feedback communication
cherished blasphemy
             sacred sounds seeking,
echoing electric
             eulogies of ecstasy

body incense
sight 'n sound 'n soul infatuation

euphonic blues-lady
             she dances...sinfully
hail tonight!
              our oracle of song-delight
strobe beams surrounding
             her --
                            FLASH!
FLASH!
                 FLASH!

tungsten current,
          passion-life

 
stoned, Mr. X
a mind approaching unknown limits,
not of mere endurance
             but feasibility

acid-hunger
creeps...
(lurks)
             beckons -- take me!
so I do, and it does

I've taken it!
I sit...and sit...
who cares?
             who gives a ...

     SHIT!

even now,
in a few silly lines,
I've grooved away
          from 2 X 2

On the morning of that fateful trip
the smell of autumn rain did sweeten,
for all who wished to draw strange breath,
the sour-barley, exhausted stench of air.
The corner newsman proudly hailed
those awake to greet the weary moment;
the latest inch-high triumph would
he have the dung-splattered street believe --
discordant, gesticulating in crude parody?

"We have taken the long-hair herald angels"
And have cast their opiated verse away!
Take heed of this, ye likewise mindful rebels,
for soon must ye also answer to Society --
yes, perhaps with your blood for
our neo-Druidic, nationalistic needs!"

Silenced, somber, we watch the sodden orgy
called 'justice' by the chosen few...
'til sickened; thus we take our leave,
well knowing it is not ours to grieve

"We grateful dead
praise you, Osiris!"

Had not the summer given joy and hope
to so many suburban refugees?
When they arrived, straggling up the Haight,
did we not offer form of respite, hope,
and lilted song? So that young moments
would not be forever stunted, deformed?
As the parable seed that was poorly sown,
how then shall we prepare to reap?
Do not ask for us to weep...

I'll walk this red-brick street
as if it were the sun-sprayed beach
where we once stood...
the ocean's park of rolling sand dunes,
now the landscape of my heart

A red blanket sunset snow,
first chapter in the snowflake book
of understanding never understood...
my sad eyes slowly turning,
westward yearning, ever westward...
you are my dream-dappled rose in the sunset.

at home on hills overlookin'
way around ain't enough
          no more, 'n
a thousand times ten thousand
swellin' bellies
          swillin' cookie - cookie - candy
a sadden shore to abhor
          no more, 'n
it's mad, it's bad
sittin' on this street --
it lost a little pride, you see,
for the MAN comin' by can
pick ya up 'n set ya down
where it's really at
          essentially, 'n
it's a little colder than
the bed we were in
          then...when?
but still the same silly
forgotten face I see --
that's another thing
don't even matter
          now
                    to me

colder days than I've known,
coming from a shoreline fog,
seeping through the tree-lined hills,
eucalyptus scented-street,
as strange, new lilting melodies
pervade my pausing body and mind

these sweetest sounds I've ever known
penetrate my ears now opened --
recorders need and stringing sitar
vibrating over, through, and round
my virgin-like senses breathing now

warmer people than I've known
sit among unspoiled flowers,
communicating the moment's glory --
mixed and longest-lost emotions
to one another they're conveying

stronger passions than I've known
are now confirming the way I feel;
a new way of living on this hill
people living/loving/searching,
reaching for the natural way

American flag --
star-studded kotex of World War
          ONE - TWO - THREE!
flies in front of boss' shop,
beckoning hideously
to loveless, wanton,
orgiastically repressed --
the soul-raped, fetid, and spent,
wishing to lose precious life-seed
all for the love of
          Hurricane Profit

Boss storms in --
he loses it!
roars out --
the boss', authoritarian, fairy ghost
of Goerring/Hardy/Hoover!
even tries to make it with me
still...he's no phony,
and I dig him on that

Boss' shop --
not for long...
leaving next week,
taking the coast by storm
with my young teen love

Some watch and cannot believe,
others praise triumphant technology --
progress being their most important product!
the starving and discontented
only get in the way!
but...
the path to the Sea of Tranquillity
ain't all glory!
the lunar module has hurtled
through the interminable space
of a hungry Hindu's moments
relying on theoretical relativity
but...
not relating to reality
don't knock the program!
man...
I won't even waste my time,
cause they've gone ahead,
(taken your taxes too)

poets, workin' slobs,
even rock groups
must pay it --
got no choice,
extracted automatically
do you still think you're free?

the church:
ain't Jeesus
ain't a cathedral
ain't the cross

the nation:
ain't the government
ain't the flag
ain't that useless parchment

it's:
you/I -- the people
born free
live as naked as that day

see!
simple truths ain't obscene
and...
moon-landings ain't nothing!
gotta be ONE with the
whole universe!

In the middle of a forlorn sea
there rests a young and gentle isle
o'er which the waves lap savagely,
crashing 'gainst the songs of while.
Resting in a raptured dream, Doan
of last Avalon breathes a soft kiss;
thought-borne, fleeting of his pardon,
on a breeze it flees gravity's abyss.
The circling kiss ascends into a cloud,
and, as the sun might its own shackles free,
bursts above the cursed air so proud,
now shotin' a dream's fading pageantry.
Soon lost of wing, the breath divine
near a glazened forest green alights
on the lips os pulsed with ancient wine --
Lana's lips, of sensual dark delight.

Lana, tressed with latent dawn's maiden
fair, beyond fairest quilted imagery,
who is with ephemeral darkness laden
'neath the spectrum veil of Ashbury.
 

Each night and day the same --the same!
the factory-masters deface mother's tribal name.
There is no laughter, only terrible screams...
the dream-eaters are eating dreams, eating dreams.

Are you a dream-eater, or do you dream?
The dream-eaters live in fast machines;
the machine-paths hide the green Earth,
noisy machines turning the sky grey.

Even the young learn to feast on sweet dreams
and soon join the old in greedy, soul-less schemes,
while young dreamers become hunted you see
persecuted for their rebellious sensitivity.

Do you wonder who the dream-eaters are?
Do you still drive a shiny truck/car?
Befouling the air with elements unclean...
Are you a dream-eater, or do you dream?

On a sea cliff I stand alone
beside the golden gateway to the nation-west;
in the evening mist sounds a foghorn's moan;
dimly glow the bay-city's lights,
shining for midnight urban clashes,
the occasional symptoms of deep unrest.

The nation-west!
where modernity traces streams of fear,
a decadent Babylon devoid of hope
for its restless masses, lovers/friends...
how I long for nature's simpler places,
standing where this lonely land ends.

With its changeless communion
the sea nd shore show me best
what shall ever prevail:
a resounding roar over the white/basin floor,
the tune of rugged miles along the nation-west.

Placid lake, mirror of my soul,
of a thousand crossland streams composed,
intertwined to form an inland sea
filled with life ancient, bittersweet.

Reflecting today's troubled wonders
urban masses, steel/glass/machinery
tiny water's refuge, I get that
these surface stirrings soon depart,
for a dying breeze has no more life than these.

Yonder lonely elm, likewise tortured,
leans precariously o'er your banks'
like that tree, shall I ponder ever inward,
musing o'er the hidden depths of my mind.