Picket Song

All cards wild at the press junket,
Pigs in kitsch suit aesthetic,
Signing up as clockwork volunteers,
Ink-lip their names to a list,
Form ranks armed
To the teeth with Mint Juleps,
Calmly advance on my salient,
Feathered by a fist,
Tarred with a kiss
- I hope to never know why that is.

I’ll walk myself back
To the stocks above my bed,
My boots leak - I don’t care.
My eyes deep in my pockets,
On the midnight street,
I’ll shuffle and stare
At the news-print on my fingers:
Life without a future tense.
Go for coffee and cigarettes.
Writers’ bar-room circle
Follow their own scripts.


“Punch your time-card, boy,
You’ve got work to do.”
I sweep the salt from the ground,
Pretend I’m D.B. Cooper.

Allen Ginsberg

"America when can I go into a supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?"

- Allen Ginsberg, 'America', Berkley, January 17th 1956.

This man is my favourite poet of all time; anyone who is not familiar with his work has my sincere recommendation to dig up a copy of Kaddish, Howl or a collected volume. I know it is highly irregular for me to include critical content on my page but it seems to me that the poems I write need some definition. My work will now be given in context with my understanding of what makes a good poem and how this has been achieved by writers before me. I shall therefore include short pieces like this which describe what I look for and learn from when I read the poetry of others.

The first thing which should be understood about Ginsberg is that he is never lost in meandering metaphor: every line, phrase and syllable is immediate and concerned at all times with the theme of the work. You will never catch this poet embarking on a hallucinatory critique on the state of romance in contemporary New York through similes concerning broken teacups and Grandma’s roses. When discussing his experiences with and love for the tragic youth forgotten by society, in the first part of Howl (San Francisco, 1955-6), Ginsberg writes:

I saw the best minds of my generation...

who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz, ...

The grammar here is sparse but not irrelevant, prepositions are forgotten and the pace is sickeningly rapid. Ginsberg’s style is about exposing what is happening right now, even if he is referencing the past. The impression throughout the first section of Howl is that he has seen this and it is still going on. Poems like Howl display Ginsberg’s ability to weave deep understanding and incredible gravity of statement in a novel way, a refreshing break from the funeral dirge of some of T.S. Elliot’s work or the sporadic awkwardness of E.E. Cummings.

When this poet does engage in immaculate descriptions or extended metaphor, he does precisely that: he engages. The result is not grandiose and pompous like public confessions of impotent intellectuals. Allen Ginsberg wrote acute poetry which, although laced with subtle messages and intimate ideas, stands tall and gives a clear and thought-provoking message. Sunflower Sutra (Berkley, 1955) is the prime example of this approach. A scene is set where Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac sit atop a hill to watch a sunset and there follows a beautiful contemplation of a sunflower among the wreckage of an old locomotive.

...the gray sunflower poised against the sunset...

corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sun-rays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,

leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear...

Important ideas must be conveyed clearly and effectively or they face abandonment, being shunned for lack of relevance. Sunflower Sutra ends with Ginsberg giving his sermon on the mount to Kerouac and the Sunflower and anyone down in the echoing valley who’ll listen – his point is clear and dexterously put because it is too important to be squandered by ill-defined poetic whimsy.

Although I have only covered two examples, barely touching on the complex natures of each, the complexities of Allen Ginsberg’s style are already emerging. I will continue to write in a free and intermittent manner on his work and the other poets I enjoy. It is not my aim to produce exhaustive passages on the various facets of the work of these poets; I would like simply to highlight the passages and phrases which have caught my eye and sent my thoughts racing in all directions. The work of many critics sets about the task of dismantling and debasing the art they are attempting to explain. There is no pleasure in this for me because the best work invariably must be approached repeatedly and will even then strike you differently and unexpectedly.

Speak Easy,

Sharp Noir.

Nostalgia

There is a hazy time
when catharsis is therapeutic
but this self-indulgence
is bound to induce stagnation.
When a strong man,
one who is heroically individual,
is swallowed up by fictions
– precluded, altruistic jubilance
over the prize of mystic love
from a good woman, the belief
that, had the dice rolled differently,
he could have been saved
from himself, his consuming misery –
he is truly defeated
and nobody can help him.

Then again it is pleasant
to see the lymph rise
from an old wound
with the pump and vigour
of a youthful heart
too often thought lost.

Picking over our memories
is not time wasted licking
our sores. Reflecting
in the westbound waiting room,
we take pause and attempt
to gather up our resources,
devise foresighted stratagems
to meet all exciting new contingencies,
bid to never again run and hide
from impending calamities
or any vexing mysteries
approaching our lives.

August Thoughts on Clouds

The humid summer grey really
pisses me off; sunshine or rain
please, none of this indecisive
bullshit – I’ve waited too long
to be disappointed.

Rabbits are wondering
if they ought to have
changed their wardrobes;
sparrows are anxious
in their dust baths;
I crunch around
in the yellow leaves
of a confused oak tree.

A healthy storm is good for the nation’s
temperament but, as a matter of course,
I’d rather not carry an umbrella
in the middle of summer.

A Cold Reflection - a recording of the poem (2010-06-08)

A Cold Reflection - a single vocal take on a digital 8-track recorder over guitars and harmonica - a diatonic Blues Harp in the key of G played 'cross' in the key of D. The song is in a jump blues style, like the kind of juke joint in which the poem is set. All instruments were played by Sharp Noir.

Speak Easy.

Jazz, Bleedin' Kohl and a Howlin' Trumpet Blast

I thought it best not to pursue

the nature and causes of my illusions

when I discovered her in the mirror

behind the spirits in a stray cat jazz bar

- one where raucous chapters,

as if written by a feverish

film director, are captured

in the midnight hours by a single

wink of Kegman Kovacs,

crooked on his stool behind

his bandit register – her wide-eyed

glare was the perfect bromide

for this saloon thick with

the accents of moral dissolution:

she’d glimpsed some idyllic

future scene and the thought

remained flushed on her cheeks.

As the creator of this ideal

enlivened with eloquent details,

excerpts from classic fiction

(encouraging second guesses

from Pulitzer marksmen,

compelling in their list-making),

this glossy idol of bourgeois

abstraction feigning realism,

I choose a road that is straight

and narrow, I don’t even need

to determine the direction

I travel – I’m not going back;

She consistently suggests movement,

accompanied by a leitmotif:

the howling blast of a trumpet,

a complex enigma coded

by a triad of valves and the bitter

freedom of a private life

released from public silence.

All this time I accept

she is not next to me

but on stage, amber candent

bulbs warming her face.

The band is her gang:

a vicious platoon enlisted

as a tragic ballast drilled by a single

ambitious woman. An artist,

my essence in my creative capacity,

I hold no monopoly on integrity,

forgetting the monologue,

remembering only the speaker

from the imbecile chaos

of the boot-heel chipped oak floor.

We for the minute are her closest

friends like a chance collection

of driftwood, our scepticism

relinquished from our malt,

for our craving to believe

is desperate and deep.

We beg for reward

like the queue for a soup kitchen

and with just as much dignity.

She offers a flash of information

ripe with sexual suggestion,

the grand spectrum

from love to anger painted

with a vast collection

of colours. This sylph

singing for us, a siren on a cliff

ready to wreck our passing ship,

bewildered by the obscure guilt

of a burgeoning, heated affair,

defending herself

from token wisdom

with a sinister wit emanating

from behind the flash of her teeth

across a twelve-bar riff,

displaying the dagger

but masking its poisoned

flavour with the hilt

In a slow section she leaves a kiss

on the gauze of her microphone,

a blood red smear of lipstick

- she came to sing for them

but she dances for me, hanging

on behind her with my guitar

slung like a weapon.

Before we began she only gave

me a key and a couple clicks

for the rhythm.

My turn, I sharpen my razor wires

on each flinching hat,

a trembling ride, a nickel

wound shake to every kick

from the ground. There’s

alleyway justice in my screams:

a cut to the face if you stray

from your station, every time

I break rank I fear ambush at Cerriglio.

I dissect your mood for the crowd

and find a tune for the words

she couldn’t place but now

lie naked on my operating table.

Bleeding kohl down her cheeks

She smiles at me, having forgotten

the people listening unaware

of the true purpose of our plot.