Somewhere Between Missouri, Axels & Viet Nam

When I was eighteen in 1969 the Army selected me to go by troop transport from Kansas City to Washington D.C. for a meeting of AUSA, the Association of the United States Army, I was in ROTC.

I had been attending military school in Missouri since the ripe age of 13. There were rules against booze and dope at the school and the ordinance was strictly enforced. Any fellow cadet or instructor could rat on you if they smelt liquor on your breath or ganja on your person. Since I was of draft age at the time getting busted meant immediate induction in the Army and trip to Viet Nam most likely. I was against the war and was scared to death of getting my nuts shot of or worse. As cadets we heard stories how guys in Hueys on their way to combat sat on their helmets to protect their family jewels from stray flack or bullets.

I was slated to go in the Army as a Second Lieutenant in the Ifantry upon graduation. I would have made the worst platoon leader in Army history. I hated guns and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with one, having little idea how the sights worked as well as no knowledge of maps or compasses. I would have been what they called 'fracked'or shot by my own soldiers in the back for sure. 

As for any interest in the war on my part, it was limited to how soldiers in combat used a M1 rifle like a bong or hooka to smoke opium and ganja, as well as a fascination with hairless Asian pussy. 

Terms such as, 'honor', 'serving ones country', and the general jingoistic grap of the day meant nothing to me. And the Viet Cong where much better versed in the arts of warfare and better soldiers than us. They were true soldiers who had something to fight for. 

Mostly I felt hated and despised by other young people of the time and when on leave I could see the looks of distain on the long hair's faces when they saw our military haircuts. It felt like a outcast, and all I wanted to do was to stop shaving and having to get haircuts. I wanted to  buy a van and go on a spiritual journey out west somehwere, to New Mexico or California maybe. 

Why the Army selected me to go to Washington as a representative of whatever it was they perceived me to be was a enigma. I saw the week long trip to attend military meetings as a booze, dope and fuck holiday. I had no plans to go to any of the meetings because no body really gave a shit back then and I wouldn't be missed. 

The trip on the troop transport plane would be my first and last thank God, because I never made it into the Army anyways. Thanks to the Quakers who helped me get out of the Army all together, not on moral grounds, but by helping me get a Section Eight, in that I was way too crazy to visit a country that wasn't mine and cut off body parts and set a glow it's inhabitants with a flame thrower. Proving I was nuts was no chore because I was and still am mad as piss. 

I bought some acid from a fellow cadet and took a few doses before getting on the plane to D.C. I spent the hours in flight listening to the Grateful Dead and the Doors on a tape player with batteries, tripping my brains out. 

On arrival in DC we where transported by military buses to Myer-Henderson Hall, Fort Myer. I was still tripping my brains out and didn't even know what country I was in. When we reached the barracks I was assigned a bunk. I immediately stripped off my uniform and put on some jeans and a tie-die t-shirt with a Dead Head logos of a skull with dread locks on it, still wearing my military issue combat boots, I hitched a ride to Georgetown. 

I got a ride from a couple of red neck chicks in their 40s, who thought they where hippies, but were only impersonating hippies for the day, wearing moccasins and bell bottoms with funny floppy leather hats. I offered them some acid, but they didn't want any because they were basically boozers not head. They had a ice bucket of beer in the trunk of their old Chevy station wagon and.

They proceeded to give me a tour of such hot spots as the Washington Momument, calling it huge cement phallic symbol. Then going on to explain that it was a metaphor for the monumental ego of all the male politcians in Washington.

They dropped me off in Georgetown thank God because after I saw the big cock (Washington Monument) and got my cock sucked I wanted to ditch the dogs ASAP. 

I entered the first bar I could find in G-Town, the bar was the type of place that no self respecting frat member would go to drink. It was called 'Axels'. They served up shots of cheap whiskey and beer in mugs. Patrons where served peanuts, shelling them and throwing the shells on the floor.

Axel's was filled with bikers, clergymen, professors and poets. The conversation was something from another planet to me, jaded subject matter, speaking of Nietzsche as though they were in a lunatic asylum, nothing seemed to mean anything, and being nowhere on acid was where I was at, it was a good fit.

I was just another lunatic in Axels, lost in a jungle of existential superlatives as time seemed to disappear while "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Astral Week' flowed in color out of the Juke Box in rainbow waves. 

Axels in Georgetown was a far cry from Missouri, it was as though I 

was in Dorthy's house swirling in a tornado cloud as it landed on the planet OZ. I could hardly speak a word amongst the nothingness wizards, I felt as though I had eaten a bucket of Thorazine and could only stutter, spit and babble. 

I realized that Axels was beyond anything that I had ever experienced so I made my way back to Fort Meyers somehow, I missed the entire week of U.S. Army seminars. The education I got in Axels was something you couldn't pin down on a military map. I had plenty to take back with me to the academy and it had nothing to do with war or reality really. 

It was one of those intrinsic experiences that cant be explained or translated in words. It took me weeks to get back to earth, and the earth seemed like a new horizon full of potential. 

Years later I realized the experience could be sumed up as 'when you are ready for the teacher the teacher will appear and then you will disappear for awhile'.

to whatever it might be babe

to all the holy ones that line my jacket with your fur

to the summer rain in the fern covered forest 

to the crazy beats who died before the resurrection

to the moondog who barks out wisdom on marble

to the whore on 42nd street who makes with the cum

to the ones who never make it and just fade away

to the donkey show in tijuana for all the hard work

to the clown with the old head of lettuce in the circus

to the people who put on put over put in and pull out

to the racks of garlic bread at antonios in brooklyn 

to the junkies on the corner of lincoln in chinatown 

to the purple riders of the broken dawn out west 

to the freaks who don't give a shit and never will

to my fifth grade teacher in 1963 who sucked me off

to the sacred penis or legume that brings us joy

to  the hipster and freak who live in the vanguard

to big brown nipples on huge d cup tits full of milk

to liverwurst pastrami and corn beef sandwiches 

to blood that runs through you during a full moon 

to a 1000 and one things at a time coming forth

to all the things that keep bein what they are now

to any old thing to me you he them it that or other

to the scared and the profane now hear this  thanks

Like Yeah

like a song steaming steel ball blues

like a amsterdam whore w/ her heart of fire

like a bluebird singing a song in the breeze

like a stream of cum runnin down your mouth

like some bloody shit on your  unholy shoes

like a girl in the forest in a glittery gown

like the monk reading gospel from a stone

like some deadheads who are marching to war

like some truth blurred over loud speakers

like dropping and dropping tumbling over

like over and over tumbling into hell street

like me and me payin for the life i lived

like you know it was your fault too babe

like your fault you yours and yours bitch

life Line

butterflies and scorpion tails

a wahene in a dried grass skirt

3 shots of vodka to wash down 3

lines of cocaine white sun blow

a old shot gun 2 ounces of weed

3 tailored suits worn by no one

a life jacket from the titanic

bubbles flowing by blue clouds

a pink lion riding on the back

of a albino whale through sky

a ocean of long sharp grass waving

good bye as a the town sleeps

old closed down stockyards full

of skeletal remains of buffalo

a building made of triangles

a brass band and large bowl

somethings big long and small

a bag full of symptoms and flu

a copy of todays paper on desk

several aspirin on the floor

a old shipping trunk and lace

a rotten piece of yellow tail

a skunk skin cap with tail

three dark shrunken heads

every bit of it lies near or

between a old record and a

pile of tobacco stained paper

Circus Music

over the edge like popcorn

blue flame pouring out of gun

king kong the midget fire eater

juggles razor blades on tongue

purple hair stripper shows tit

painted the color of rainbows

pitched-up slighty towards hills

broken beat bandanas waiving

in wind a sign that the tribe

has landed on hilltop moor

Sahara

boding in the sand

i can see mirages

the snow up ahead 

my feet burn red

a stick holding up 

a fly weight boxer

its me & you oh  harsh

n mighty sahara bandish 

me because I am lost

my mouth is beer dry

no compass star or oracle 

will save me @ the pass

just let self drop silently

to the desert floor 

pitching back and forth

oceans of arms & fish tails

pulling you through to 

the otherside of now

Mexico San Juan

ever life again




not in the nitre




frogs r chirping




birds r perching




cowboys r free




girls with melons






in sweaty wood pool




tons of blonds




take off blouses 




later their dresses




lotza tequila & 




burgers down the 




hatch a new life in 




mexico san juan 

The Ballll Park

its opening day at the ballll park in brooklyn willy mays babe ruth tom waits ty cobb clomps spitting opium spiking the bum chewing tobacco foul far out a mound of dirt with gauze resin bags bean bags tar red sony transistor radios ray ban glasses ball hats rain and bats


socrates steps up on a stump and reads the star spangled banner  in greek to the beer nuts as good as if not better than sousa at the balll park place full of banners and flagstaffs were stars and moon beam mingle with artificial light of night games drunk haze and waves 


fresh cut grass cut like a crew cut brushed back to make a green carpet for the ballad of the unscripted dancing leaping tracing throws of beauty and measured effort attacking the ball with grace homerun ace and strike out


the ball goes back and forth and around, but somebody wins most the time so you can go home eventually

Short Note 'Frida & Diago' 1953

at the back doors of the brick-house you could see trance lights and music burning into the night rusty roses galore tragedia of segovia flamingo dance roll over beethtoveen if i don't get lucky where will i lay my head tonight


rockefeller plaza 1956 deigo rivera paints a mural of mexican common man a fateful folk history adorned with  picture of karl marx  capitalist sledgehammer marble blowing it up like a atomic bomb blast


frida kahla lover of classic painting a red yellow colorful slaughter-house spine dripping poppy oil painful out & out images of city girls and ancient inca pride in morse code of the scared paint brush eyeballing artist who painted to live or die in sepia colorless world 


diago telegraphing revolution with brush like frida on fire being a artist a license to be a whore monger saint of color or loyalty knowing that it is impossible to keep up sanity or insanity on dharma trail of old oxide paint and vision

John Berryman is Dead

john berryman transfixed by henry on the horrid day he shot
himself or took poison 1 or other to  body bronze full of
electrical waves and all the whiskey in charlotte WXZT radio 
playing classics not lifting him cashing out of room 8 


yes the summer was hot in chinatown mixed up plenty too 
she bled him fed him more booze hour by hour as he scripting
poems combing through garbage dumps dark alleys salvaging
looking for wooden ships cat eyes hypno-erotic ancient oaths


forgive-fulness in golden age of the survival techniques
dead wallpaper peels the yellow room of the notorious
sideways motel pauperized cockroaches swarming by you
as if magnified by a 1000 times in coterie of a dying brain


they stored his cremated ashes in a prince albert tobacco can mixed 
with bougainvillea flowers and thorns playing polka moving
ceremoniously this can of bones to wicker zoo on duchamps 
birthday placing it in gorilla cage to be stomped on allot


as lovely remembrance and monument to tortured life
as seen through tortoise shelled spectacles on elysium fields

Fucked Up Out West

crocodile cross in jeans pocket

pan head heavy metal rubber burn

blacktop road opening up ahead as

time flows so fondly in distance

buffaloes grazing on purple panacea

red moon clay hills cactus flowers

chill in the air of new mexico

peyote buds navajo adobes  hills

sunshine breaking up and folding

as bottom falls out of soul being

holding on to scared heart of love

rhythmic medicine man a road map

shaking a rattlesnake tale making

it rain and busting your balls with

lightning at will on the edge of

doom-laden vision going nowhere

bringing it home in the morning

drinking jack daniels for 24 hours

carving devil-head with a bowie knife

in a mesquite tree way out somewhere

reveling in rugged history of desert

skeletal long horns long dead on sand

indian tobacco goes up in smoke

The Cinema

in a hush eating mars bars and 

popcorn @ the Oriental theater

where celluloid dreams ooze off 

the screen as Queen Cleopatra shows 

bends, showing us her boobs with

dreams of a roller coaster ride, and—

expectations, the crowd wonders, 

what is behind the red curtain.

A Mirrored Face

face growing dull in mirror, wane

dwindling content, wafered mass

emerald and golden dust covering the

taj mahal as blue blue birdies fly by.

look in her face, lady jesus, and see:

mercy for the wicked, grassland, heart

shaped chocolate, a painted portrait of

madre in the streets of barcelona 1970.

the semiopague face of loretta young,

pulls you into it. watching it's fragile

countenance under water, drawing,

you can't swim, you let go anyways.

Whose to Blame

as a inner city baby cries, stevie wonder chants a message teletype into hot deepness, electric summer night, the bronx 73.

it was the day when martin luther king, gandhi, bobby kennedy,

lenny bruce and john lennon crossed the great divide.

ocean blue whales exhale last breath on beachfront, telekinetic suicide with brief dying symphonies of whale opera and tragedy.

me looking at whale, eye to eye, we both know the world was not guaranteed, unfair even, the padre, rabbi, mayor, and scientist don't know why.

at the planet asylum on 5th Street the doors are open as sunny, beatific and blithe loonies luxuriate in carnival fest. by george the cops don't know right from left, they are arresting trees and tables.

it is old news that the earth has been knocked out of its' orbit by seismic tumbles and cracks, we can still see the moon.

but, what has gone wrong, and whose to blame? we had it right once.

Cocaine Springs

out and out in the brush fields of our town, angles clown around, hug deeply fly and dance to eternal drum beats of extraterrestrial blowing of snow.

they hide out by the factory with faeries, hummingbirds, flamingos, and the pure holy men of coco mountain.

destination unkown for those place sitting and watching time flow.

the dancer waxes slowly to san pedro, heart music in hand, feeling others flesh, soft like white velvet, in a outgrowth of full moon beams.

the silent gray room is everything, visible everywhere, windows and blustering curtains, song of a ocean, dreams as dreams peer.

Saint Pablos

Oil of French Perfume, round and fat as the Mardis Gras, psychedelic beer, drunken wine high.

Dark skinned hash boy carrier burning bricks of flowers and buds, smell so good.

Blue Cubano Cigars licked by Marlene Dietrich, ruby red Lipstick stains, blood stained scratches on face.

Seven Iguanas were gutted, cleaned and boiled in whiskey with water, cut up and washed down with Mescal, Beer, Beans and Tortilla last night @ Al Loco Cafe.

The New York Museum of Modern Art will replicate the motorcycles of "Easy Rider" both Billy's and Captain America's, as well as a 1957 Red Cadillac, fake Sushi for display, Keith Richard's guitar and a Fijian shrunken head.

In the yellow and black Nuclear Energy Plant, the liquified fuel in beer - can swiming pools is clear green and looks like Mountain Dew Pop.

When they sent Sid to Rik's Mille State Home, there was purple phantasm steaming from cracks in frozen walls, and latter, (happily), he evaporates into Spirit.

Three red smoke rings turbo up, a neon staircase of air cork screws its way to next world Nirvana.

Behind a velvet curtain, Gina A. Grade shows a rounded and elliptically lipped, red-brown nipple lining a silky satin bra, her cocoa-colored neck wears a spoon and dagger seizing a jade-link chain clasp.

Lightly dusted oval flaming lips, `tu madre, vaporizing up, out and away from Saint Pablos.

the Fool

Fuller Brush and Skunk headed hipster cleaning floors with a broom and a mop, waxing vestabules shining like pools mirrored and magnified in Saint John Somewhere, America.

Like a killer on death row, he wasn't saved by Mercy or Divine Intervention @ El Diablo Cafe, rubber-kneed, wacko, bozo, dusted and flee covered lover of miasma of de joie red silk hose, skanky hose, and g-strings, like aged nose gay vaporizing at your feet and in front of your face.

When we wrote the script, while we were puffing that night, did Peg Leg plan to scuttle

the Titanic, set it ablaze in fantasy only to resurrect it in cut-ups, like Burroughs throwing

slices of typewritten yellow paper into the air to find a light at the end of a sentence, freely

grooving on another dark boy in Algiers, tempting spheric waves in Yaga and Rum Storms?

Smoke Rings yawning wider and wider, go round and round, rolling up to Elysian Fields. You told me you loved me and then you fucked that fucking Goat Boy with his thin and dirty dung waxed fluorescent hair .

Penciling a poem, that no one will read~ the Fool.

The Lizard King

He was the "Lizard King" who drove on Empty. He was Hercules speaking Greek, the Sun King to boot, he was Victor Mature and Lawrence Harvey.

Quick as a Rattlesnack, he could dance on his feet, roll over, he played Marimbas and Spoons, he was a flat back brand new crisp Dollar Bill, fit tight to the pocket in a Black Leather Wallet with a Silver Chain.

Hummingbirds, iguanas, avatars, monarchs, spirits, id, lizards, angels, ghost, circuses, psyches, dreams, covered in Electric Snow.

It was the time of the long hair freaky people, the ones that ate Mushrooms, Yucca bushes, Banyon trees and vines, they pulsated, exhaled, oozing orgone rays in High Jungle County.

Floret Amour

Peering on beach from Banyon Tree brow, watching Dolphins splashing Blue Sea.

Angels and Monarchs sound tow-colored trumpets for Green Ants on sand uneven.

Red Crown birds dip into blossom nectar, one on one with Prairie Flowers petal-flush.

Heaven's Breath frees Fireflies. Surealism spirit and flash-spots in blue nightfall cloud.

A moment's sojourn scrawled in the hue and tint of needles, leaflets and pines, replete.

A swell of arousal burst forth as dew droplets shower on floret, on fleshly blush amour.

The Evil Poem

The list of miseries I carry around in my bag of machination is a pyramid of verse, that is turned on it's side and starts with a word; ONE, and then balloons into a multi-headed beastly swine spewing blood & vine, a ghastly whats-it with empty soot cavity wanting of life force, wained and hollow, begging for a wooden leg or a scrap or two of tin as eye patches to cover bellicose eyes that exhilarate as they bogey, unsafe & hairy; Poised to whack before being walloped.

Consummate and wanting to beguile or to hypnotize with the regulation of the Scorpion sting at the end of it's linked tail. Accepting no petition from babes in woods, turning deaf ears to wails, howls or bellows.

This beast is my beast, no headmaster, organic barnyard usher, constabulary or necromancer can pattern this feeble muscle, just a spasm really, of godawful evil vile and odious as a Apple soaked in poison, compassionless, premedicated purple haze of death without glimmer, ruby red la cocktail of cyanide, bitter, dry in taste.

In `19th Century, Rome, a Gypsy girl brushed her lips upon my ogre and the horrid thing ripped out the poor child's tongue while munching on her pinkies like twisty crisps.

Paris, Marrakech, Rome, Elise, St. Petersburg or Los Angeles. What might look like a plum or marshmallow

to the unknowing, is my soul, 100% past the rays of God's own glory & redemption.

I am Lucifer unchained, who can fly like Superman through astral spaces from century to century. No wall, barrier, bulkhead, or mother's love, no hexes of Puritans, wooden crucifixes, prayers or black books will stop the evil I will do on your village and family.

I was the Nazi Doctor dissecting twins, I was the Japanese Soldier torturing and raping Peking.

I was the force that pushed your car over, as you plunged to your death, in the Sea on a drunken spree.

I was the Pirate Ship that took your yacht for all it's value and defiled your family and love ones.

I am the living embodiment of all things depraved & nefarious that flies like the spirt vulture and hunts your soul.

I beg of you not to look at me, I will cut your throat before you can flicker, so be forewarned and fly like a Butterfly, fly, North, South or West, fly away from the locus and fector of my heinious and unforgiving fire.