| A Tribute To Beat Poet Jack Micheline Here are some poems by the late Beat poet Jack Micheline, who passed away in 1998. Jack was a real poet of the streets and one of the better Beat writers. I am happy to post them and grateful to his son Vince Silvaer, who runs the Jack Micheline Foundation and the official Jack Micheline Foundation Website at http://www.jackmicheline.com Check it out for an excellent biography, bibliography, examples of his poems and artwork, photos, and mission statement from the foundation. Also thanks to Dave Christy for lending me the poems for posting. Poem To The Freaks Jack Micheline To live as I have done is surely absurd In cheap hotels and furnished rooms To walk up side streets and down back alleys Talking to oneself And screaming to the sky obscenities That the arts is a rotten business indeed That mediocrity and the rage of fashion rules My poems and paintings piled on the floor To be one with himself A Saint A Prince To persevere Through storms and hardons Through dusk and dawns To kick death in the ass To be passed over like a bad penny A midget An Ant A roach A freak A Hot Piece An Outlaw Raise your cup and drink my friend Drink for those who walk alone in the night To the crippled and the blind To the lost and the damned To the lone bird flying in the sky Drink to wonder Drink to me Drink to pussy and dreams Drink to madness and all the stars I hear the birds singing God Bless The Unknown Jack Micheline Born in a daze I wandered across the cities Ablaze with lights Hospital, tower, prisons and all hells habitation Tap in cry and die and keep going What did I know or anyone know We knew nothing Not a god dam thing A blind man searching in the night A child poet Bug eyed from the real racing The need for what others seem to have Appearance certainly a sham This worlds a sham So what has it been any different The devil turns the wheels of the world The devil with his fucking big hat His ritual of deceit and murder Slave, politician, banker, stockbroker, pimp entrepreneur The need for money Learn to make honey baby That is the switcheroo The birds are singing in the trees The flowers are blooming I got my eyes We are all the light Poem To A Dead Pigeon Jack Micheline Grey and white feathered bird You lie there dead For all to see In the sunlit morning Most people pass you by For you are a dead bird Grey and white Your feathers in the sun The Negroes pass The West Indians The poor Irish going to Portabello Market The green stocking girl Who sells her wares on the corner Bananas and dates and oranges They are selling in the market I bend down On my knees In the sunlit morning And kiss your wing Grey and white Gleaming in the sun No more Shall you aspire Air and cloud and sky No more the noises of the rabble To wet your thirst No more On this earth Poor bird Shall the light Blind you to darkness No more Poor Bird No more Heavy Mama Jack Micheline One of those heavy mama's Done fuck with my head She didn't get no lovin So she fucked with my head Those No Lovin' mama's They smother their sons Lay out pain and sorrow On their Lovin' sons head So I ran wild Like a mad dog Through towns and the cities Joined all the causes to clear out the pain sought out the answers for guilt, pain and shame he had a heavy mama who had all the pain all the tender kindness put on your brain through desperation and luck through fire and rain he found his real sound his heart beat like a hammer a poet claimed but deep inside him remains still the pain of a Heavy Mama and Fire and Rain My American Land Is Not Brave Jack Micheline My American land is not brave Nor the silence of the dead who buy flowers I open my heart to love without question or pity I open my heart and weep because men seek the easy road of books and speeches I extend my hand to the bosom of the earth dark and dirty I extend my body whipped by poverty and the sky of poets The world seeks an open soul to breathe The world seeks Man seeks Woman seeks Child seeks The cold night seeks The open wound that strikes at the heart The pulse of fever in tears of lonely nights Nothing Nothing That man has built on this earth will remain Nothing Nothing But the bare heart and soul of creation Among flowers of pain And the faces of children playing in the sun No I do not speak of power or bridges of steel I speak now of the open wound that is the heart that is silent The sea weaves The feet wander The heart ticks The soul speaks Open the wound and hear all that is The lips of frightened lovers Beauty Is Everywhere Jack Micheline Beauty is everywhere Baudelaire Even the worm is beautiful The thread of a beggar's dress The red eye of a drunkard On a rainy night Chasing the red haired girl Baudelaire Across the sky Your raggy pants Laughing at the rain Beauty is everywhere Baudelaire HOME PAGE & ARCHIVES
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