Reading From California Beat Poetry Number Two
Canyons Of The Mind
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Reading From California Beat Poetry
Page 123 Razzle Dazzle Man
Night falls softly on the street corner blues
The razzle dazzle man sits on his stool to play
with his coffee colored skin
and his thread bare suit
and his dusty hat
and his drift wood guitar
and his polished two toned shoes
and his buck toothed smile
Melodies of a broken heart
Stories pour out as the all night girls walk by
They drop quarters and smile
Upstairs the broken glass hears
songs from the past
songs by the whiskey faced men
songs from the pirate ship wars
Inside the guitar a cannon explodes
Now a black cat insomniac paws to see
The razzle dazzle man going home
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Reading From California Beat Poetry
Page 103 Puzzles And Circles
Hollywood and Wilcox trying to understand
Dark clouds and tour buses raining their brand
Siamese twins barking like seals for a dollar
Wrinkled old man down in the squalor
Sirens go by as hustlers sling dirty words
Hollywood’s a poem crazy and absurd
Up and down the street blows a golden peace
Up and down the hills roams the filthy beast
Sidewalk cafe changing her name
Fingers on the keyboard playing the game
Puzzles and circles brand new paint
Cops on horseback worshiping a saint
Puzzles and circles Hollywood fear
Tourists with money wasted on beer
Puzzles and circles sun going down
DJ’s spinning the same old sound
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Jazz Notes #3
Behind him in the shadowy corner
dim lit stage and a guitar coaxes a steady melodic message
drink up – have another one
she’s gone – your fault …all your fault
people shuffle in and out…some whistle and clap
at the music
the jazz guitar
depressed and lonely he stays and drinks
a friend drops by – who owes him a saw buck
asks for another – and a drink
mind decides to drift inward to the songs
whispers of dream clouds and beach days…sea shells
good woman and good whiskey
money to burn…
the dark corner stops playing- silence is deafening
still he stays and drinks
soon the break is over and the jazz heats up again
until dawn ….he leaves
until tomorrow…
Jazz Notes #2
From the ripe age of 12 he learned his craft and taught us about miracles
that all came under the headlines of JAZZ -gypsy jazz
the thunder that rang inside his sweet head and fetched
Stephane and his swinging violin to the stage
Despite the fire in the caravan and the burns and losing some fingers
and feelings –
the guitar came first
Music from European small cafes while women danced and whirled their skirts
Paris night clubs melting under hot lights and sweaty crowds
twirling his mustache and bending the strings, all the while smiling that grin
that he knows something naughty happened
He changed us, the world, the way we think…
from stages in London, in front of thousands of lucky souls
while Eddie Cantor kissed his hand and allowing
American jazz to seep into his gypsy skin and bones
Playing with the Duke at Carnegie Hall and bowing
to the cheering New Yorkers, he played
God did he play
A beatnik at heart he sometimes skipped concerts
“to walk to the beach” or “smell the dew”
We owe a debt to you sir and thank God you made records
Jazz Notes
Soft notes escaping from the Harlem window as big old Buicks
cruise down Fifth Avenue and dine on dance clubs until dawn
Ella and the Count are everywhere and anywhere for all hip cats
to dig and find a place to jump on
The golden horns and smoky air intoxicate the modern soul
that yearns for the truth about what momma told them
Listen closely for a Blue Moon to saddle up the past with real
dollars and very tiny income
Red rose gardens and whitewashed school books suddenly
make sense in the cool reefer night
Forgetting the style and not caring for rules the cats bob and weave
as the bats fly out and give you a crazy bite
Jazz from the earth and Jazz from the sky, calling for the east
and calling for the west
drums beating loud for the cattle call that rounds up
Harlem’s best
Soft notes escaping from an empty loft near the park that
fall on the sidewalk until the ghosts move along
Victrola heaven cranks orders from the magician’s
vocal chords that tap out the broken heart’s song
Get up right now and head to the store, the radio, or the
old smoky club
Your jazz is waiting patiently and you never have to
show the man your ticket stub
A Hole in the Heavens
Sometime after the War, the big one, the second time
after years of austerity
after years of fear
after years of funerals
after years of hard labor
A hole cracked open in the heavens
and music poured down
and poetry poured down
and literature was born
and freedom expanded
Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Elvis, The Beatles, Steinbeck, and Playboy
danced in the streets
danced in our ears
danced in our minds
danced in our feet
Yes, they came from the Heavens, the place where all goodness is born
but the hole dried shut
sometimes it leaks a little
but not nearly enough
sometimes we need more, much more
So, the next one of us who dies, better leave with a jack hammer
and find where the hole use to be
start drilling, and drill down deep and hard
let the goodness flow down on us
like a flood
