place is
to fly in the face of all
logic and i am a dreamer
i always have been and
you know what--here
let me freshen your gin
Bombay Saffire, right? it's
been a long night for me
too and dreaming lo all
these years has gotten
me nowhere but tears at
5 in the fucking morning
and soon children awake
but he was a product of
the soul shake of the 50s
the 60s was Ferlinghetti
you know before Kennedy
when if you looked steady
ahead and were white i
suppose you could think
everything was really
alright not to defend him
and about the south i
agree actually that the
yankees got a mouth full
of lies just more subterfuge
and by the way i lived in
the south for a while as
a kid so take that and i'm
flat outta words but although
absurd the cheese fries in
hell line in was great and not to
end with a cop out soft soap
but after all this i will sound
like a dope cause somehow
i still manage to hope.

 

[karmadog]

Karmadog, do you know the story about Coyote chasing his asshole down a river?

No, but I'd love to hear it.

Hippies, as I'm sure most of you know, were just bandwagon beatniks without the brains.

 

[stargirl32]

fuck this life so full of care,
i have no time to stand and stare.

no time to think of peace and dreams
only time to fill my head with screams

time to kiss good bye my arse,
when missiles in the sky do pass

time to see, in broad daylight,
the debris from a bloodied fight
.

time to see the fleeting glance
of frightened people in a trance.

to help my neighbours save their soul
cos over my life , i have no control

A poor life this so full of care,

but end it ? no i wouldn't dare....




a parody of W.H.Davis,,,

 

[Senna Jawa]

Again

 

    Again


Spit the morning blood
of a pink toothbrush cloud
cheering the start and the end -

to see straight
I need to get laid
in a coffin,
long and narrow.

Do you want to be the first
to live to a hundred and thirty?

Then keep
away from
the holy war
against and for
the
Belief and Faith and Drug;

take an exit
from overcrowded
freeways and jails.

Did you ask your teachers difficult questions?
Or were you stealing my lunch?
Just kidding -
I had only my genes
in a bottle.

The twisted staircase of our stories
ends in an orange sky -
I swear on Madonna's material eyes
that there is more to the art of life
than oasis postcard greetings
hanging from the white bones
of christmas trees;
the gay aesthetics of fashion magazines
has saved the Moral Majority;
brain bless the new york apple.

What we "know" today,
the burning Mid East Sun
will reduce to naked stones of wisdom -
to be covered again by junk
overnight.

Wlodzimierz Holsztynski
        Sept. 1990

 

[stargirl32]

wow senna I'ed say you got out of the wrong side of bed ,

some strong words in there ,, specialy that first stanza

 

[Blue Dolphin]

The Alchemist Of Atrophy



He is here
stepping through the twisted tails of twilight
come to scorch my soul

The alchemist of atrophy
stares with darkened eyes
into the very recesses of my mind
casting his spell of sin

Now days of gold and dreams of silver pass into oblivion

replaced
as I sink into the depths of his lapid lead
greyness in night-time surrounding

and I walk with him
at dawn
into the lonely way of wasted whispers

 

[Floater]

Bleeding Frenzy

I fear the smug violence
Of this self-righteous rage:
The violence of Bin Laden
His soft eyes
Already on his poison paradise,
His vengeful god's improbable reward.

I fear the blinkered, violent logic of George Bush,
The surfacing fury
Of those bleak Mayflower fathers
Wrapped in grim shadows and old testament fires,
Each Indian some demon in their god's dream.

I fear the punch-drunk chutzpah,
The shattering, doomed persistence of Sharon,
The blind, spiralling momentum of the pain
That drives his hatred and brutality,
And detonates the blank eyes
Of suicides.

I fear the bland, reasoning zealotry of Blair,
The murderous, animal hungers of Saddam,
The unquestioning killers of Kashmir ,
The tight, stone-faced Chinese executioners
The sombre enforcer-millionaires of Africa,
The intricate Indian fanatics on the take,
The practised liars in the diseased U.N.

But maybe most of all, I fear
Their sponsors:
The vast crowds of decent, ignorant
Powerless dupes
Whose hearts,
Burning and bitter in grief's disbelief
Suspend the functions of intelligence,
Evict their critical clarity and sink,
Roaring with relief,
Into the yoke of fury,
The unreflecting founders of revenge.

 

[Angeline]

Well Said, Floater

If anything catapaults us into war, it will be the support of the blind bland massess feeling powerless and, thus, hungry for any revenge.

 

[Floater]

Take 2

In Babel and Byzantium
And the topless towers of Ilium:

The endless hours of valium -
The millstone of millenium -
The weary weight of silence -
The seeping stain of violence -
The necromantic weapons science -
The numb cabal of blind compliance.

The Cockroach and Chihuahua dance
Aware that neither stands a chance,
Moving without a backward glance
To the dusk of deadened ignorance.

Both Daniel and Delilah know
There’s nowhere left for them to go;
We grimly reap what we gaily sowed
In forgotton fields back down the road.

The writing on the air is clear -
The letters form and disappear -
The voices cry too loud to hear
So no-one even listens here.

The signals blur in the forward rush
That won’t believe what can’t be touched.

The ocean trembles, the sky’s hushed
But nothing seems to matter much.

 

[_Land]

EDITED FLOATER

Floater, if you could use the word the in this poem about three more times this would be a really good poem...............
j/k I would drop all but one the out of this........
it completely kills the read.

In Babel and Byzantium,
topless towers of Ilium:

endless hours of valium -
millstone of millenium -
weary weight of silence -
seeping stain of violence -
necromantic weapons science -
numb cabal of blind compliance.

The Cockroach and Chihuahua dance
Aware that neither stands a chance,
moving without a backward glance
to the dusk of deadened ignorance.

Both Daniel and Delilah know
there’s nowhere left for them to go;
We grimly reap what we gayely sowed
In forgotton fields back down the road.

writing on the air is clear -
letters form and disappear -
voices cry too loud to hear
so no-one even listens here.

signals blur in the forward rush
won’t believe what can’t be touched.

oceans tremble, sky’s hushed
but nothing seems to matter much

Take 2

In Babel and Byzantium
And the topless towers of Ilium:

The endless hours of valium -
The millstone of millenium -
The weary weight of silence -
The seeping stain of violence -
The necromantic weapons science -
The numb cabal of blind compliance.

The Cockroach and Chihuahua dance
Aware that neither stands a chance,
Moving without a backward glance
To the dusk of deadened ignorance.

Both Daniel and Delilah know
There’s nowhere left for them to go;
We grimly reap what we gaily sowed
In forgotton fields back down the road.

The writing on the air is clear -
The letters form and disappear -
The voices cry too loud to hear
So no-one even listens here.

The signals blur in the forward rush
That won’t believe what can’t be touched.

The ocean trembles, the sky’s hushed
But nothing seems to matter much.

 

[Floater]

hmmmmmmmm
I thought he thes are suggested a numbing circular repetition, the sense of going over and over barren ground like an old record jumping.
You could be right - I'll have to think about it.
Thanks for the thought.