When Rock n’ Roll Was A Teenager
When rock n’ roll was a teenager,
Great Balls Of Fire
was throwing punches
at a man twice its age
on a gravel parking lot in
Westport, Illinois,
laughing and drinking Jim Beam
straight from
the bottle,
between ducks and jabs.
When rock n’ roll was a teenager,
Heartbreak Hotel
had its finger up the local car hop
after she closed down A&W for the night,
her hand around its hard dick,
pumping it slowly,
in the back seat at the drive-in movie,
Marlon Brando
in the Wild Ones
on the screen.
When rock n’ roll was a teenager,
Only The Lonely
was in the county jail locked up for
drunk and disorderly, reading
Tropic of Cancer and writing poems
of sex, rage, and revolution,
trying to conceive a way
to escape from jail by taking its own life,
but, oh, we all know, rock n’ roll
can never/will never die!
Someday I Will Write A Poem That Will Flood The World
And I will own all the
arks, boats, ships,
rafts, and canoes,
and tug boats, ferries,
all forms of water transportation.
People will have to come
to me for their means
of survival.
The stubborn and destitute ones
will drown in my poem
sinking to the bottom,
screeching like anchors on
rusty
chains.
The rest of humanity will plead
for cut-rate discounts. But fuck them,
I’ll make them pay out
the ass. No rainbows
this time.
How He Met His First Wife
“it was
so quiet
you could
hear a
cockroach
pissing
on your
underwear”,
he said.
then he
looked
at me &
shook his
head,
sighing,
as if
bearing
up under
the weight
of all
human
perversity.
he took another blast of whiskey
“suddenly
she just
started
screaming &
smashing
the empty
beer bottles
against
the kitchen
wall,
spewing
out all
kinds of hate
& foulness.
it didn’t
take
long
to dawn
on me
that I’d
stuck my
dick in the
wrong
go-go
dancer.”
On A Dark Night Across From The Hollywood Cemetery
She threw a large half full
Lysol stray can at me.
It hit me under the
left eye
and cut me open.
Her 5 year old daughter
came out from
the back bedroom
and stood behind
her mother
in the doorway
wide eyed,
terrified from all our
yelling,
and the blood dripping
down my face.
I told her
to go back
in the bedroom,
that everything would be OK,
that it was
just about over. I was so
drunk I barely felt
the gash and the large
mouse that was
forming
under my eye. Her mother
who was drunker than me,
abruptly sat down on the
couch, still half-ass yelling
at me. She had
stopped throwing things,
so I picked-up
a paper napkin
from the coffee table,
sat down
in a chair across from her,
and pressed it against
my wound.
I sat for a moment
trying to apply
enough pressure
to stop the
bleeding.
When I looked up
her daughter was
standing
in front of me
handing me a wet washcloth
and a band aid,
her beautiful blue eyes
still as big as moons. I looked over
at her mother,
but she had passed out
on the couch.
I smiled and took
the washcloth and cleaned out
the cut, dried it
with another napkin
and stuck on the band aid.
She told me
in a matter of fact way,
her voice only
slightly shaky,
that she
was going back to bed,
and if I was going to
leave, she asked me to
please cover up her mother
and turn out
the light,
when I left.
I thanked her for the
washcloth and band aid
and reached out
and touched her on the arm,
telling her
I wouldn’t leave
till her mother felt
better in the morning
She just pulled away from me gently, smiling
and said, it was Ok,
that the other
men had just left her sleeping on
the couch, or sometimes the floor
Nodding at me, she turned and walked
back down
the hallway
into her room
and closed
the door
quietly.
Illuminating Information
They talked about “art” as
if it was some
perfect glistening
thing like a diamond
after the mining
and cleaning
I swept the floor
as they talked
I took out the trash
washed the dirty glasses
“Art” without the blood
and torment
Mickey Mouse
without the mouse
turds.
After they left I
cleaned the ashtrays
scrubbed the toilet
waxed the floor
did what I had to do.
“Art” had nothing
to do with their lives
“art” was a good movie
a concert in the park
created and performed
by people with masters degrees
and winter homes
in Arizona.
I clocked out
bought a couple beers
and went home
tomorrow was another day
of illuminating information
Twin Oaks Tavern
Based on The Postman Always
Rings Twice By James Cain
1.
Banking them in from
three corners. He
never made a shot
that old blind Tom
the piano player couldn’t
have made. Easy pickins,
too easy. The rain was falling
and pounding against the
windows. But he knew her
her eyes never left his body. Her
movements were like silk
over a ripe red apple.
2.
He was giving her his knife to
cut the bag open. The light
from the bar was casting a
neon shadow on her face. The
cop didn’t notice a thing.
She smiled that half smile of
hers. Years of boredom, years of
dead pointless conversation about
the prices of produce in Santa
Barbara, or the cook that worked
there three years ago. Life had
no meaning. How could death
mean any less?
3.
Often she was like a little girl,
innocent and smiling, playing
in the sand. Up there above was
only sky. He thought of God for the
first time in years. He told her
what he was thinking. She just
turned her face away and
said they were both like gypsies
and beach bums. Stealing
a man’s wife, then murdering
him, nevertheless, made a
man think of God.
4.
The car was their refuse and their
machine of death. Her eye was purple
and black. Her clothes were
ripped half off. Convincing to a
whiskey drinking cop. How many times
did the car roll over?. Oh, these tedious,
tormenting questions. Smoking
a cigarette and watching from
the shadows. The hands never
stopping sweating.
5.
When she died everything went
black. The guy in number 7 is in
for murdering his brother and
sister. Can you believe it? Many don’t
want a last meal. Father McConnell
says prayers help. Morning and
again the four walls, the bars,
the stink of the toilet. “Hey! sound
your horn. The road is all
yours.” Then suddenly the crash.
And he tried to stop the bleeding.
Kissing her. Crying. He will never
forget her screams. They will be the
last thing he hears, as the gas pellets fall.
About the author:
Doug Draime emerged as a presence in the ‘underground’ literary movement in late 1960′s in Los Angeles. Recent publications: “Knox County” (Kendra Steiner Editions), and “Los Angeles Terminal” (Covert Press) Forthcoming collections from Coatlism Press (full-length), Propaganda Press, and Tainted Coffee Press. Awarded small PEN grants in 1987 and ’91. Nominated for 3 Pushcart Prizes in 2008. He currently lives and writes in Ashland, Oregon.
