Table of
Contents
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DANCING WITH WORDS
There are poets who like to dance with words
But dancing for an audience isn’t like moving
To the music on your own stirring
The notes of the soul
There are poets who organize festivals and such
Poets who live for applause
Poets who divide through elitism
Poets who attack the system but live off it
Fame kills
Billie Holiday’s ghost attests to this
Money pigeonholes Power corrupts
The spiritual truth
The scriptures tell us this
The true poet knows this
Stands tall above the
Dancing with word poets
Who are little more than instruments
Of a poem greater than themselves
Be like Li Po and sail your poems
On streams and puddles written on leaves
Be like the anonymous poets of Poland
During the height of martial law
Dropping their poems into the public square
For the people to read giving them
Hope courage and peace
Take risks speak out on behalf
Of the people who need something
To hold on too in desperate times
Telling them how cruel their tormentors are
Will not inspire them to go on living
And to overcome oppression
Love them become one with them
Stand fearless in their midst
This is the mark of the true poet
The poetry "Biz" boys are examples
Of what poetry is not
Walt Whitman was an example
Of what Poetry is standing tall
And fearless against the enemy
Which is never really man but the
Poison in his soul, pride envy and lust
How can those afflicted with the disease of egomania
Jealousy and desire for fame and fortune
Write about and from the heart?
Gone is the fire of Keats Shelley
Whitman and Ginsberg
One column of media praise is of less value
Than a single teardrop on a poem
From a waitress in a greasy spoon diner
These people know nothing of genius
How can cockroaches evaluate eagles?
The true poet’s topic is people
Not the poet
A. D. Winans__
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ILLEGAL
she sits alone in her small hotel room
six months pregnant
forced to give head for soup and bread
no heat, one wash clothe, one towel
one urine-stained washbasin
an immigrant without a visa
an illegal caught in a legal trap
she gets up
heads for the door
hears the night manager whisper whore
suspended in silence
floats face down in the bowels
of the American dream
A. D. Winans__
IMG_20160305_175922361 by ©Kushal Poddar
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2 AM in the Tenderloin
two in the morning
bars closed down
200 block of Ellis and Eddy
In the heart of the Tenderloin
I stagger past two drag queens
as slowed down cars cruise by
sad-eyed drivers ogling
these would-be women
with cocks taped back
to hide their secret
as bar patrons head for
all night Chinese cafe’s
or Asian masseuse parlors
to make love to dragon ladies
with cash-register eyes
one old man stands alone
on the corner
next to an abandoned building
eyes riveted to the pavement
looking like a pallbearer back
from a funeral
A. D. Winans__
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EULOGY FOR BOB KAUFMAN
You wore your life like a life preserver
Remembering forever the political chaos
Vietnam King and the Kennedy brothers
Tongue on fire
Mind carrying the music
Of Charlie Parker and Miles Davis
You dodged the lawman’s bullet
Rode high the poetic barb
To the highest heights
You walked the streets of North Beach
With Edison electric charged eyes
Victim of shock treatments
And the white man’s lies
With matted hair and soiled jeans
That failed to disguise
Your nightmare dreams
You fired away with satellite precision
And the God’s feared your magic words
Your eyes boring through the living dead
You walked unmasked
For all to see
Lady Death the ultimate clown
Following you about town
Oblivious to the gothic nightmares
You wore like an anchor around your neck
You moved through
The streets of North Beach
The original be-bop man
Poet in residence
Caretaker of the clan
The haunting breath of death
Snapping at your heels
Like a bloodhound closing in
For the kill
And when the magic
Of North Beach left
You did too
Moving to the Bayview
Away from the social zoo
A living Bangladesh come true
Your words to the end
Hard as a pair of new boots
Echoed across the universe like
King Tut’s curse
When death came to claim you
The angry ghosts of the
Co-existence Bagel Shop
Beat hard in the paper hearts
Of every city cop
The shadow of your being
Dancing from Chinatown
Alleys to downtown high rises
Billie Holiday forever singing
In your heart
A. D. Winans__
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