PRAISE TO THE ORIGINAL MIND WHO BREATHES FRESH AIR
By: Jack Micheline
It was attributed to Van Gogh that he said before he shot himself that there was “No Order in Life.” His mind burn- ing colors, deep red and yellows opening modern art to the Twentieth century. Damn the critics, the academies of organized art, or of abortion. They are on earth to ratify the status quo. Killers of experiment and imagination. Poor suf- fering unloved man; the Middle has entered this Art Scene because there is money in it. A taste of Honey Fame. O’Submarine Periscope Hatches open Torpedoes away Zonk another hit A destroyer amid ships Blown away to the depths of the sea It is pleasing like a young virgin sweat and honeycombed desiring, ready for the plunge. The entrance of birdcalls and stars. The weak fall by the side and die. A poet of promise shattered. A Metropolis rises, falls to the decay and rot of man and time. Rooms, rats roaches, ribald dances, Alcohol, siringes, needles, pills, perversions, paranoia. Dark cities on the hill wheat on the plain journals of existence diaries of moments recorded in an assertion of will from that will springs all wisdom knowledge, poetry, revolution, rebirth in the end accepted institution… or madhouse, prison jail, of Baudelaire’s cities of Europe. If it does not sink, the ship comes home. To port—Hamburg, Lehavre, Marseille, Stockholm, Brest, Naples, Paris, Constantinople. I dreamt I saw a hundred Allen Ginsbergs, naked, reading Howl in a window at Macy’s. It is a sad affair what Mod- ern America does to its poets. Or what happens to poets in twentieth century America. When Man’s God is false he breaks and dies, the followers die but an original mind survives. Sherwood Anderson, he had a human face; wandered around the night cities of his youth—the vast Ohio and broadflat Illinois. The machine age had just come and he pre- dicted the human blockade in Poor White, his fifth novel that sorts the pieces and glimpses of a wandering youth. And the Fiery young angry Erskine Caldwell in his epic piece “Sac- rilege of Allen Kent” published by a small Maine Print Shop in 1933. Man alienated from society. America got fat and rich from resources and war. The true element, the communica- tion from and with man to man became a hardening process. The stickball games are gone, the crap games in school- yard, the bonfire in the lot. Mickey parties, lost orgies, even the baseball players lost their fire. O’fat primitive America. I blow fire up your asshole. Selby’s Tra-la-la done shook ‘em up, done blew a wig off a cat in London too. Bukowski in the dregs of L.A. blowing sounds for all of us. Let his voice be heard across the sands and deserts of this nation. Too much commercial bullshit. Too many Ego’s deadwoods posing as artists. Too many face jobs and nose jobs and clowns. A fire-bug dark German sleeps on a couch in the next room, writes all over the world turning people on. The doing and the deed is the revolution. Like the lazy sun breaking through clouds, red are the buildings, black are the walls. But the Fucking sun lives on, comes after the night and blows our minds, yellow! Praise the original mind that breathes Fresh Air. Piss on Despair, do ya hear. Adios Baudelaire, Firebug of my mind, longshots come home after a long ride! April 1968 New York City
You can find this poem in Jack Micheline’s book — Sixty-Seven Poems For Downtrodden Saints.
From Amazon: "Sixty-Seven Poems For Downtrodden Saints" is the last book completed by poet, Jack Micheline, prior to his death. It is an important publication and one of Micheline's finest, representing a great variety of Micheline's body of work, and includes many unique photos and graphics of "Beat Generation" writers. This book is a treasure.
There's so much crap out there today because every artist thinks "how can I make money out of this?" If that doesn't destroy the endeavour straight up the long game of selling out surely will.
This one is a lot to take in, but it is breathtaking. I thought it was strange when I dreamt about having a chat with Walt Whitman. A hundred Ginsbergs howling in Macy’s window in a dream in the Sixties, whoa. Kerouac squared. Thoughts?