Taking the Rocket Poetry back...

Since Street Roots has its own blog now -

Street Roots blog

So, I guess I can do whatever I want with this Rocket Poetry thing.

Sometime in 1995 at the age of 20 is when I wrote my first poem that I thought was worth a shit. I had written lots of scribbles before, but for the first time in my life I actually thought it was possible to do nothing but bum around the country, do drugs and be a published poet. I mean, Neil and Jack did it right?

Of course, the buzz eventually wore off and it got harder and harder to get high, so I took more drugs - which didn’t help the getting published part. The writing was great or was it? I don’t remember.

At 20 I was pretty much wide-eyed and full of shit. Most of my friends were either going to college or learning a profession. I was following the last years of the Dead and bouncing between small towns in Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois – working shit jobs and trying to find myself. I hadn’t mastered the hammer and nail, nor did I know rat’s ass of the English language. What the hell was I thinking when I thought about taking up writing as a profession?

The problem was living in places like Bentonville, Arkansas, Neosho, Missouri, and Bunker Hill, Illinois you didn’t exactly have an audience. The attitude was if you wrote poetry, you were a queer motherfucker and don’t come around here with that silly shit. Ok, I said. Well, what if I write about what the people in these small towns are experiencing? Nothing ever came of that except that I tried to capture those times the best I saw them. And while I’ve had my assed kicked by good ole boys more than once in my life, I can honestly say it wasn’t because of the poetry.

I eventually left out to Denver and eventually the west coast. And of course most my working class friends give me shit and think I have forgotten about my shit-stained roots – being a writer and all. These are some poems from those times…

Wal-Mart poem

Wal-Mart is having a sale
John Wayne war movies
Two flags for a dollar
Get your supplies, 22, and shells

Limp dick pills, tread mills, hurry on down
We have dog collars, and video games too
Learn yourself young how to kill (with a joystick)

Come on mama, Wal-Mart is having a sale
Ten local businesses for the price of two

Reduced prices in hardware
Tire shops, oil lube, boob tubes, photos and more
Netting, sewing, arts and crafts,
Hunting and fishing, grocery goods
A super sale in sports ware
Jewels for the shopping fools
Wayne Newton CDs, DVDs and over-seas sneakers along with the glue

Come on kids Wal-Mart is having a sale
School supplies at the corporate rate
#2 pencils, pens, pads, paper, magic markers and a wallet for dad
Buy an USA Pride T-shirt
United We Stand in an outfit made by a seven year old girl

Have you heard Wal-Mart is coming to a town near you?
They’ll be happy for you to work in blue for the yellow tag sales
You’ll be dancing to the minimum wage department store blues
10% off all the guns and knives and camping gear too
You may need the supplies when the benefits don’t help you through
Smiles, drug tests, and non-Union shifts
Come on America, Wal-Mart is having a sale!

Twisted Moments Of Reality

A gentle rain falls in the silence of the evening light
Chilly winds whistles in our ears
A special announcement on the AM radio interrupt Jack Buck’s play by play
As the weatherman secretly gets his kicks
Storm warnings and tornado tips

The trees wallow and the stop signs clap
The wind whips up
Smiling, clutching our hats
Watching the lightning flare up the sky
Laughing and hearts pounding
Suddenly ‘twas black as night

It begins to hail and the thunder pounds
Our emotions strong like the barking dogs heard miles away
In the distance a rising moon peaks through a dangling telephone wire
The streetlights swagger and the fire engines howl
Running through the streets....
Spreading the news!
“A Train Is Coming! It Brings Hell!”

Hearing the far off moan from a cow
Dirt flies ten fold like Midwestern soil feels to the plow
Bloody hands
Bent mettle racing reaction
Off your feet!
Find shelter on the dime!
Swinging debris…
Young girls screaming!
That prairie shaking wind robbing us blind!

Coming back to our senses
Drizzle, evening light
Soaking wet
Breeze races down our spine
A split second to recall what laid before our eyes
Only asphalt foundation with lifetimes of accomplishment swept through time
As poor Mr. Farmer John’s early harvest crown, uprooted!
Throw all ‘round, spread out over this town
The power company and police walking the streets
Not gaining anything
Echoes....
Hollers!
Frowns.
As Mrs. Peacocks one hundred year old home lie on her 75-year old soul, calm and dead.


Keep It Going Through the Night

Cold and hungary
A life longer dream died tonight
Thought of a song, think I’ll cry
Keep it going through the night

Israel rode louder and longer
A foul battle cry somewhere in the Pennsylvania night
Canyons and water filled with blood
Sixty-men listened to the riddle torn Apache Chief
before the devil in the blue uniform came calling from above
Keep it going through the night

Mother Jones, mother time knows no boundaries
Another family dries their eyes of the developer’s lies
Seal way farmers deed. Who is proud?
Wall Street spells out Satan’s victory
Land and legends left to crumbs
Felt it well above the forts and bends
The Illini’s death for the Detroit skyline
Sew a nations lifeline on the flag
Become an empire short to none
250 years later watch it crumble to the mud
Keep it going through the night

Santa Domingo brought death and blood
Rebels and God brought the light
Nat Turner and federal blockades
Dixie is alive tonight, not like when Fort Sumter cried
The rush of Sherman’s ride - killers killing killers in full stride
Generations of denial, bloodshed and carpetbagger con lives
Keep it going through the night

At the market, bombs and Fed lies
Working wages for the bread lines
Kissing snakes, clones on parade
Weather patterns and the 700 Club bring donations
If its’ the end of time what do your fear?
Some busker singing of a better land, maybe west
Down the forgotten coast on a foggy tide
Calling out to those who have no pride
Keep it going through the night

Flash lights and tackle boxes
Some realness behind the light
Catfish pull my line down dark
where simplicity meets the deep
Mercy give me a break, art is all I see in anything
Keep it going through the night

Friends with who I grew, people who inspire
Tears and lovers lost in life, missed in flight
Flying above the hardened people touched by night
Foreign wars and tornado alarms
Talk radio, and LSD out under the stars
Out on the farm you play it loud, play it hard
Avoid lineage and enjoy the crowds
Tearing down relations with backwards mouths
Create trusting barriers and watch them fall
Keep it going through the night

Lunches packed, cliquey clack
“Do you remember me?”
“No, well let me think awhile back.”
As the sweat drips down the bill of your hat
Working under a hot Oklahoma sun
A poet’s lunch, smoking grass, tit for tat
This life deals the cards you may play
If you don’t show for the game
Your life can become a prop
An actor acting with no name
Keep it going through the night

And if you’re afraid, it’s OK!
More have gotten through than expected to
Don’t let them get to you
Drive somewhere off the map
She’s painting, I’m writing
Its worth it today, tomorrow really can’t say
Balancing this reflection, it bends and cracks
Beware my friends of the unseen attacks
Keep it going through the night