I went into the Maverick Bar
In Farmington, New Mexico.
And drank double shots of bourbon
backed with beer.
My long hair was tucked up under a cap
I’d left the earring in the car.
Two cowboys did horseplay
by the pool tables,
A waitress asked us
where are you from?
a country-and-western band began to play
“We don’t smoke Marijuana in Muskokie”
And with the next song,
a couple began to dance.
They held each other like in High School dances
in the fifties;
I recalled when I worked in the woods
and the bars of Madras, Oregon.
That short-haired joy and roughness—
America—your stupidity.
I could almost love you again.
We left—onto the freeway shoulders—
under the tough old stars—
In the shadow of bluffs
I came back to myself,
To the real work, to
“What is to be done.”
— Gary Snyder, “I Went into the Maverick Bar”, Turtle Island (1974)(Source: woodysblues)
B is for Bad Poetry, Pamela August Russell
(Source: interwar, via brokenmachine)
orderisdivine:
Lew Welch, “Chicago Poem” (excerpt)
(Source: lovevoltaireusapart)
Maybe it is true we have to return
to the black air of ashcan city
because it is there the most life was burned,
as ghosts or criminals return?
But no, the city has no monopoly
of intense life. The dust burned,
golden or violet in the wide land
to which we ran away, images
of passion sprang out of the land
as whirlwinds or red flowers, your hands
opened in anguish or clenched in violence
under that sun, and clasped my hands
in that place to which we will not return
where so much happened that no one else noticed,
where the city’s ashes that we brought with us
flew into the intense sky still burning.
— obsessions//denise levertov (via sunsetpanic)
Everywhere I Go by Jack Micheline
mewmugi:
Everywhere I go is beauty,
trees illuminated
street lights glowing in the darkness
I want to run up to strangers and kiss them
but there is too much noise
men kill each other
I’m sick and tired of seeing sad faces
stop that bastard machine
everyone is God and Holy
a spike is ripping at my throat
I smell a fragrance of a rose
everywhere I go is beauty
1.
i sit down next to her
& our toes begin a love dance
i think
how beautiful
her dark smile
her brown skin
& i touch her arms
her belly
our legs touch
& i realize i
want to see my white hand
on her dark breasts
and i cant do it
i try but my eyes
disappear
& all i can see
is beverly, beverly
tired & laying next to me
i get very confused
i dont really want to do
anything but be next to her
my hand touching
the small of her back
i cant do anything
except think love thoughts
to her & flash lights in my
head & wonder if she can
hear me loving her
2
in the 9 dimensional
collapseable universe
waiting for some one to
do it
i ask her what
she really wants
she knows!
she wants security
& i am so old and silly
in my need
i tell her the truth
— d.a. levy, Poem for Beverly (via thethorninhisside)
theghostgirls:
A poem from Diane di Prima to painter, Michael Goldberg. 1993.
