In Tangletown
I am the last lost poet.
At 3rd and Market I sit
at my old table, by the window
on the second floor
to wait,watch and write.
The trains stopped running
long ago, the nights are silent.
Poems don’t come easy.
There are no more saxophones
crying in the lonely dark.
Only the occasional glare
of a window lamp marking
the territory of an insomniac.
The [...]
OPPENHEIMER’S CHILDREN
When my nephew told me he didn’t think
I could get by today if I were his age,
well, what can you tell those who don’t know.
He is worried about guns, AIDs, bad drugs…
and he’s right to worry.
I’ll keep the Bay of Pigs to myself,
and the Cuban Embargo, and the Gulf of Tonkin.
He doesn’t remember the [...]
GOD GOES POSTAL
Got a picture of Jesus
in the mail today.
8 x 11 inch paper facsimile
of a prayer rug with
Jesus in His blondeness,
His California surfin’ dude beard.
I thought,
if You looked like this back then,
they would have killed You
in the cow shed when You were born.
But hey,
it makes us white folk feel better
about worshipping someone
from the Middle [...]
TRANSLATING ROBERT BLY
We start to burn
as we are born.
The barn boards
exhale wheat breath.
We are born knowing
all we need to get by.
The lake, half in shadow,
is a coffin or cave.
Living is an art but
Dying is a saxophone.
The horses in the dark field
will be us in their next life.
The gate in the fence swings open.
We are on [...]
What can one poet do, or even two,
when the numbers are human
and very large?
We can write words until our eyes bleed,
stroke keys until our hearts implode,
bury the dead until the fields are full.
What separates the living from the dead?
And who is to draw the boundaries?
I say let the living honor the dead as they may.
Let [...]
on-line source for jazz, free jazz, improvised, innovative, adventurous and unheard music and dangerous poetry. We listen to music and read artists who don't even exist yet. the shop belongs to the m-etropolis.com media group. May music and poetry never just become another way of making money.
