​REVISITING INSOMNIA

​

4 am lost in the never 

land of chronic insomnia
a dark forest ravished by storms
where dreams go to perish

 

My mind hijacks my destiny
speaks in a foreign tongue
devours the silence like a sinkhole

Walks up and down my spine like
a gypsy tailor pushing a garment cart
down a long cobbled road

 

A sacrificial virgin burns in volcano ash
a Tijuana Jesus nailed to a plastic cross
winks at the twelve wise men making
a return trip to the Manager
after a shopping spree at Walmart’s

 

Poems swirl in my head like helicopter blades
drop me off at a graveyard where
a one-handed fortuneteller trades in
her crystal ball for a pack of tarot cards

 

My love returns from the Bermuda Triangle
in the disguise of a mermaid

 

There is no shelter from the storm
the river flows through North Beach into
the Café Trieste drowns one sleeping poet
and a burned out jazz musician

 

A political poet floats down to Spec’s Bar
with Mao’s little red book clutched in his hands

 

Pope Francis pleads for humility
God answers with a bolt of lightning
Jesus raises the stakes with rolling thunder

 

An army of red ants marches
backwards off a cliff
A bee colony drips honey between

he legs of a dairy queen

A haunted house coughs up
an angry ghost drunk on death

Dante gives up his seat in Hell
to Rosa Parks who recites
the Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew
to a honky Sheriff in Alabama

 

Saint Peter empties purgatory
turns sinners into saints
Van Gogh demands his ear back

 

A new born baby is sacrificed at the Louve
a French Mistress closes her legs in protest
the mirror splits in half mocks my existence

Satan recruits me
God mocks my counter offer

a whisper of sleep camps inside my eyeball

I surrender with a whimper drown in a series
of Hail Mary’s recited by a defrocked priest
surrounded by thirteen sexy nuns

dressed in see through habits

            

                                                                       

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

BROKEN PROMISES

BROKEN PROMISES

at eighty years two months
the sun beats down on me
like the gleam in the eye
of a butcher lowering a hammer
on the head of an unsuspecting cow
being led to the slaughterhouse

the memories circle me like
old time Indians circling
a wagon train

I walk backwards into my birth
each new year like
a sharpened knife in the hands
of a trembling surgeon

lost in insomnia like a blind man
walking a dark road in
the dead of night

waking like a shotgun blast
in a killing field
lost in a language
I can not translate

the priest passes
the collection plate
rejects my confession
my sins laid out like
a sea of stars in
a far away constellation

all my poet friends take sides
purity versus the hucksters
God's choir plays bagpipes
refuse to play referee

the creaking coasters
of my grandfather's rocking chair
sing in my one good ear

the Holy Ghost devours
me like a python
my childhood like a bat
in a dark cave waits for God
to come out of the closet
and deliver the long
promised resurrection

Brain Scan with Thoughts Attached

Poem: Brain Scan with Thoughts Attached

Back from an MRI
Brain Scan
I listen to a Miles Davis album
Black Hawk San Francisco 1962
Where a young Latina and I
Grooved on the vibes

Here at home
Jazz in my head jazz in my bed
Jazz waking up the dead
Miles, Charlie Parker, and Lester Young
Serenade an army of poets
Sitting on my bookshelf

T.S. Eliot playing the banker
Walt Whitman walking the battlefields
Williams Carlos Williams suturing wounds

Kaufman walking the 
streets of New York
Juggling a “Golden Sardine”
Sings a duet with Billie Holiday

Blake playing cards with God
Lorca playing Russian Roulette
Micheline dancing with Mingus
Gary Snyder building word bridges
Me doing a tango with a fallen angel
And suddenly I’m not alone anymore
The words falling like soft rain
In a winter green garden

Two New Poems by Winans

POEM FOR THE FRIEND WHO TOLD ME I NEED TO STOP DWELLING ON THE PAST

a friend of mine tells me
I need to stop dwelling on the past
that nostalgia is an anchor
that will weigh me down
he's like the lyric
to that Hank Williams song
"I saw the light, "I saw the light."
a song he sang to Minnie Pearl
his feet sticking out the side
of an open convertible
on its way to Memphis
I'm still groping for that light
a hundred shadows from my past
hitchhiking along for the ride

angels have traded in their wings
for a ticket to my dreams
the phantom of the opera
has a front row seat in my nightmares
mutilated poems wrap them self
in my arms
pit tomorrow against yesterday
nomadic thoughts camp inside
my brain cells
master to none  servant to many

old flames light  burned out torches
in my loins
there is no place to flee
no resting stop at the end
of a long journey
from here to nowhere

I spend the afternoon
at Martha's coffee shop
with hot coffee and a newspaper
for company
tomorrow those same
newspaper lines
will be past history
should I pretend
they never existed?

I am ten months into
my seventy-seventh year
winter will soon be here
with her cold claws
and heavy rain
forcing her way into the walls
of my mind
were she of human flesh
she would crack open
my memory vault
find miles of past memories
that flow like Li Po poems
down a river old as time
should I ignore her
tell her to come back next winter
that now isn't the time?

I have written one too many
memorial poems
for friends who have passed-away
should I shut them out of my mind
focus on tomorrow
build a graveled path that leads
to the promised land?

my emotions are trapped in quicksand
no place to run  no place to hide
endless chatter comes from
the 4-walls where death
hides between the cracks

the past is my lover
she clings to my body
like a child to a mother's bosom
she sleeps in my memory cells
like a phantom bank that accepts
only deposits  refuses withdrawals

I think of her
like I think of San Francisco
the city of my birth
the salt air smell at ocean beach
the Marina Greens
north beach and the Fillmore
all filled with memories

my past is my present
the future a gypsy fortuneteller
my existence
a slow chugging locomotive
on an anonymous journey
known only to the conductor
punching invisible tickets
in the hands
of faceless passengers

GHOSTS FROM THE PAST

I drove the freeway to Tucson
1060’s Hipper Era
pulled over twice by the police
long hair and California license plates
got me  two citation warnings

three days in redneck country
was like a year
drinking at Western bars
with cowboys who eyed me
like I was an Indian escaped
from the reservation
unsure why I had come here
nothing beautiful nothing natural
except for the stunning sunset

a poet friend calls me
says Ginsberg has flown back
from India to become the resident
Guru of the Haight Ashbury
while I rack up a third warning ticket

cowboy drunks give new definition
to the word redneck
no room for compassion here
no room for poets
words like a campfire
with no match to light them
die in the desert heat

I pull up roots drive north
the death mask sunset
rides a passing cloud

I stop in the desert
pop open a bottle of water
have a one way conversation
with a cactus plant
wonder what my shrink
would think
the beauty of solitude
I could have
a million conversations
in a single morning dialogue

I return home keep
a notebook by my bed
write down my dreams
but when I wake in the morning
someone else's handwriting
is on the pages

no one will analyze
the blood between the lines
see the ghosts walk the halls
restless souls from my past
that stalk me like a starving wolf
in the dead of winter
looking to fill his hunger
on wild game
or words that cling to flesh
like scraps of exotic food

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.)

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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.

Fourth of July Poem by A D Winans

       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 your message 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 men 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 last wino

       on the bowery

       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 garbage can

       tell it to the displaced

       factory worker

       tell it to the elderly

       tell it to the last space 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 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 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 the Fascist Congress

       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 molested children

       tell it to the priests

       who stole their innocence

       tell it to the battered wives of America

       tell it to the pharmacy industry

       growing rich 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

by A D Winans