ROUND ABOUT MIDNIGHT

Jazz radio on a midnight kick,
Round about Midnight.

Sitting on the bed,
With a jazz type chick
Round about Midnight,

Piano laughter, in my ears,
Round about Midnight.

Stirring up laughter, dying tears,
Round about Midnight.

Soft blue voices, muted grins,
Excited voices, Father’s sins,
Round about Midnight.

Come on baby, take off your clothes,
Round about Midnight.

  — Bob Kaufman (1925 - 1986), Beat poet.

ALL THOSE SHIPS THAT NEVER SAILED

All those ships that never sailed
The ones with their seacocks open
That were scuttled in their stalls …
Today I bring them back
Huge and transitory
And let them sail
Forever.

All those flowers that you never grew—
that you wanted to grow
The ones that were plowed under
ground in the mud—
Today I bring them back
And let you grow them
Forever.

All those wars and truces
Dancing down these years—
All in three flag swept days
Rejected meaning of God—

My body once covered with beauty
Is now a museum of betrayal.
This part remembered because of that one’s touch
This part remembered for that one’s kiss—
Today I bring it back
And let you live forever.

I breath a breathless I love you
And move you
Forever.

Remove the snake from Moses’ arm …
And someday the Jewish queen will dance
Down the street with the dogs
And make every Jew
Her lover.

  — Bob Kaufman (1925 - 1986), Beat poet.

After learning of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Kaufman took a Buddhist vow of silence. He withdrew from society and did not speak again until 1975, on the day the Vietnam War ended, when he walked into a coffee shop and recited this poem.

JAZZ CHICK

Music from her breast, vibrating
Soundseared into burnished velvet.
Silent hips deceiving fools.
Rivulets of trickling ecstacy
From the alabaster pools of Jazz
Where music cools hot souls.
Eyes more articulately silent
Than Medusa’s thousand tongues.
A bridge of eyes, consenting smiles
reveal her presence singing
Of cool remembrance, happy balls
Wrapped in swinging
Jazz
Her music…
Jazz.

  — Bob Kaufman (1925 - 1986), New Orleans-born Beat Poet.

Had an appointment with the crazy doctor tonight … and I’ve got a lot of thinking to do about some of the things that have been going through my head the past week or so.

Things like:

1. Beating myself up for stepping out of my comfort zone, and failing. Rather than beating myself up, I should be proud that I allowed myself to go into a situation where I might fail.
2. Trying to figure out what it will take to stop falling for people who are not available. I know why I do; as long as the people I’m attracted to are not available, either because they’re already in a relationship, because they live far away from me, or because it’s just not a good match due to lifestyle differences, then I don’t have to worry about opening myself up … I can just keep my walls where they are, and let them get higher and thicker and more impenetrable.
3. Figuring out what I’m going to do with my career.

In reality, it’s all about dealing with my anxiety, learning how to control it, without letting it control me. It’s about continuing to put myself out there with my friends, continuing to risk, and continuing to live life.

FOR NOTHING

Earth a flower
A phlox on the steep
slopes of light
hanging over the vast
solid spaces
small rotten crystals;
salts.

Earth a flower
by a gulf where a raven
flaps by once
a glimmer, a color
forgotten as all
falls away.

A flower
for nothing;
an offer;
no taker;

Snow-trickle, feldspar, dirt.

  — Gary Snyder (b. 1930), American poet, originally and often associated with the Beat Generation, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Sausalito Trash Prayer

Sausalito,
            Little Willow,
Perfect Beach by the last Bay in the World,
            None more beautiful,

Today we kneel at thy feet
            And curse the men who have misused you.

  — Lew Welch (1926 - 1971[?]), American Beat poet who disappeared in May 1971, presumed to have committed suicide. His body was never found.

FOR MILES

Your sound is faultless
    pure & round
        holy
    almost profound

Your sound is your sound
    true & from within
    a confession
    soulful & lovely

Poet whose sound is played
    l lost or recorded
    but heard
    can you recall that 54 night at the Open Door
    when you & bird
    wailed five in the morning some wondrous
    yet unimaginable score?

  — From GASOLINE, by Gregory Corso (1929 - 2001), American “Beat” poet.

REQUIEM FOR “BIRD” PARKER, MUSICIAN

this prophecy came by mail:
in the last murder of birds
a nowhere bird shall remain
and it shall not wail
and the nowhere bird shall be a slow bird
a long long bird
somewhere there is a room
in a room
in which an old horn
        lies in a corner
like a handful of rice
wondering about BIRD

        first voice

hey, man, BIRD is dead
they got his horn locked up somewhere
put his horn in a corner somewhere
like where’s the horn, man, where?

        second voice

screw the horn
like where’s BIRD?

        third voice

gone
BIRD was goner than sound
broke the barrier with a horn’s coo
BIRD was higher than moon
BIRD hovered on a roof top, too
like a weirdy monk he drooped
horn in hand, high above all
lookin’ down on them people
with half-shut weirdy eyes
saying to himself; “yeah, yeah”
like nothin’ meant nothin’ at all

        fourth voice

in early nightdrunk
solo in his pent house stand
BIRD held a black flower in his black hand
he blew his horn to the sky
made the sky fantastic! and midway
the man-tired use of things
BIRD piped a varied ephemera
a strained rhythmical rat
like the stars didn’t know what to do
then came a nowhere bird

        third voice

yeah, a nowhere bird —
while BIRD was blowin’
another bird came
an unreal bird
a nowhere bird with big draggy wings
BIRD paid it no mind; just kept on blowin’
and the cornball bird came on comin’

        first voice

right, like that’s what I heard
the draggy bird landed in front of BIRD
looked BIRD straight in the eye
BIRD said: “cool it”
and kept on blowin’

        second voice

seems like BIRD put the square bird down

        first voice

only for a while, man
the nowhere bird began to foam from the mouth
making all kinds of discords
“man, like make it somewhere else,” BIRD implored
but the nowhere bird paced back and forth
like an old miser with a nowhere scheme

        third voice

yeah, by that time BIRD realized the fake
had come to goof
BIRD was about to split, when all of a sudden
the nowhere bird sunk its beady head
into the barrel of BIRD’s horn
bugged‚ BIRD blew a long crazy note

        first voice

it was his last‚ man‚ his last
the draggy bird ran death into BIRD’s throat
and the whole building rumbled
when BIRD let go his horn
and the sky got blacker… blacker
and the nowhere bird wrapped its muddy wings round BIRD

        fourth voice

BIRD is dead
BIRD is dead

        first and second and third voices

yeah, yeah

        fourth voice

wail for BIRD
for BIRD is dead

        first and second and third voices

yeah, yeah

  — From The Vestal Lady on Brattle, by Gregory Corso