"I'm Not A Man" Harold Norse poem read by A.D. Winans

Harold Norse's celebrated poem "I'm Not A Man" read by poet A.D. Winans on  5/10/2015 from:

I Am Going to Fly Through Glass: Selected Poems of Harold Norse

Read More HERE

I'm not a man, I can't earn a living, buy new things for my family.

I have acne and a small peter.

I'm not a man. I don't like football, boxing and cars.

I like to express my feeling. I even like to put an arm

around my friend's shoulder.

I'm not a man. I won't play the role assigned to me—the role created

by Madison Avenue, Playboy, Hollywood and Oliver Cromwell.

Television does not dictate my behavior.

I'm not a man. Once when I shot a squirrel I swore that I would

never kill again. I gave up meat. The sight of blood makes me sick.

I like flowers.

I'm not a man. I went to prison resisting the draft. I do not fight

when real men beat me up and call me queer. I dislike violence.

I'm not a man. I have never raped a woman. I don't hate blacks.

I do not get emotional when the flag is waved. I do not think I should

love America or leave it. I think I should laugh at it.

I’m not a man. I have never had the clap.

I'm not a man. Playboy is not my favorite magazine.

I'm not a man. I cry when I'm unhappy.

I'm not a man. I do not feel superior to women

I'm not a man. I don't wear a jockstrap.

I'm not a man. I write poetry.

I'm not a man. I meditate on peace and love.

I'm not a man. I don't want to destroy you.

-SanFran, CA 1972

The Man You Don't Want to See

​​

Beware

He’s a cheap trick puffing

On a cigarette

You can find him at the jukebox

Or at the pool table

Looking for an easy mark

He’s a cashiered soldier

He’s a second-rate Don Juan

He’s the man behind the cage

He’s the smile you see on cable TV

He has his nose up the ass

He’s a jack of all trades

He’s as old as mankind

In search of a battle zone

A boner without a bone

He’s a sex addict

Hiding under your bed

A towel man cleaning up semen

From a brothel bed

Reciting the 23rd Psalm

He’s the difference between

Night and Day

A Preacher who sells options

On how to pray

In a downtown pawnshop

He’s a weather-beaten cop

Dining on mashed potatoes

And pork chops

Intent on winning over you and me

He’s into Yoga and a master of Zen

He’s the food in a pigpen

Of anyone who can do him a favor

He comes in 28 different flavors

He’s the stain left behind

In the church pew

He’s a masturbating monkey

In the zoo

Dressed in designed jeans

And wearing dark shades

A cheap treasure find

He’s the man you never want to see

When you wake in the morning

And see yourself in the mirror

            

                                                                       

Poem about Feelings written by local Prisoner Published by AD Winans

I published many prison poets when I published Second Coming
from 1972-89. William Wantling was one of the best of them.
His statement here express my own feelings on poetry. AD Winans

 

POETRY

 

I’ve got to be honest. I can

make good music and rhyme

 

at the right times and fit words

together to give people pleasure

 

and even sometimes take their

breath away---but it always

 

somehow turns out kind of phony

Consonance and assonance and inner

 

rhyme won’t make up for the fact

that I can’t figure out how to get

 

down on paper the real of the true

which we call Life. Like the other

 

day I was walking

on the lower exercise yard here

 

at San Quentin and this cat called

Turk came up to a friend of mine

 

and said Ernie, I hear you’re

shooting on my kid. And Ernie

 

told him so what, punk? And Turk

pulled out his his stuff and shanked

 

Ernie in the gut only Ernie had a

metal tray in his shirt. Turk’s

 

shank bounced right off him and

Ernie pulled his stuff out and of

 

course Turk didn't have a tray and

caught it dead in the chest, a bad

one, and the blood that came to his

lips was a bright pink, lung blood,

 

and he just lay down in the grass

and said, “Shit. Fuck it. Sheeit,

 

Fuck it. And he laughed a soft long

laugh, 5 minutes, then died. Now

 

what could consonance or assonance or

even rhyme do with something like that?

 

The Inauguration ceremony Poet Laureates in San Fran

Winans and Vargas

Poem for Ginsberg

Poem For Allen Ginsberg

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Destroyed by success and greed

Smug fashionable poets turned businessmen

Who rode the National Endowment For the Arts

Pimp train, ignoring Captain Cool and his magic airplane

 

I saw the best minds of my generation loitering

At closed down amusement parks

Disguised as hobo tramps standing in long lines

In hope of becoming a Southern Pacific Railway detective

Self-proclaimed geniuses who tossed restlessly in their sleep

Like a pair of naked dice on a worn Las Vegas craps table

Their ragged claws scraping at death’s window ledge

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Lying lifeless in glass coffins

Hands folded in gratification

Their vacant eyes blinking like a pinball machine

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Hanging out at Broadway topless bars

Searching for paradise, fat and content

Smoking Tijuana slims

Stone-faced magicians on their way to the graveyard

Three steps behind the screaming monkey grinder

With the one-eyed masturbating monkey on his back

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Looking like James Bond understudies

Cruising the casinos of Reno and Las Vegas

In between being chauffeured through the

Neon lit streets of Atlantic City
Looking for the Now, Wow vision of there

Personal Zen masters

Pretty-faced aging celebrities

Hungry for the admiration connection

Who carried the star fuck media message

Inside their chemically induced minds

Who overcome with ego wandered

the streets butter-cheeked

And Crisco greased in search of there

15 minutes of fame

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Walking down Hollywood and Vine

Tossing and turning in exclusive spas

Ignoring the long lines of hungry eyes

Waiting to devour them

Who floated across congested Los Angeles freeways

Looking for the right off-ramp

Stopping to partake the pleasure of heated

Swimming pools and Roman orgy bath houses

All the time contemplating their navels

And recording contracts

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Bare their not so tight assholes

To aging agents wrapped in silk sheets

Autographed by the King of the Beats

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Gangbanging ageless groupies

From San Francisco to New York and back

While accumulating frequent flyer miles

Sad-eyed space cadets from the Gregory

Corso School of bad boys

Photo by Ginger Killian Eades

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Expelled from luxury hotels for writing

Bad graffiti in the men’s room

Who necked in the back alley of Gino

And Carlo’s bar while hawking there

Poetry in between ATM withdrawals

 

I saw the best minds of my generation cowering

In New York subways

on there way to literary parties

Lusting after host and hostess alike

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Standing naked in fear

Burning out there counterfeit talent

At Sardi’s and Elaine’s

As the final hours came closing in on them

 

I saw the best minds of my generation

Listen in terror as the 4-walls came crashing

Down on them

Lady obscurity coming to claim them

Like a faceless hat check girl

Let loose in the morgue’s of America

 

Recent Photo of AD Winans for Local Artist to Create an Upcoming Portrait

POEM FOR A POET
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

the mind silent like a whisper
in the still of night

you stiff as a mannequin

laid out in hospital gown

eyes fixed to ceiling

silent poems spin in  your head

weave present into past

until you’re back on the docks

lifting crates with hooks and beefy hands

waiting to clock out

hit Gino and Carlo’s Bar

with other white cap longshoremen

young women eyed your masculinity

devoured your loins

your head buried between

nectar sweet limbs

now laying in solitude

fluids not whiskey

race through your veins

nurses pass your room

pay no notice

tubes in your nose

labored breath
this is the way of life

the angel of death

no angel at all

but a minion from hell

growing old was not supposed

to be like this

dreams reduced to confetti

fall slowly to the ground

stepped on or around

death waits like a sadist

plays your mind like a card shark

your breathing ragged

as a rat’s claws

the hour’s pass

at horse and buggy speed

the bones bleed

death a faceless mugger

does a two-step shuffle
like a gypsy woman selling her wares

in the shadows of the tattooed dawn

CAPTAIN JACK by AD WINANS

CAPTAIN JACK

I know this poet who dances with words who does the two-step political hustle that lacks any real muscle a Waltzing Matilda poet who glides along the dance floor like a skilled political whore a poet weaned on the game of favors who traded in his vision for a poetry politician's hat but dancing for an audience isn’t like feeling the rhythm that rubs up against the soul Buffy Saint-Marie Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Billy Bragg is living proof of this power corrupts the spiritual truth the scriptures tell us this the true poet knows this stands tall above the dancing with word poets who are little more than an instrument of a poem far greater than themselves bar room revolution talk is little more than an exercise in futility take it to the streets be like Walt Whitman walk blood stained battlefields real and imagined tend to the spiritual wounds of your comrades quit trading favors in twenty-eight Baskin and Robbin flavors be like the people of Egypt who risked life and limb for their beliefs be like the anonymous poets of Poland who during the height of government tyranny tossed poems into the public square for the people to read giving them hope in desperate times sitting at Spec’s bar in North Beach downing shots of vodka and shouting,” I hate America," is cheap political theater be like your sisters and brothers in the workers struggle in Wisconsin marching for worker rights love them become one with them shout your poems from town squares and from rooftops in solidarity with them. words can not be danced with they need to be lived Whitman was the Heavyweight champion of poetry stood tall and fearless among the enemy which is never really man but the poison in his soul pride envy lust for power how can those inflicted with this disease write from the heart? one column of media praise is of less value than a single tear-drop on a poem from a waitress in a greasy road stop diner

a poet who dances with words dances a solo dance in a barroom with no jukebox the true poet’s topic is the people not the poet

 Wisconsin Historical Society
 1966 Fair Housing March
Lead by James Groppi,