In Service To Poetry's Furious Scribble

The following is an exchange between yours truly and poet Mickey O’Connor on Facebook expressing our bewilderment over America’s docility in view of her population’s daily rape by an oligarchical elite and betrayal by President Obama. The energy of our writing grew weirdly joyful and reminiscent of a time in the past not that distantly removed from our current conundrum. You might call it the pre-9/11 world, before the schism between the population and government had not grown so extreme, and the American dream had not fossilized into potholes, prisons, and the fern fronds formerly recognized as American currency. At any rate, it seemed worth saving, if only on a blog slightly less ephemeral than Facebook.

**********************************************************

didn't anybody take LSD didn't anybody stay awake for three straight days reading & writing & painting, didn't anybody else hitchhike from Boston to San Francisco in the dead of winter so headed south to Florida across Texas to California five days one nickel in their pocket ? Is everybody SOUND ASLEEP ???????????????????????

didn't anyone stay up all night on Dexedrine & Jack Daniels talking to angels & Blake & writing the Poem of the Future didn't anyone ride a Greyhound to New Jersey with a suitcase full of dreams didn't anyone sell sheet music to Magus for a hot dog?

didn't anybody swallow hashish walk all night Boston streets subways chant ' holy holy holy ' sleep at dawn in back pew St. Anthony's church til rousted by janitor? didn't anybody hear the voice from a closet see the words written across the sky spend hours typing transcribing ? didn't anybody dream a red tennis ball & bounce it along to a hillbilly song?

didn't anyone get naked swing from a rope into glacial milk didn't anyone thread a needle with hawsers of rimbaud rope & squeeze a camel into heaven didn't anyone meet Apollinaire on the Montmartre streets at dawn & say nothing because the air was pure & the belly was full of wine didn't anyone vote in america ink bubbles of fragile quixotic hope & get the proverbial rug pulled out didn't anyone grow wheat in Kansas sharpen a knife in Wichita polish old shoes in Milwaukee paint a porch in Pocatello hear Bartok in bar talk Buddhas in fuchsias toss greasy fries to shrieking gulls on Seattle's sad ruffian waterfront of goofy scrimshaw?

didn't anybody drive Eugene to San Francisco Los Angeles to Portland hiway coast road old car girlfriend marijuana radio sex back seat Santa Barbara sea shore park at dawn ? didn't anybody a cloud in trousers declaim poetry on street corner at the top of my voice as the secret mind whispers ? didn't anybody become addicted to amphetamine in service to poetry's furious scribble shiver in a chair cure themselves four years kundalini yoga hatha yogas' due diligence ? didn't anybody late nite table piled high with books study sweet Emily D. concision Rimbaud expansion Gregory Corso wild humor William Carlos Williams & a clear eye?

didn't anybody walk winter storm two feet snow in two hours stranded miles from home hitchhike a ride on old time milk truck open door on side wire cartons filled white milk bottles in back with beautiful long haired girl Denver years ago ?

didn't anyone lose themselves in Eine kleine Nachtmusik ride the green dragon of nerve delirium through the gates of dogma didn't anyone eat oatmeal in a Humboldt County hotel room cook on a hotplate measure redwood considerations with an imaginary yardstick & a blue guitar didn't anyone rent a trailer from an old Italian man obsessed with potatoes and listen to the Doors behind a Mexican restaurant among supernatural enchiladas & angelic cows?