FOURTH OF JULY POEM

Stepped on pissed on

Cheated and abused

Taken advantage of blue collar man

Caught up in the American scam

 

Don’t tell me anyone can be

Anything they want to be

If they put their mind to it

 

Save you BS for the deaf

Dumb and blind
It'll never sell in the ghetto

Or to the immigrants

You’ve turned your back on

 

Take your message to the church

Tell it to the man on death row

Tell it to the starving poor

Tell it to the sick and lame

Tell it to the rich folks

Tell it to the politicians

Tell it to the serial killers

Tell it to Wall Street

 

Tell it to the man on the gallows

Tell it to the chiseled faces

On Mount Rushmore

 

Tell it to the street whore

Tell it to the crack head

Tell it to the last wino

On  desolation row

 

Tell it to the banker

Tell it to the butcher

Tell it to the unemployed

 

Tell it to the circus clown

Tell it to the insane

Tell it to the outlaw

 

Tell it to the panhandler

Tell it to the con man

Tell it to the baby
Found stuffed in a dumpster

 

Tell it to the displaced factory worker

Tell it to the elderly

Tell it to the Repo Man

Tell it to the last alien
Hiding out in Roswell

 

Tell it to the militia

Tell it to the FBI sharpshooters

At Ruby Ridge

Tell it to the arsonists

At Waco, Texas

 

Tell it the Indians at Standing Rock

Tell it to the junkie

With dry heaves

 

Tell it to the farm worker

Tell it to the dishwasher

Tell it to the orderlies

Tell it to the flag waver

Tell it to the coal miner
Dying from black lung disease

Tell it to the Chinese peasant
Toiling in the rice fields

For a dollar a day

 

Tell it to the garment worker

Slaving away in sweat shops

In Chinatown and the Latin Quarter

 

Tell it to the garbage man

Tell it to big business

Tell it to Corporate America

Tell it to the Supreme Court

Tell it to the blood stained NRA

 

Tell it to the Fascist President

Tell it to the oil barons

Tell it to the tobacco merchants

 

Tell it to the fur industry

Who club baby seals to death

For the clothing merchants

 

Tell it to the Vatican

Tell it to the Priests

Tell it to the battered wives of America

 

Tell it to big “Pharma”

Profiting off the sick and lame

Tell it to the millions of people

Dying from air pollution

In Mexico, China and India

 

Tell it to the man on his deathbed

Not sure why he lived

Or what he is dying for

 

Tell it to Jesus Christ

Shout it to the stars

Line the traitors up against the wall

Rewrite the Ten Commandments

And start all over again

THOUGHTS ON THE CALIFORNIA DROUGHT

THOUGHTS ON THE CALIFORNIA DROUGHT

sitting here feeling like a used car

one part after the other failing me
the aroma of  fresh brewing coffee
wakes my brain cells

the drought laughs at the masses

teases them with a light drizzle

picture of an old lover stares at me

from its place on the mantle
her smile warm as the campfire

I sat around as a child
my room a dust garden

my hamstring pull refuses to address

the promised golden years drown

in quicksand

Israel and Palestine engaged in endless war
Putin playing death games in Moscow

proof the cave man still lives inside us

fields toiled by immigrants
now treated like criminals

the elderly a liability

the young puppets in a political game

poets once warriors on skateboards
now prisoners of pride and envy

I take refuge in the soft raindrops
the peace of solitude rides my veins
like a steamship treading calm waters

the garden of my mind is still green

poems wait to be planted in fertile soil

no drought can kill

POEM FOR BUKOWSKI

He was the original

Jack the Ripper

He was the tormentor

Of John Bryan

He was the villain

Of women’s lib

He was the last hope

Of the down and out

He was a Third Reich monster

He was a Hindu Guru

He wrote Harold Norse

Get well cards

He tormented his enemies

He frustrated his friends

He wrote poems in the shit houses

Of America

He wrote poems in the ballet

Of his sleep

He wrote Harold Norse

Get well cards

All he was folks was

The best show in town

Holy Priest Circus clown

The best act around

He was a Roman sonnet

He was an Irish ballad

He was the best Cesar salad

In a gourmet restaurant

He had the face of a moon crater

The stomach of a wheelbarrow

The heart of a whore

Which is more than you can say

For 90% of the poet’s around

He dug Brahms

He dug Beethoven

He was the heavyweight champion

Of Los Angeles

He was the Chaplin of San Pedro

He was stalked by the minor poet’s

Of San Francisco and Los Angeles

And the soft-boiled egg eaters

Of the Café Trieste

He was a rainbow of watercolors

Mixed in with one too many

Sunday morning hangovers

He loved boxing

He loved his beer

He loved his daughter

He loved his women

He was an antique book

In a broken down hotel

He was a bottle of aspirin

In an empty water glass

He wrote Harold Norse

Get well cards

All he was folks was
The best damn show
In town

Activist and Poet Nellie Wong Gives Public Reading with AD Winans

For More Info Click on Each Link in this Post

Award Winning Poet: AD Winans

Award winning native San Francisco poet A D Winans and Oakland native poet and activist Nellie Wong will be reading from their works on September 16, 2014 at Adobe Bookstore.

A D Winans has been published internationally and translated into ten languages.  He will be reading from his new book This Land Is Not My Land, NYQ Press and from new poems.  He is the former editor and publisher of Second Coming Press and received a 2014 Kathy Acker poetry and publisher award.  In 2006 he received a PEN National Josephine Miles award for excellence in literature and in 2009 was presented a PEN Oakland Lifetime Achievement Award.

Nellie Wong

Nellie Wong was born in Oakland and has published four books of poetry.  Her work has been translated into Chinese, Spanish and French.  She traveled to China in the First U.S. Women's Writer's Tour with Tillie Olson, Alice Walker, and others. She is a well-known activist, and has been honored by the San Francisco Women's Foundation and University of California, Santa Barbara.

When:     September 16, 2014

Where:    Adobe Books

                3130 24th St 

                San Francisco, CA 94103                                       

Time:       7:00 PM

In the DEAD HOURS of DAWN by A.D. Winans

New Release from Bottle of Smoke Press

The latest book from A.D. Winans is In the Dead Hours of Dawn. 

Poetry, 32 pages. 8 1/2" x 11 1/4". A new book of poems by award winning poet A.D. Winans consists of poems not previously published in any of his previous fifty-three books of poetry. The cover is printed on Fabriano Tiziano paper using hand-set 12 line Bradley wood type and 54 point Satanic metal type. The text is printed on vintage Curtis Tweedweave paper and set in Adobe Garamond Pro. Printed via letterpress on a Vandercook SP15 in Newark, Delaware. ISBN-13: 978-1-937073-42-8. Published in a limited edition of 100 hardcover copies signed by the author and numbered 1-100 ($50.)

Click HERE to order from Bottle of Smoke Press Online

Payment may be made by Pay Pal, check,

or major credit card.

If paying by check, please

send payment to:

Bottle of Smoke Press

902 Wilson Drive

Dover, DE 19904

WIND ON HIS WINGS

sitting here
at Martha's Coffee Shop
my eyes lock in

on a petite young woman

with a body only the young possess   

my mind on fire

with lost adonis visions

my body bartering for timeshe seemingly unaware

of my eyes undressing her

she oozing sex

me an old man with groaning limbs

a once proud hawk turned                    

into a buzzard groveling

for road kill

she with near perfection

picks up her cell phone

speaks in an angel's voice

a smile on her lips

my imagination undressing her

tasting the rose between

her legs

the warmth of flesh

the warmth of youth surrenders

to this old man

who becomes young in mind

the rhythm in my blood

strong as a young hawk tasting

the wind on his wings

-A D Winans

Letter From Rod McKuen to A D Winans

Dear AD,
I put off reading Akbar's interview with you until I could safely squirrel away some time to really read it. I knew it would be worthwhile and as I suspected the answers blew away the questions. You always exceed my expectations of you.

Lots of excuses for setting aside pure and thoughtful enjoyment such as perusing words from a poet and human being I admire and respect. A member of the family wasted away and died - just a cat to anyone who thinks being owned by a feline, silly, stupid or just plain weird, but Kubby was the closest thing I had left to a family.

I haven't heard from one brother since he was, after much petitioning brought handcuffed by plain clothed guards, from some penitentiary or another, to Mom's funeral some decades past. Long ago we had stopped getting along when we were just getting along and not relating. The other brother? We are too close. Life was never easy with him and I'm sure his appraisal of me would be the same. Still I love him and would do anything for him but our life together seems increasingly a series of threats and demands by him and negotiations or silence from me. I am too old to quarrel and find it a waste of time so the silences between us grow longer.

Last month I turned 74 and he, like you, is 71 - born three years and two days apart we celebrate our birthdays on the day between . . . so on April 28th we turned 150.

Losing Kubby only amplified my sense of aloneness, not solitude, I covet solitude and can never get enough of it. I know you feel the same about the productivity and solace of being alone, your poetry, approach to it and your forty year fight to have time alone to write ring clear.

Other excuses; deadlines not met, promises not kept, mail unanswered, as always saying yes to every project offered and only fulfilling a portion of them. Making endless lists, feeling guilty about not cleaning up my room . ..let alone my life. And, on and on and on. (What guts to complain about every flat surface in my room being taken up with stuff when your rooms and world have recently burned down.)

I hope you have waded through all this AD because it's a preamble to what I want to say about the kinship I found in your words. Having your poetry to rely on is something, but overhearing your conversation with an interviewer starts to make a presumptive friendship with you important.

It's after 4:00 am here, as it is up north with you, and I haven't yet gotten to the meat and spuds of what I want to address, I'm rambling and growing tired -- though I know it will be another sleepless night. Even changing the trusty right hand to the left, thus attempting to entice and surprise my dick, doesn't seem to work any more but I'll get through this night and morning as I do the rest.

Wanted you to know in the meantime that I'm thinking of you and that your words are spinning in my ears. With a clearer head & maybe no scotch I'll continue, maybe even before cleaning my room.

Please remember that poets go on forever, whatever that is and the best that can be said for academians is that they had a nut named after them. All of us are out there in the same leaky boat and we should be bailing instead of throwing mud at one another.

Luv and all that goes with it,
Rod
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rod McKuen is an American poet, songwriter, composer, and singer. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s. Throughout his career, McKuen produced a wide range of recordings, which included popular music, spoken word poetry, film soundtracks, and classical music. He earned two Oscar nominations and one Pulitzer nomination for his serious music compositions.