Saturday, October 29, 2011

Chimes Street Poets & Artists



Marie Laurencin
“Apollinaire and His Friends”
1909

Chimes Street Poets & Artists
__________________

Forget It
Revisiting Chimes
The 5 Perfections
Chimes Street Apartment
Apollinaire and His Friends
Greta Garbo
Charting the Progress
Unraveling It
Show Me Its Face
All the Lies
The Dance
__________________

Forget It

“I must forget
how to write”
—John Wieners,
“Saturday, 3/8/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

she tries to forget—
how to write, unlearning
what they taught her

last night she dreamed—
nobody taught her anything
she was free as a bird

even with dreaming tho—
she tries not to succumb
to love completely

Revisiting Chimes

“I must learn not—
to write, instead watch
with my 5 senses”
—John Wieners,
“Saturday, 3/8/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

it’s all sorta sad—
that she’s gotta fight it
but romance is that way

maybe someday—
she’ll love it all the way
these passing dayz

maybe someday—
déjà vu wordage oozing
thru her fingers

The 5 Perfections

"the 5 perfections that
are the 5 hindrances"
—John Wieners,
“Saturday, 3/8/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

she looks in the mirror—
another day ruined
ennui kills the day

she decides to return—
to behind the state capitol
for her class reunion

a mirror cracks—
her hands get swollen
the devil comes back again

Chimes Street Apartment

“there’s a strange
man-boy in bed”
—John Wieners,
“Saturday, 3/9/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

tiger town at night—
not much different than
way back when…

same desultory ache tho—
this dumpy little side street
once her hippie home?

the state capitol loomed—
behind it down on her knees
so tres gay & doomed

Apollinaire and His Friends

"Oh for the days of
Marie Laurencin”
—John Wieners,
“Sunday, 3/9/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

apollinaire in the center—
picasso & his dog to the left
two of picasso’s mistresses

marie laurencin paints—
another delightfully coy
insouciant portrait

miss wieners along with—
miss spicer & miss mcclure
there at big eric’s place

Greta Garbo

“It is poetry day again”
“Sunday, 3/17/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

ray charles on piano—
somewhere in another room
the window fills with light

last night she thought—
she was greta garbo for one
instant, then she was gone

then she felt like marlene—
dietrich this time all alone
blue angel voodoo love

Charting the Progress

“we contain the souls
of our ancestors”
—John Wieners,
“Sunday, 3/17/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

chimes street edge—
college campus exiles then
all those young hippies gone

she didn’t care much—
for charting the progress
of her lost soul back then

too much envy, disgust—
her gay psyche working
overtime just to survive

Unraveling It

“transmitted to us at birth”
—John Wieners,
“Sunday, 3/17/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

unraveling it now—
seeing all the str8t snags
and hetero syndromes

it’s not very easy—
who wants to be diligent
with one’s own doom?

and yet here she was—
poking around, perusing
gay flashback poetics?

Show Me His Face

“we all know how death
travels these days”
—John Wieners,
“Sunday, 3/17/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

tonight they’re dancing—
the dance of death all over
mardi gras big easy

see all the queens—
doing their cute pirouettes
their little spike shoes?

and those butchy boyz—
at lafitte's, crowding close
cum flowing on the floor

All the Lies

“you think you’ve
seen it all”
—John Wieners,
“Sunday, 3/17/58”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

she gathers faces—
old pictures from her heart
all her past lives

she charts her progress—
how each action unrolled
with or without her will

so that each time—
had its own poetic to
telling all the lies

The Dance

“the human voice is blue”
—John Wieners,
“Sunday, 5/10/59”
The Journal of John Wieners
707 Joy Street

fast as she could write it—
the list of the living dead
gone, baby, gone

gone ginsberg, creeley—
wieners, orlovsky, lavigne
kerouac, cassidy, burroughs

beatniks sliding thru—
rooms of 50’s drug addicts
turning into 60’s hippies

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