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“Gary Snyder lives in the country. He wakes up in the morning and listens to birds. We live in the city.”
– Kathleen Wood
all I want to do is
make poetry famous
all I want to do is
burn my initials into the sun
all I want to do is
read poetry from the middle of a
burning building
standing in the fast lane of the
freeway
falling from the top of the
Empire State Building
the literary world
sucks dead dog dick
I’d rather be Richard Speck
than Gary Snyder
I’d rather ride a rocketship to hell
than a Volvo to Bolinas
I’d rather
sell arms to the Martians
than wait sullenly for a
letter from some diseased clown with a
three-piece mind
telling me that I’ve won a
bullet-proof pair of rose-colored glasses
for my poem “Autumn in the Spring”
I want to be
hated
by everyone who teaches for a living
I want people to hear my poetry and
get headaches
I want people to hear my poetry and
vomit
I want people to hear my poetry and
weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets, beat each other to death with
swords and
go out and get riotously drunk on
someone else’s money
this ain’t no party
this ain’t no disco
this ain’t no foolin’ a
grab-bag of
clever wordplay and sensitive thoughts and
gracious theories about
how many ambiguities can dance on the head of a
machine gun
this ain’t no
genteel evening over
cappuccino and bullshit
this ain’t no life-affirming
our days have meaning
as we watch the flowers breath through our souls and
fall desperately in love
this ain’t no letter-press, hand-me-down
wimpy beatnik festival of bitching about
the broken rainbow
it is a carnival of dread
it is a savage sideshow
about to move to the main arena
it is terror and wild beauty
walking hand in hand down a bombed-out road
as missiles scream, while a
sky the color of arterial blood
blinks on and off
like the lights on Broadway
after the last junkie’s dead of AIDS
I come not to bury poetry
but to blow it up
not to dandle it on my knee
like a retarded child with
beautiful eyes
but
throw it off a cliff into
icy seas and
see if the motherfucker can swim for its life
because love is an excellent thing
surely we need it
but, my friends…
there is so much to hate These Days
that hatred is just love with a chip on its shoulder
a chip as big as the Ritz
and heavier than
all the bills I’ll never pay
because they’re after us
they’re selling radioactive charm bracelets
and breakfast cereals that
lower your IQ by 50 points per mouthful
we get politicians who think
starting World War III
would be a good career move
we got beautiful women
with eyes like wet stones
peering out at us from the pages of
glassy magazines promising that they’ll
fuck us till we shoot blood
if we’ll just buy one of these beautiful switchblade knives
I’ve got mine
You can find David Lerner’s hard-hitting published works at Zeitgeist Press.
“Lerner was a broken-down saint if there ever was one. He was an eloquent screamer, a soft-spoken rageoholic, a madman with a great manuscript. His poetry will always be a reminder of a time when poetry in the Mission was spontaneous, magical, and more than a little bit dangerous.” — Bucky Sinister, San Francisco Bay Guardian
MEIN KAMPF
If there is such a thing as an honest poet it’s him. Brilliant title actually says it in one word.
Our memories are short when our lives are longer,
We’re shut out when we shout out,
Doesn’t matter, few listen,
A poet says it,
A young girl spoke it,
Kristallnacht,
We’re there again,
MY STRUGGLE
Hyde's miners
Were dead too soon
For Thatcher to crush again
Delayed by history, our bus
Abandoned at the traffic lights
Where the old Hyde Lane
Becomes Manchester Road
We should have walked onward
Or at least made contingency plans
For being betrayed. I offered to help
With the banners if necessary, but I
Was more ornamental than useful
I marched, and was arrested. Twice
Once for being an obstruction
And once for being drunk. I doubt
I made a difference
I rolled a joint
Shared in solidarity
Watched a magpie fight a pigeon