Riddle of the Great White Shark

When I was in Vietnam, 1971, in Cam Ranh Bay, I spent sometime along the shores of the South China Sea. I met old man, one evening; I was but twenty-three years old he was in a nearby village that the South Vietnamese and North Vietcong used, the South by day, and the North by night. I had drank in the village before, even though it was off limits simply because of this, and if I’d get too drunk, I’d stay the night, and in the mornings I’d jump over the fence, and run back to my company. It was several miles always, but I had good lungs. Well, this one even an old man perhaps seventy or more sat in an open aired hut, there were other folks there, but I was the only US Soldier present. He asked if I had ever heard of the ‘The Riddle of the Great White Shark?’ I was drinking Saki, bought him a shot, it is a strong kind of wine for sorts, I said “No,” and added “Why?” (It had seemed he took a liking to me, and I to him.)
“If you are interested in the riddle, buy me another drink and see me tomorrow just beyond the village here, on the shore and I will show you something.”
Cam Ranh Bay had, if anything, beautiful white sandy beaches, and is considered to be one of the world’s best inlets.
In the morning I met him, got permission to have the day off, and we got into his boat, and we paddled out a distance, not too far, and he told me “We will dive here, and I want you to follow me, and what I point out, I want you to observe, and remember, and when we get back into the boat, I want you to tell me what you saw.”
And so I did follow him, after throwing out an anchor, and I dived with the old man, he swam like a fish, for myself, I had learned to swim at the YMCA, when I was a kid, and was good at it, could hold my breath about three minutes, and we swam down to the floor of the sea, and we were in front of an entrance of sort, which lead into a rocky sort of cave, and there the bones of a Great White Shark remained, it was stuck into the entrance of the cave, blocking it somewhat, it actually was wedged tightly on each side, thus it never made its way into the cave.
We stayed there less than a minute, and back up again we went, perhaps total time, less than three minutes, because I was not gasping for air, but I felt tightness in my chest, and a little light headed.
“Well,” said the old man, “What did you see?”
“Bones stuck in the entrance to a cave!” I said rapidly.
“But why,” asked the old man, “why did the shark try to get into the cave?”
I deliberated in my head on that for a while, as we rowed back to shore. Said, “I suppose he was hungry, and his prey got into the cave and he went after it and got suck, and died there.” It was an over implication, but the best I could come up with.
The old man looked at me and laughed, said “I don’t think so, no sir, the shark is not that dumb, he is king and there are many fish about here, as you already saw, do you think he would push himself so hard as to not be able to wiggle himself free?”
I didn’t answer that question of course, feeling it was a rhetorical one. The old man wouldn’t tell me the rest of the riddle, and I left him where he was, once back on shore. But the night before I was to go home, he sought me out, and we drank again at that little outdoor hut, Saki, which I paid for, and I got him drunk, and asked, “Tell me the rest of the riddle before I go home?”
“Why,” he told me, adding “if I give you the answer, you’ll never seek the truth of the matter out, you will be like so many, bury it into your head, never to find it again. This will make you think, and I suppose my answer is a guess, but close to the truth.”
“Perhaps I will,” I said, “but you are thirsty, and I will buy you Saki, as much as you can drink until you pass out, for the answer.”
He laughed again at me, but he said this, “When this particular shark was born, I used to go down and play with it, feed it, it swam into the cave, not sure if that was its home, but that is where it swam, and I swam with it, in that cave, then one day, the shark disappeared; just like that. Actually, it had gotten so big it could hardly make its way out of the cave the last few times it went in, and thus, went about its way one final day.”
The old man stopped there. And I asked, “So tell me the rest?” and he said somewhat curiously, “You still do not understand the riddle do you?” I guess I didn’t I just looked at him, and ordered another bottle of Saki, and he laughed, and opened the bottle and added “Sometimes we want to got back where it all started, perhaps do something you haven’t done, or something you had intended to do, and never did. Perhaps he was looking for that—something. Perhaps he thought if he could go back to where he could find whatever he was missing, or lost, things would be different, ok. But he was not the same creature he was so long ago, and he needed to understand this, which he didn’t perhaps until it was too late, and I was too old to play with him now anyhow, and death sits no longer on its tail and waits for one to do what they felt they intended to do, and never did, so whatever you intend to do in life, do it while you can, do not wait, you may not be able to go back where it all started. That my friend is the core of the riddle to me.”
And I thanked him, and got up, and left, I never saw him again.

Then it was in 2005, a friend came to me in Roseville, Minnesota, sat down at my table, at a bookstore, his name being Gary, he made slip cases for my books, a master at it, and said “I bet you have grabbed every opportunity in life, life has given you!” It was more of a statement than a question I think but I turned it into a statement-question. And I said “No,” he looked at me as if I should have a follow up, so I added, “One time, and only one time, I didn’t grab life when it was offered to me, and I regretted it for ten-years, but I never let it happen a second time, and I made up for the loss.”
Incidentally, last I heard, Gary and his wife, Susan were in India…!

#2364 ((4-28-2008)(1:15 PM))

"The Sun, and Coffee at Starbucks" (a poem) and "Intrusion"

The Sun, and Coffee at Starbucks






The sun has no door today—but it’s looking for one;
its face is in the window—slightly, it has white bright
knuckles this afternoon—
It drags its Sunday rays along the profile of my face.
The trees outside, from where I sit, across from me
through the window,
are porky-pine green, and beyond those, are peach
colored balconies.
I’m at ‘Starbucks,’ Benavides: the walls have long
stretched out pictures, of a weird coffee pot,
tables, circles, coffee cups, and musical things, things
like horns and notes, and so forth…!
My latte is strong, I like it like that, and I sip on it,
while reading: Shelley, Dylan Thomas, and Plath.

There are no clouds today in Lima, just mist from the
ocean, mixed into the atmosphere, a lazy
lazy mist at that; a stiff and thick kind of mist, like
soup—with slow moving feet, for I can see patches
of blue beyond it, and the sun, the sun I so love
seeping through a porthole or two, still looking for
that door.

#2362 4-27-2008



2) Intrusion
(Poetic Prose, and Confessional Poetry)


When I was a young man, I was likened to terrified fish, an alcoholic that is what I was back then, not how I wanted to be. It is forty-years now. I know now I was better off with no father, thus, I had to row my way to where I am today, through a generation of vipers. Mother was always fearful I’d become nothing more than driftwood, but thick salt kept me up, and I didn’t know (floating just above my neck). My mother and brother were happy (perhaps the only ones) when I somehow slipped through the keyhole and finally opened the shut door and joined the opposite continents. A late bloomer you might say.

#2363 (4-27-2008)

The B. Haiku & the H. Poem

1) The B. Haiku
(Haiku)

The bear with the beard,
holding a beer, is by the barrel,
and the bird.


2) The H. Poem


Whoever wrote this poem?

Hills, horses and Heaven
Have much in common
Hell, homes and hay
Have about the same
Hat, and high school rat
A little less…

However, whatever, whoever
Rode the horse home
With his hat, from high school
Wrote this poem
He is the one to blame!...

#2315/ 3-11-2008 (how many H’s)

360 (4-27-2008)

Running from the Devil (Allen Geinsberg)

Running from the Devil
(The Poet Allen Ginsberg)

(Please read notes for better interpretation of poem)


Part One
How He was

He was running from the devil—during his last days,
he tried to be an agnostic, but was really an angry atheist,
always getting in God’s face, he never gave God an inch,
just insults as if he wanted him to change his rules,
his ways, change the status of his beliefs (somehow the devil
filched his soul, I dare say): he and his ex-lover
William Burroughs who played the same games.
Somehow, Burroughs outlived Allen by four months,
he had to get rid of his cats first—I suppose,
or perhaps it was his rats? –he also left his letters of pity,
for mankind, and the devil laughed over his drug infested piety.
Ginsberg even implied he was going to hell for his lustful,
obsessive, grotesque, possessive desires (he proclaimed
if anything, he was no liar, perhaps that’s is true, for
he let the world see is rotting soul…); so he claimed,
contributed to the insane American way of life,
how nice, he grabbed onto the knife, but never
cut out the pus, nor opened the boils, the sores,
that covered the core of his soul…
white on rice, like mice to cheese, he simple ridiculed
all how who sought peace with God. And wrote his
indecent poetry. And that is his life’s story.

Part Two
More of the Devil

But as I was saying, he was being chased, running from
the devil whom came for him—on that last doomful day—
for he was a man of letters you see, and he wrote what he lived,
believed in; if anything he was overly candid, in a pitiful way!
Thus, I do believe perhaps the death demon came,
once for him before, but spared him the day,
so they could play some more—with his love for sex
and objects, and vain over glorified name;
but his day, was his day to die, and I believe these
devils or demon wanted to drag him down to the underground
world, and his hours were few, and short, and the horse he
was on had no name or route, so he kept saying 'giddy yap'
and with his mind and feet, he tried to defeat the devil
(running in circles, and more circles, on an endless path);
yes, he tried to defeat the devil, whom was his master
in foreplay, and now his running mate.


Part Three
His Running Mage


And when they (he and the devil) were side by side,
neck to neck, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh,
eye to eye, he told death to shut up, and death said
(with the devil laughing behind) "I never get tired,
I can run and run and run, until there is no sun,
run and run until twilight comes, run and run
until that old heart of your’s stops beating,
be it another hour or ten, or hundred, it doesn’t matter when,
you’re talking to the devil, not man, and I can…!"

And the horse and Allen keep going,
and going and going, running everywhichway,
until there was no more giddy-yap left, and death
was then on top of him, like a vulture to a corpse—
like a mouse to cheese, like a worm to dirt, like a
fish to water—and the devil dragged him down,
down deep into the ground, like a dead lion, bull,
to scheol’s courts, near the docks of hell, to
where there would never be another single day—
just one long one.

Note: Allen Ginsberg wrote only a few poems before he died, which was perhaps for the better of mankind. Matter-of-fact, his last poem was on March 30th 1997, a week before his death (he died April 5, of the same year). On March 24th he wrote "Giddy-yap giddy yap giddy yap shut up." This basically was all he had to say in the six line poem. Not a very intriguing poem to say the least. But what was he saying? In many of my studies with people dying, in psychology, working with the aging folks, I look at what I consider unusual behavior, and this out of the ordinary behavior struck me as meaningful, it had touch of reality to it, I have witnessed similar at times, so looking at his past, knowing his behavior, and his poetry, what was he really saying? We all interpret things the way we want, yet there is a pattern if you study his last writings, and so here is my interpretation of those almost final words, during his final two weeks of his life:

#2313 ((3-8-2008) (modified 4-14-2008; and 4-21-2008))

"Days of Tears and Tarnish" (Dedicated to David Meyers)

Days of Tears and Tarnish

(A poem on grieving, death and renewal)
Dedicated to David Meyers


Days of tears and tarnish
Often hidden
Behind one’s days of youth and charm
They came to you, you know
Like two water drops
Made into one, so long ago,
then one dies
And the other looks out the
Windowsill…
No glory descends
As the world turns
We just go back to
Living our life (after grieving):
Waiting for the mailman,
Paying taxes and bills
Feeding the fire to keep warm
In the cold Minnesota Chill;
Poised as a hushed rose
Remembering
All those years…


#2357/4-20-2008 (This poem is dedicated to an old neighborhood friend, Dave Meyers, died March 23, 2008, at the age of 64, from cancer—a quite sort of man, married to my high school friend Nancy, for 44-years).

Mrs. O'Day's Dinning Room (A Poem on Mental Distrubances)

Mrs. O’Day’s Dinning Room
(A poem on mental disturbances)

She’s no beginner
In her elaborate sequels
To do herself harm
Suicide or spite
She could fool the best
With her hidden sickness
(passive dependence,
Manic edge, borderline
Schizophrenic —eyes cocked)
Now bobbing back and forth
In an armchair (full of medicine)
Locking the doors behind her
In fear of shadows and the weird.
When she’s all there
She’s always the new woman;
She used to be, pretty
As pretty can be,
Now fat and aging
Carefully she hammered
Herself out like that…
Slowly, slowly, so men would
Avoid her, leave her be;
She knew she was breakable
Too brittle to live among the
Malice and mad, the crooks
And the deceivers, I say—
Too brittle, as old ceramic.
She now talks shallow
Over the phone, like a mouse
Slowly opening up it jaws
Listening, staring face—
Wondering if she’ll be devoured
Before she speaks, or
Dragged under the carpet…
And needing weeks and weeks
To rebound and recuperate?
She most always feels alone.
She even ambushes herself to
Hide inside her apartment
Fending off her fiends and ghosts!
When they’re gone, she
joins the world again, in
the patients’ dinning room.

#2356 4-20-2008 (this is a poem on the life of an old friend, of mine, dedicated to her, dedicated to MS). It is a sad case in so many folks who have to deal with mental disorders. But in America anyhow, there are places to go, and medication to take helping one to make it through a life somewhat normal. Alas, for the third world, where I spend much of my time, and have visited asylums, and do not have all these leverages.

Some Sad, Some Lonesome Days (a poem)

Some Sad,
Some Lonesome Days


Some sad,
some lonesome days—;
old friends dying of this and that!
Some killed in the war, some waiting, some not.
Kids left me long ago, no reason to return don’t need me anymore.
Lost a job not long ago, got sick, everyone knows felt empty, worn.
Wish mother was still alive, no fake skies!
So many friends turned rotten—deep in the gut, I sensed something’s
coming, and it did, an earthquake.
Some sad, some lonesome days—; fog coming in off the ocean, summer’s
gone, gone for another season.
Trying to stay away from arguments, fights
Too old, too near the end of my plight
A lot of bullies in the city, the world, everywhere, behind desks in bars
and cafes—don’t care
hard times everywhere, that’s been, kind of my life.

Wish I could smell the fall leaves burning in Minnesota, my hometown.
But I’m too far away—in Lima, Peru (wish I was in the mountains now)
in the grooved valley—
My brother, is already there—I keep—moving to it—

Keep your distance friend—
I seen too much now under six feet of gravel
Been listening too long to the blues,
Stopping for gas, and getting apocalyptic gifts
No way to close my mind, filled with clouds and bushes
Guess I really don’t care— some sad, some lonesome days they come
and go
Uncertain as the weather.

I hear
the song birds twitching
In my gardens, they haven’t left me, yet!
The dirty pigeons leave twigs all around, nesting by the window, a mess
This city never sleeps (day or night), eight-million in all—yet empty
Wish I was back in the mountains, perhaps soon—
I don’t regret much, can’t wait for a new book to read, it’s the only
thing on earth, honest with me….
I quite driving in this city, too many cars, exhaust
They all hate my honesty —too much, it bothers them
I walk around the house half naked, but I don’t care, it’s creative
and liberating
better than swatting flies or telling lies and gossip

So many memories & some hard to live with, can’t go back, or hide
Too much dirt on the road, too deep the bedrock underneath, just be
prepared to live or die—
Love, love—empty—some harmful—
But it’s everywhere I look; it comes and runs, leaves like a fish—
If it doesn´t hook you, it gets hooked; if it hurts, its self-defense
Kids call when they think you’re going to die, and write your will
blameless they feel—and years pass
Its too late now, love, love it came and gone, left like an old warn out
song (for the children)
Uncertain as the weather.

Some sad,
and some lonesome days—
So I’ll tell my maker when I meet him on that special day!
No dime stores left anymore, only my unwise temper remains
The sun doesn’t follow me anymore, left it behind.
Left it in Minnesota along ago, with my youth, but I got along.
Rosa’s my sidekick, don’t need a wife, so I found out when I woke up,
even under
Uncertain weather.


Note: Confessional Poetry, (10:00 AM), 4-19-2008); #2354 (Dedicated to an old neighborhood friend, Dave Meyers, died 2008). "The devil tries to destroy God in us, let him not take God’s place. With humility, we can forget and forgive, and go on living, and prepare our souls to meet the Lord. Part of love is excepting each other for who we are." Dlsiluk

Poem of the Alcholic

Poem of the Alcoholic
((Where’s the River)(Confessional Poetry))

When you’re a drunk, you drink as if you are an endless river,
I know, I have, and one’s emotions flow like currents high tides,
never stopping, never knowing how to stop, never stopping because
it is to you not worth the trouble or time, and you say: I can stop
anytime, anyhow, and it is better than anything else anyone has offered,
why would, why should I stop? they offer nothing but talk, talk, and bills,
and a troubled world. Thus, quiet in a corner I’d sit, dreaming, dreaming,
smoking, and never quiet knowing, never joking, laughing: just drinking
and smoking hours and hours away, my face like glass, my mind drifting,
my feet and butt, getting up and going to the bathroom, coming back, staring
at pictures behind the bar, and making gestures, listening to the music box,
staggering about, here and there, you hit your head against the wall, and ask:

“…how did I get here?”

And you wonder why you do what you do, but you do it over and over and

you’ll do it tomorrow again, and you’ll do it again, and again— and over and over,

day after day after day, and your body finally says: enough, enough,

you’re going to die at forty… if you don’t stop.

Now being sober for twenty-four years, I ask myself:
who else would do such things? Live a drunken life, trying
to smother and suffocate one’s will, and at some breaking point—
you hide like a mole, a ragbag , of a man, this is what you’ve become.

It all comes slowly, at nineteen, you say: not me, I’m too young,
too physical, but it catches up to you, and blocks your will, deadens
your spirit, covers your soul, makes you the fool…; nineteen has long
passed now, you’re not sure what a man is, you’re thinking with the mind
you had at nineteen, and you are thirty-six! What happened? It is like boiling
a frog alive, slowly, and it not knowing it.

You always know where the river is though, it’s that drink, that object,
the main thing of your life, your love, your god: you hid it in the car trunk,
at home in the back of the toilet; the extra money you hid from your wife and

kids, hidden well in your sock, so you can go back to the river,

finish your ongoing daily pilgrimage, soon, very soon it will consume you,

and you’ll sell your cloths, and rings and cars, and sporting things,

you’ll even borrow and beg, go to the food shelves , to save money for

beer and booze. It’s never ending; it has your will, and its own.

The demons are bare and sinister and put corkscrews on your valves,
so you crave and crave and crave, stiffen with panic, you find a way
to escape the house, and go to the river (you even create fights with
your wife, so you get kicked out) for your beer and booze, hence, bury
your mind back into the muddy reappearance of your one and only
true love… unimaginable, but so very true.

You lose your free will; your mind slips into the madhouse, as
if it was exploring, looking for its identity, but you find you are
simple an object, a drain to pour down the remains of the river…

You are an object acting upon others; you smile and frown—as the
moment demands, and try to make it through the day, counting the
hours away, until it is time to drink again. You feel like the clown, and
you want to become drowned in your obsessive river of beer and booze, a
death and rebirth, a night to morning curse, engagement…sobering
only means getting ready again for the fathomless tides in your mind
the shut off valves that make you crave for your drink, swim in your
pitiful river, unloading those contemptible thoughts, yellow-eyed
monsters, caught in a storm, never to diminish soon, for you have entered
no-man’s-land, a no-man’s zone: dreamscapes, obscure revelations…
colorful cuckoo birds, hiding in another’s nest—that becomes
your life! Your quest, you plight; this is really you in a nutshell,
this is you, at your best, your worse, is yet to come.

Your sleep is twisted, you really never get it, and you pass out. Your
breath horrid, dry, stale, and you reek in your sleep, and moon, and snore
and fart—as if your guts were to explode, and it is a horror and living
and dying horror. You want the world around you to drop dead,

but it never does, never will, and you know your time is up soon:

your muscles and thoughts are like potatoes, your insides like mush,

and you try to open the door, but your hands shake, you are no longer your

own keeper. You are a cat’s tail, a dog’s limb, a hollow owl,

an anchor too heavy to move, with a grass head and beard,

and puppet walk, you cry: “How do I stop!” Your heart is hardly

pumping it is almost completely plugged, soon to explode like a volcanic

eruption and when it splits, that is all that will be left.

And if you live through all this, you find out there are no secrets

to sobriety: only your will and God’s!


Note: The greatest gifts I ever received from God goes as follows: life and birth, sobriety and faith, peace with God, my mother, my wife…sleep, everything else, everything beyond this, was a bonus.

#2352 (4-16-2008)

In the Children’s Dungeon, 2008

In The Children’s Dungeon, 2008
((The Sea-toad Knows)(a long poem))
1—Iron
In raising my children I never heard their death sighs, years away…

Like a rustic faucet, of cast-iron, slowly was their false love dripping? Like worms gathering and crawling in a future nest of brooding, worms from hell, full of vengeance

I never saw their boneless hearts tell now, old age but, they were saying, “Wait, wait, we will grow older, worms grow you know…this is the tough time, youth!
“Then we will place him on the hook when his tissue is old and soft, we will not visit him, nor call: not even a minute one! All in time all in good time!”
Five children and I in an empty house watching fish swim around and around
flies buzzing in circles, outside by the light looking at old pictures now fading.

Their voices are always silent, as they appear in the form of children, not ever aging… children that turned sour, scorpions or bees trying to sting me.

Inform me:
why did you take that road? Out of what door should I crawl? Where would you have me lay?


2—They Told Me

Sun rays told me, hide from them; the moon said: they are like eels; the doctor held, love is not enough, tears will not help, nor extol nor money, nor gifts of any kind they do not wish to comfort you only to sadden you with hammer and gossip.

The toad told me, they are flat stones owls in the night; they are looking in the bug infested rubbish in the heat of summer, looking and hunting for something—


3—The Vision

I had a vision, a dream, I saw the shape of their hearts bigger than elephant’s, but darker than a rats, with less blood in them, than a mosquito’s— and the pumps made a loud nose.

I was under water looking up it was soft like a sponge, wrinkled like a mouse it didn’t fit in place, it had valves like toes! And it turned into an eel with fangs of a wildcat and it pulled out of its socket, and rolled about in thick muck it felt good, I think with its long wobbly legs puncture holes here and there and it liked to swim under the water sleek as an eel….

4—The Abyss
Where do the hearts go? To the gravel of the seabed (I was told by a mysterious voice). I looked and they were covered by hard marble stones, they looked as if they had been there quite long; it was their home away from home. And they twisted about like a vortex. Ask the sea-toad he knows, he saw from his leaf…deep into the sea… he told me “Beware father Lee, they live a grimy soaked shell, and if allowed they will simple nibble at your nerves, and punish your will.”

5—Betrayal
From the mouths of my children I heard their bitter and scorn it was getting old, and older, things I’ve heard before.

Like a rustic faucet, of old cast-iron, slowly was their false love dripping? Like worms gathering and crawling in a future nest of brooding, worms from hell, full of vengeance
Like wild dogs, they groaned snarled and wailed; twilight was against me, as was the deep eels of the sea, as was the houses around them whom whimpered out of gossip. The birds, dogs, cats all cried; their neighbors, like cows took their sides, in their bushes to listen as they hid, and wished I’d die! What small character they developed, what shallow songs they had to sing, what thick mud, they had to crawl out of… What kind of father are you now? You all live in ice caves dripping with envy, jealousy, and black-blood only the hypocrites here!

I’m tired, I’m very tired, all my bones crackle, so crack them more if you wish, you have anyhow! Only the winter now; you have drained the summer and spring from me— father fear, is no longer here, you have drained the love from his heart, now he has nothing to offer.


6—Perhaps Snake Oil

What kind of shape plays to a Mind that is recovering? Beckoning to do all it can for His children, through halls and hail and while standing still in a fag, trying to put one’s life back together; once scared, now scarred and perhaps a little phony…?
From the mouths of children things are seldom expressed how they can be, no vocabulary! Perched on my shoulders, I saw my boys flowing away; that coldness growing inside of them like dead eels being frozen (thus they became phony like me). They dropped me into a watery grave even though I did all I could to save what I could, sometimes it is worse, doing what is right, and being cursed.

This is the storm I have to endure pay the price for this and that, and all they gave at the end was unsmiling within themselves, things they never knew; as for my bones they still grew old, and the fire in my heart grew dim, and the seeds I once planted that sprung to life did not bud, butchered at the stem; Doom was already decided, for me and them, windows and doors now shut? House burning, new rage, now old rage, in their hearts, primordial tears, ongoing agitation and they all ran every which way—year after year.

7—Money and he Toad

Money, money, money came into the show, And when I was dying, they all stood by, hoping I’d die quicker than I would, go, just go…they think they hid this from the toad…but he always knew.
How stupid they can be, for the toad, he hides in the cool of the grass when no ones looking, and in the deep part of the sea; or from a branch in a tree, he doesn’t even leave a shadow…he’s part of me.
“Look, look,” he says “they are like ashes, falling through a dark swirl….” and I look, and yes, he is right!


8—When I was a Kid

I ran to the hill to see my mother (when I was a kid of eight or so)walking up it, walked with her side by side, full of pride, my eyes looking to the sun, she’d pick up a weed put it in her mouth, and I’d do the same as if I was a trained ….
On the foster-farm in the dark, I had many years to breathe and with my little feet, I climbed the little steps up to the bunk bed underneath me my brother slept, but I never hated my mother!
There was a light down the hall coming from the bedroom, like a fire-pit, here the owner slept, and other children wept. But I played big, I never did! And I never hated my mother!
In the morning light crept through the window light from the East came slowly over my blankets like snow…cool and refreshing in summer, refreshing and warm in the winter. And I never hated my mother.
I’d say to my brother, “Mom is coming!” As frost melted on the back steps that led to the horses, and pastures—it all melted like a fine haze, day after day, and I never hated my mother, thank God! And I’d say to my brother, over and over,” Mom is coming!”

9—The Years
There were several great years, in-between some winters, we traveled a lot, planes and trains and cars: those far-off memories, like roses kept swinging in the wind, above my head.
The festive times in Germany the kites in the backyard and playing in the woods, nights in Amsterdam, in the cafes and parks. The light moved slowly over our horizons, the beautiful surviving memories now over these old bones, their youth still swings back in my wind, for me to smell. The toad knows.
10—Their Troubled Souls?

Is it dark? Is it dark inside? Is it dark inside the dark? Movement becoming energetic unsettling? A vivacious logical will once amused them.
It will not happen again. Be quiet. You have only a while to wait, to get what you deserve, nothing…! Then I’ll leave. The toad knows.


11—Somehow the Roses

Am I not yet an old wound? The Sea-toad can vouch for me! He is the spiral that you cannot see. He tells me everything, pushes me forward shows me your heart, dear children…He whispers “They try to infect an old wound, leave them to their destiny; they have no room for comforting you!”

I am hunting or hurting, one of the two, the Sea-toad, says I am both, and you, yes you children are my protagonists, geared-up, to portray my soul of consciousness (animistic), but I am no fool…your tails flick like spiders running to their webs, to eat the remains of the fly, I know, your wish that I should die! —And I know you tried!

I can’t tell who you are anymore, the fish, the eel, the mole in the hole or the rat, the owl, perhaps you are a symbol of all of them, plus my obsession, to love and be loved, with respected! A frenzied activity lapsing like rain in your desert.

I dream of you two, the other three seldom, as in memories of when you were children somehow the roses appear around your frames “Papa” I hear you say, renewing my light, nothing essential to today’s reality, just old, old memories, buried in ambiguity.

Now you are all grown men and women, Your childhood long past, all mad silent poets, these are the only moments left I have, I have lost the spiritual quest, the ploddingly pursue.

Like a rustic faucet, of cast-iron, slowly was your false love dripping? Like worms gathering and crawling in a future nest of brooding, worms from hell, full of vengeance (The toad always knows).

#2351 (4-16-2008)

Melancholy Roses (A poem for: Elise Cowen)

Melancholy Roses
(A Poem for: Elise Cowen)

She wrote of death, and its desire
Never quite knowing if she was
Coming out or going in—
And committed suicide, like a coward
At twenty-nine (in 1962), much like
Her contemporaries: Hemingway,
Sterling, Plath and Sexton…!
Sounds in her ears, ringing,
She jumped out of the living room
Window, falling seven floors.
Gone now, like her and her lovers,
Ginsberg, and Sheila, gone forever more…
But her poems on death and doom
Surpass most poets of gloom—.
She was direct and honest:
She dragged death, like two-dogs
Pulling on the same meat—
Her dream somewhere tucked away
inside her poems—left for us to decipher.
She became part of the beat generation,
In San Francisco…and I guess that
Will have to do…! The Poet of Death,
Doom, and melancholy roses.

Note: Life long friend to Allen Ginsberg, and lover (she was bisexual), another poet who committed suicide, and from the beat generation, in her late 20s. She was in an asylum, for her mental breakdowns. After her suicide her family destroyed most of her poetry, yet 83-poems have been found of hers. I have read some of her poetry, they are, and sound as she lived, depressive, and psychotic, with intelligence. She could be considered the equal to Anne Sexton, had she lived longer. She wrote: “Gone to Mexico—gone home –Gone to –death. Death ‘Death’” And “…Blind dreams in a green room, No love, No compassion, No intelligence, No beauty, No humility, Twenty-seven is enough…” And two years later it was, she killed herself.

#2350 4-14-2008

The Poet, Allen Ginsberg and His Running Mate!

The Poet, Allen Ginsberg’s and His Running Mate!
(Please read notes for better interpretation of poem)

He was running from the devil—during his last days,
he tried to be an agnostic, but was really an angry atheist,
always getting in God’s face, he never gave God an inch,
just insults as if he wanted him to change his rules, His
ways, change the status of his beliefs, for his ways!
to let folks like him into heaven (he and his ex-lover
William Burroughs thought the same way, and played
the same games, except Burroughs outlived Allen by
four months, he had to get rid of his cats first, or
was it the rats? –he also left his letters of piety, for
mankind and the devil to read whom laughed over
them I’m sure—such a pity, all drug infested).
Allen Ginsberg even implied he was going to hell for
his lustful, obsessive, grotesque, possessive desires:
contributed to the insane American way of life, so he
proclaimed, which he liked, grabbed onto, like
white on rice, like mice to cheese, yet ridiculed. But as I
was saying, he was being chased, running from demon
whom came for him—on that last doomful day—for he
was a man of letters, he wrote what he lived, believed; if
anything he was overly honest, in a pitiful way!
Thus, I do believe they perhaps came for him once before,
but spared him the day, so they could play some more;
But his day, was his day to die, and I believe these
demon wanted to drag him down to the underground
world, and his hours were few, and short, and the horse he
was on had no name or route, so he kept saying 'giddy yap'
and with his mind and feet, he tried to defeat the devil
(running in circles, and more circles, on an endless path);
Yes, he tried to defeat the devil, whom was his master
in foreplay, and now his running mate, and when they
were side by side, neck to neck, shoulder to shoulder,
thigh to thigh, eye to eye, he told the death to shut up,
and death said (with the devil laughing behind) "I never
get tired, I can run and run and run, until there is no
sun, run and run until twilight comes, run and run
until that old heart of your’s stops beating, be it another
hour or ten, or hundred, it doesn’t matter, and for the devil,
he can too…!" and the horse and Allen keep going,
and going and going, running everywhichway,
until there was no more giddy-yap left, and death
was then on top of him, like a vulture to a corpse—
like a mouse to cheese, like a worm to dirt, like a
fish to water, like: and the devils dragged him down, down
deep into the ground, like a dead lion, or bull, to scheol’s courts
to the docks of hell, to where there would never be another day.


Note: Allen Ginsberg wrote only a few poems before he died, which was perhaps for the better of mankind. Matter-of-fact, his last poem was on March 30th 1997, a week before his death (he died April 5, of the same year). On March 24th he wrote "Giddy-yap giddy yap giddy yap shut up." This basically was all he had to say in the six line poem. Not a very intriguing poem to say the least. But what was he saying? In many of my studies with people dying, in psychology, working with the aging folks, I look at what I consider unusual behavior, and this out of the ordinary behavior struck me as meaningful, it had touch of reality to it, I have witnessed similar at times, so looking at his past, knowing his behavior, and his poetry, what was he really saying? We all interpret things the way we want, yet there is a pattern if you study his last writings, and so here is my interpretation of those almost final words, during his final two weeks of his life:

#2313 ((3-8-2008)(modified 4-14-2008))