Beatnik Poems

Visiting Beatnik Cats

they are beatnik cats, their house is a bit much I was told.
Their colors were all warm – purples, reds, pinks, all bold.
I love it here I said, sitting down in a cozy sixties beatnik chair.
Of course, by the time I left my rear end was full of cat hair.

Visiting Beatnik Cats

they are beatnik cats, their house is a bit much I was told.
Their colors were all warm – purples, reds, pinks, all bold.
I love it here I said, sitting down in a cozy sixties beatnik chair.
Of course, by the time I left my rear end was full of cat hair.

The Beatnik Cow

The cow waltzes around the lamp post three times

MOOOO!

Cow’s milk
Mother’s milk
The milk of human kindness

Why did you not love me mother?
Why did you demean me father?
Why does dusk’s fading aura not bid me good night?

The cow tangos around the lamp post four times

and weeps

Do We Ask the Beatnik To Leave

Lee is a beatnik all right, the seventy year olds agreed
he was lying in the grass, playing bongos next to his weed
as chill as we had ever seen Maynard on Dobie Gillis too
We was singing a weird slow song, name I had no clue

what do we do with him? someone wanted to know
Do we ask

Neatnik and the Beatnik

jay is different than he has ever been
a  neatnik of course, and he is my twin.
whereas I am a beatnik, messy and thin.
he is a cleaner, a duster, no dirt on his chin.

I am slovenly, a messy hoarder, a collector, a slob.
my dungarees are usually filthy, rolled up in a glob.
no one is dirtier

Jazzy Cat Plays the Beatnik Blues

Jazzy Cat was playing the beatnik cat blues.
He has lost so much, what else does he have to lose?
There were many comments, about his granny glasses’ hues.
Straight out of the sixties, he was yesterday’s news.

Beatnik Charley

Beatnik Charley had glowing fingers of soul
When they began tapping a beat, there was never a goal.
They understood people, and had them dancing around.
He had a unique way of drumming.
An incredible sound!

Beatnik Charley brought in women all over New York.
Many were vegetarians, other smelled totally of pork.
They were his groupies, loving him for being who

I Am a Beatnik From New Orleans

Doobie Doobie Doobie Doobie Doobie Doobie Do.
You can’t get my goat, I am one of a few.
I’m mellow and fun-loving, and money don’t run me.
I had a nap all day yesterday ‘til a quarter until three.

Doobie Doobie Doobie Doobie Doobie Doobie Day.
I am a beatnik from down New Orleans way.
I don’t have a penny and

The Beatnik Cow

The cow waltzes around
The lamp post three times
MOOOO!
Cow’s milk
Mother’s milk
The milk of human kindness

Why weren’t you kind
To me mother?
Why were you cruel
To me father?

Why did you warp my soul?
The cow tangos around 
The lamp post four times
And weeps
12/22/21

Charles Bukowski Road Not Taken

While reading Charles Bukowski poetry? 
On the metro ride home? 
Listening to Buddha bar music? 
On my oh too hip iPod? 
 
I begin to see myself as I was? 
Over 30 years ago when I was merely a bit player? 
A minor character in a Charles Bukowski poem? 
 
 
A wild young underemployed

Beatnik Hippie Free Spirit Oh My

Beatnik, hippie, free spirit, oh my.
Enjoying their bliss with barely a sigh.
Full of great fun
Enjoying the sun
I like all of them with barely a try

Beatnik Snap

Pale white against the ghostly fog
Smoke curled for lack of oxygen
Black rim glasses hide, head bows
Conceal eyes of cool cat daddy-o

In dark, goatee, groomed and moody
Beret tilted silhouetted, covers identity
Captures blues wrapped in a sax
Brown paper bags cover booze

Jazz releases notes unknown to claps
Fingers snap approval to the poets silence   
Something to be

The Lost Beatnik Generation

Do you remember the Beatnik generation?
Those angry young men with long hair
You could see them playing a guitar in a station
Strumming and singing without a care

Where are they now, that lost generation?
Now, the new generation by comparison
Singing platitudes, a yuppy sensation
Tame, well groomed, without passion

Looking back, I was a beatnik teen
Now I am part of

Beatnik Snaps

Beatnik Snaps
       Onomatopoeia-topia

(poet sits on a stool in the café and begins)
I could onomatopoeia all day daddio
With cool sounds in the iambic pandemics sphere out there.
“Far out man…far out… Onomatopoeia all the way” (The crowd shouts and snaps fingers in approval.)
On the down winds jive below slow jazz notes

Beatnik To Vietnam To Hippie Stand

(10/13/12)

At the beginning of “64” - I packed up my uniform
And walked out the door- it was the beginning of
The Vietnam war.
By August of that same year
President  Johnson started the draft
Under protests and jeers.

Then he made it a full scale war
And sent our soldiers to Vietnam shores.
The Beatniks in Greenwich village
With their long hair,

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