My Critique of the Beat Generation (Poem)

Transforming fragility

The center of

Moving

Breathing

Feeling

Life

Bewildered by mistaken

Wilderness

Broken in the backseat

While neon television sets

And an endless assortment of

Drugs

Take shotgun

Leather straps

Tied to the padded

Coffin cushion

And they call me

Prancing through the woods

In the dead hours of the morning

Naked laughter

Endless euphoria

They call me mad

Brandished by green caress

A child of god

Serving a lone soldier

This battle will surely be my last

Against marching, marching, marching

Drones, prioritizing

Without soul

Profiteering

Stripped clean

A big business shopping center

Passing along the tab

Until quack dilly oso

And it’s all over

Until then

I’m getting arrested

Inside Abercrombie

With sagging asshole

And flailing genitals

These Tired Tracks

My time is like a speeding train

And each person

Each commitment

Is another box car

Each mile

The speed increases

Broken tracks and curves

The chain breaks

I lose a car

My frame tilts and shakes

Praying it won’t pull me from the tracks

When it does,

I pry myself from the red mud

And the shattered glass

Of my fallen friends

Dented and tarnished

If I fall again

I will surely die

And I can see

The boxcar behind

Teeter.

Contained Within Monotony

Working within the confines of

Their schedule trudging

Like cement walkways

All of the windows are

Barred

And the residents are

Snickering in sinister

Corners

Conniving

Picking up litter from

The interstate

Or sizzling bovine

Flip the burger

We all have our routine

Every one of these cats

In our cells of ever present

Euthanasia.

The Blood’s Still Dry

I am the Tambourine man

Wildly dancing in the street

For the change falling on the sidewalk

Through the hole in your pocket

I am the clown

With the flattened, depressed face paint

Preying off of the sympathy

Of the man in

Heaven’s dirty backalley

I am the hateful damned

Makin minute fractions of your minimum wage

And still fighting equal pay

And dem liberal’s ideas of

equality.

I am the American Soldier

Alone and lost in the dense forest

Rifle pointed with the barrel in my chest

And the bayonet penetrating my soul

I am the slot machine

Putting in quarters

Winning words, flowing from my bowels

But this poem isn’t it

I didn’t win the jackpot today

Staying Silver Ponyboy

For my father, Ross Silver

 

A great man is not measured by his accomplishments,

By the money in his wallet.

Greatness is measured in sacrifice

It’s recognizing the work of the sole’s

At every shoe bottom

Sewn to heel

To walk out the door

To something greater.

We pass down carbon

Like treasured heirlooms

And though there are many days

Where I can’t manage the resources to stand

I feel your strength in my legs, sitting.

I’ve been blessed in this life

And for the nanograms

Lost in the wandering transition

From life into the ethereal

I’ll be blessed after.

You poor insomniac

Granting me pleasures of privilege

In the witching hour

As well as mid-day

In the trenches

And on their pedestal.

Who could doubt

The suffering

Of a scimitar back

Pressure treated

From years of brick and mortar?

Who could doubt

The callous hands

Of the forgotten working man?