Valery Oisteanu
Beat Angel Blues
to Harold Norse
The cosmic hustler is now a pure spirit And so are the masters of the Dream-machine Norse continues to whisper from the great beyond Howling, and writing the story of his crazy karma O! Hollow America! Hollow America The harder one hits, the deeper the sound In the passage underground The virtual museum of the Beats They who have forgotten you so soon Omission accomplished Tears drop as red petals off a rose All roses cry: I wanna die! I wanna die! The Beat Hotel in Paris is haunted There are no degrees of separation No reservation no confrontation Between him and Ira Cohen Between him and Lenard Cohen Between Corso and Of course sir! His ghost still haunts the island of Hydra Sex and Marijuana evenings with Zina Her spirit reincarnated in Harold Where he performs in the Café Purgatory For the hip elite of the Generation Beat.
Ira Cohen-In Memoriam
What's next? whispers Ira and becomes invisible Scream no more, from unquenched fate We'll see you on the other side A Jewish Shaman walks away While the big flutes are silent, The extinct cactus remains still The bells are thunderstruck Our holy man of the straw mats Melts benignly into the molecular earth After an endless battle with himself A distorted shadow in search of Ganesh Baba From Chelsea all the way to Kathmandu 365 steps up to the Temple Swayambhu Kumbha Mela traveler overrun by sadhus Blowing a didgeridoo, jazz convulsions With potent magic mushrooms Psychedelic carnal lovers evaporating Disappearing on the magic carpet to the Kasbah Lamenting in the sub-ground Ethiopian churches Following the holy wind into the dessert Eating majoon, riding the sunset Tormented musicians of Joujouka Helter-skelter from Tangier to Crete What's next boychick? What's hip? Poetry shrunk down to tiny crumbs Farfetched nightmares no more! An avalanche of absurd nothingness Yisgadal v'yiskadash sh'may rabo Sufi in Ira's coffee, Shiva in Ira's tea Buddha in his wine, Yahweh in his tap water! Last chillum for trans-hypnosis The king of Thunderbolt goes to sleep!
The Drum Circle for Janine Pommy Vega
Beat the drums slowly, like a wave of pebbles For the Bearsville medicine woman of Willow Beat the drums quietly, for the beat poetess of Woodstock Beat the drums, till the snakes gather round the fire The witches' brew fills the air with vapors of lizards As the guitars play for the freedom of memory In a trance, shaking shakers, improvising, reading From Europe to Naropa, from Colorado to El Dorado The woman-warrior of the Beats, from Napoli to Tripoli Radical, instinctual, climbing the highest mountains A Wind has blown out her candles Disappearing deep in the dark forest The blossoms remain floating in your garden, Down the steep slopes into your creek Sleep Janine, with all the birds exulting at your window They cannot wake you up anymore, only your memory Beat the drums till we are out of breath Janine walks freely through the Eternal city
Ted Joans-The Priest of Jazz
Motto: No Bred no Ted!
He was ready to play anytime He was able to take on anyone In Paris, Berlin or "Tombouctou" Jazz was his religion till the end Traveling Surrealist-Shaman With a hammock and Beats’ book Under his horny arms Bird's music in his heart Preaching for Charlie Parker Langston Hughes, the Beat poets Jazzoetry, mouth and teeth Triple-trouble-Ted flutters by Available for an impromptu lecture Or a tumble in a crumpled bed Surreal dreams of Afrodisia And instant mirrors for Rhinos He kissed an unpardonable Pussy He liberated the sexually oppressed Fomented, berated & poeticized Ted Joans "Nomadic Consciousness"
(Note: Timbuktu and Aphrodisia misspelled by Ted Joans)
The Poet Writes no Matter What
A poet in the eye of a super-storm In total darkness, reading by candle light Writing near the edge of the roof With a miners head-light on his forehead On the side of a boat, with a gas-lamp Beneath a bridge, next to a bonfire He makes peace with the hurricanes He calms the storms in the sea Seeking the transparence of tigers at midnight Making mushrooms grow under his pillow While fungus creeps up and around the wall A tsunami of meteorite showers in his heart Clearly confused, with poems in his soul Even when the sun bites and the cold hurts When petrified clouds bend the light Free of words, but a slave to feelings Setting night birds and lovers on fire Self-punishment, self-deprecation The poetry's brew is poisonous at times Sleep-deprivation, speech-depravation Can kill with irrational melancholia Erecting temples of repressed memory In the solitude, alone in front of death Torn inside, scribbling imaginary sex Stenciling slogans on a protester's tent He remembers verses in the back of an ambulance car Recording it as if in solitary confinement Suicide's final draft, in total silence To die alone and stay immortal The poet must write no matter what, Even in death....
In search of the radical time past
to Tuli Kupferberg
I do vividly remember, Tuli Selling books and cartoons on Spring street Tuli getting naked on rooftops Reading with Tuli, my Soho-boho guru Tuli, turning poems into revolution songs Sarcastic-anarchic, pacifist poet on the spot Full time beatnik, stand-up hobo-bohemian, Tuli knew how to kiss the radical mind How to fuck with the rebellious kind "Teach Yourself Fucking" his latest book Tuli turned absurd clichés into lotuses He taught his Russian slippers rhythmical dance We all crashed with him, that gravitational twirl Jumping secretly off the Manhattan Bridge Tuli scribbling and drawing anarchy cartoons While The Fugs were spreading the virus of freedom For more than half a century Tuli singing, Tuli vocalizing, Tuli chanting Tuli asking questions on cable TV Tuli writing 53 poetry books "The world's oldest rock star" has gone Tuli omnipresent in my memory At last Tuli has kissed the hippy sky.