Thursday, May 28, 2015

THE OLD BEAT POET SPEAKS

Every decade or so, it seems, I manage to land in an anthology by the Unbearables. Which is nice because I love the damn Unbearables. This is from the first, CRIMES OF THE BEATS, back in '98...sort of a cautionary tale about speaking from authority. Seriously----if anyone ever speaks from authority at you, don't listen to 'em. Even if it's me. ESPECIALLY if it's me.
The Old Beat Poet hugged the coffee bar as if he was a captain steadying the wheel of a rickety tugboat. A cigarette was dangling from his lips was that it should have been a corncob pipe.
“Whaddya think of the kid up there, doing his rewrite of HOWL?” He asked. “Ah, they all do it eventually, the kids, they all do a rewrite of HOWL. Trouble is, they saturate it with four-letter words. Come to think of it, I've always had a kind of spiritual warfare with Allen because his work is riddled with obscene language....he seems to be getting away from that now...seems almost----gentrified....in the finer sense of the word, I mean. He knows he's getting up there in years...doesn't want his legacy to be a bunch of four-letter words, you know?”
He took a long drag off his cigarette--”so, what do you like, kid? You like Bukowski? You look like a Bukowski guy...I've worked with him...he's good, but don't be fooled—he really doesn't live like he writes, he isn't always drunk, he doesn't spend all his time at the track...how about Eliot? You like Eliot? Yeah, good ole T.S....”
He went on and on. He had an illustrious resume behind him... poems, mostly, but also short stories, essays, critical pieces—he'd appeared in every damn journal with the word REVIEW tacked onto the end of it, a feat which has eluded me to this day.
“Y'know, kid, that magazine that you do...I don't know that I would ever put any of my work into it. It's too....angry. Everything you run is so angry...I guess when you get to be my age you get to see all sides of things.
“Yeah, I followed Kerouac after I got out of college....saw him read on Steve Allen and everything.
“Good reading tonight...lots of kids with talent. Yeah...when you get to be my age you really don't get excited about readings anymore....
“So, how'd you ever get Lyn Lifshin to submit to your magazine? Whose arm did you twist? I did a workshop with her back in, I think, '86 or so...and that other one...whatsername? Girl from Ohio. Redhead. Nice girl....does a poetry journal. Met her at a book fair once. Nice girl. How did you ever get her to submit to this rag?
“You're awfully angry, kid...you ought to check out Alexander Pope. There was a poet who had it all---irony, outrage, satire...and all in rhymed couplets...
“Ever read any Adrienne Rich? Yeah, I worked with her....worked with Sylvia, too---you like Sylvia? Yeah, poor Sylvia---her trouble was she never got over her father's death....”
He didn't say much after that. He sort of disturbed me...I don't know why.
Copyright 1993 (or thereabouts) C.F. Roberts, 1998 Autonomedia, 2015 Molotov Editions

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

MY PART OF IT


Ugly, squalid, degrading little story I wrote a couple or three years ago under the influence of Rammstein. Sort of a cautionary fable about modern romance----I kinda think of this story as an ugly stepchild that doesn't know how to behave in polite society, so, like a good parent, I have to foist it off on you. Never published anywhere, exclusive to this blog.

                                                        http://www.cfrobertsart.com/



My chief complaint is, she took my dick. I know I’m getting no sympathy. Call me a whiner and a sore sport on all counts; I’m going to miss the damn dick.
You’ll tell me it was all in the contract---okay: Given. We did have an agreement.
Do you believe in love at first sight? I DON’T, but Dreamlover69 was about as close as I’ve ever come. Will ever come. It’s all downhill from there.
Her: SWM. Has a death wish. Me: Take a guess. Mommy issues? You betcha. Nothing that hasn’t been documented elsewhere, so I’m nothing special.
I was special for Dreamlover69, though. My Prince, she called me. My Proud Peacock. You wouldn’t understand.
Our courtship was very old fashioned…I mean, really. Dinner, movie, all that. We had our consummation lined out, though.
Being the Woman of the Relationship, of course, she had to take my dick---that was okay---it played into the aforementioned Mommy issues and she was good at what she did. She put me under and kept me on morphine and she braised it and served it with baby spinach leaves and sun dried tomatoes. I thought it was pretty good, but that may have been the morphine talking.
There was plenty of that to go around and it helped as far as my end of the bargain. I love this girl and I can honestly say she made all my dreams come true—she may have taken my dick, but she became everything I needed her to be.
I swear, those beautiful eyes---they broke my heart. Naturally, I had to scoop them out after a while and stick them in the freezer. It's better in the freezer....I've learned, through painstaking trial and error, that things go bad in the crisper.
You give this thing called a heart, metaphorically or not, and I guess it’s like all great romances, all great stories. It’s sad. I mean---you’re thankful to have had it, but that intensity burns out and then there’s just the aftermath.
Of course, I’m sad. Didn’t I just tell you that? I’m sad and so is she. Tell ‘em, Dreamlover69.
Hey! Dreamlover69? Dreamlover69?
Women….

Copyright 2013 C.F. Roberts/2015 Molotov Editions