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

THE SALACIOUS APPROVAL OF THE HIGH DOLLAR MARK AND THE (PREDICTABLE) DEGRADATION OF THE VESTAL VIRGINS

“The Customer is always right,” booms this week’s stand-in Martin Boorman, repeating the klaxon litany of every damned slave auction since antiquity.

The attention of any mark is desireable but when the High Dollar Mark asks for a jumper every fifth column middle management sweat pony in a thirty foot radius will yodel in gospel call-and-answer form, “how high?”

The High Dollar Mark is, after all, the one who greases the wheels of progress; the strength of his patronage is known far and wide and he’s always willing to pay those high import prices.

“Most people in the area don’t appreciate pure, unbleached honey almond flour,” he tells a rabbity-looking fourteen year old stock girl. “Not many people in the U.S. will pay for it, but it would be in their interests to do so.” He chews and licks his lips for a moment. The High Dollar Mark’s skin is pale and soft, almost translucent. “Write that down, would you? Pure, unbleached honey almond flour. With orphan tears. They have to be Bolivian Orphans….not those cheap, gamey Messicans.” He says this last part in a fast, breathy voice, knowing he is relaying information in the stock girl’s dialect. He claps his hand on his left buttock for emphasis and he throws his head back letting out an overly loud, effeminate laugh. The stock girl says nothing, fails to write any of the above down and tries vainly to blink away a tear.

The parade of fresh-faced young grunts in and out of the market is ceaseless, and supply and demand creates a hearty turnover. The light in their eyes is extinguished on a daily basis----they slave away in silent despair over donuts and juice spills, being harped on by Mama Lupo and her hot firebrand of clitoral mutilation; They weep over discrepancies at the cash register and they pick gingerly through maggot-infested vegetables. Now and again one of them gains a semblance of dignity and it’s over---out to the butcher’s for the “Special Treatment”.

No one over eighteen is ever used for hamburger meat---they’re no good to eat by then but it’s never necessary. You push them and push them and it’s only a matter of time before they snap. You tenderize them and then you go in for the finale. The meat is best virginal.

“Much better than that chuck beef the white trash dole out for, “titters the High Dollar Mark.

The minds of the Market are very industrious and they have a deal with all the food co-ops in the region. There’s always plenty of virgin meat to go around and it can easily garner an “Organic” Classification. Everybody wins and a sense of Community is fostered.

The Pillar of the Community nods sagely as the newest shipment of virgin meat comes in. “It’s an Wholistic Approach,” she says. She fingers herself lightly through her skirt and tries to imagine their final moments.

From DOO-DAH Days in Mammon, a work in progress