Guilty Pleasures

Guilty pleasures

As a shy wee boy , those guilty pleasures

the nonsense speak 

of Lear, Alice through the lostness

glass

         those phantasmagoric 

John Carpenter -like dreams

the cinematic Hollywood vampiric

swallower of acetate overtones, 

-

of movie escape and evade

into worlds and words of tarmac drunken blues

and those hidden pomes, scattered

all sizes,

and illuminations spawned my tadpole mind

into 

great farting mud grenades

-

in the bar reading Lorca's sweet

sweet blues,

the song of Granada           cicadas 

singing, through the night

-

and the bile and bite of Bukowski

blues

recognising, never apologising for the

drunken darkness of the soul

-

and Cohen reading at midnight

                                      night

Jikan is silence as he kisses me goodnight  

the zen and satori of rein

  " A triumph of sparrows, " 

Basho and Sun Tsu sharing a bottle of wine 

or two,

in the perfect moment

in time, 

-

a red wheelbarrow speaks it's mind

     (the abstract blues )

-

and those speaking black mud 

poems, to the tortured and twisted,

the mummification of heretical life

-

burn the witches, for they know not what they

do, think like we do                 Neruda

-

slips from my pocket

into the flair of despair

in drunken boats of love, 

( yes I know it was young Arthur, 

they would be lovers, if they could, )

-

as Bacca spits  out the 

black bull blood blues

in prison ink and tattoos

> Les fleurs, de mal"

bleeding into oakwood shadows

-

Ah ! Baudelaire,    Ah !  Baudelaire 

-

I carry all your words

your tarnished concern and deep

knowledge!

in echoing caverns of the

cave system of  my soul,

-

sentence and meaning,

bouncing through the waterfall mind,

with a black hysteria of assassins blues

-

                                           -     Huxley

slips from my pocket

into a puddle of despair

fractured structure,     calling me

as Mojo rises, singing the lizard king,

I am the lizard King, your poems sing

to me

-

I am poetry

the hidden pamphlet falls 

to ground

the lost colour world of one

suddenly brought to light, 

-

     The Feral Poet

-

undigested, Emily D, unrequited

the wild voyeur of stanza 3

the animal instinct of Nature/Death,

the simple phraseology of the sad

dichotomy

of memory/poetry,

-

Asleep in the muddy graveyard 

of scuffed lost feet

-

A Poem, you say !

-

"Think you might have dropped

this book, "

-

     " Death of a poet "

-

                       by unknowse

Reviews

[Beccy]

The pleasures of the mind; not so much guilty, as the intellectual growing of child to man; without which there would be no reaching for those thus far, out of reach stars; though there are times when it would be nice to return to nonsense speak.

Fascinating poem gram with a wonderfully scripted progression.

Beccy

[gram linski]

thanks so much, Beccy, aye that innocent joy of nonsense speak would be a good thing, glad you enjoyed, appreciate the visit

[Eilis]

I happened to think this is the fella from the dusty old shed speaking for himself. All those books he's been reading in the pub aren't just books, but the makings of a life. And I love how it unravels like this. From the wee boy to the man of now. How we become bits of ourselves with the things we absorb. And so often the things we absorb, we absorb without knowing how they've shaped us. And maybe someone else shows us or we write great poems like this that reveal ourselves to ourselves.

I loved the tadpole mind and the great farting mud grenades, haha, but there is so much in this poem, so many little intricate bits, that activate my poet imagination. And maybe this is what all great writing does for us as it weaves itself into our minds and cells. It shapes our imagination into a whole new animal until we're standing outside dropping the smattering of books from our minds and seeing all the words gather themselves together into this new creature.

Which is kind of what I felt like had happened at the end. Like the tadpole had become the frog and in dropping that one last book there was a recognition of all that came before to get to this one book and who the frog-reader has become. Haha. Maybe I've just made your vision a bit more wonky than you intended. I just love the imaginative nature of the poem. The transformative effect of reading. Excellent. Love this poem, Gram.

[gram linski]

wow, thanks for the great review, Eilis, poetry has always been my life line and has been a good friend, and I was trying to articulate that growth from boy to man, both physically and emotionally so am glad it came through, you are spot on with the transformative effect of reading, getting lost in a book has probably saved more than a few lost souls, the power of words the depth of feeling that some of those poets can convey in a few choice words, man, makes me weep sometimes reading these guys, thanks again for your great review, Eilis, is always appreciated

[gram linski]

you can thank Heaney for the great farting mud grenades, haha, as you know,

[Eilis]

Ah, yes, Death of a Naturalist. Probably the best frog poem I’ve ever read. Love how you’ve incorporated all the threads into this, Gram.