Sketchbook  A. D. Winans, US

 

Free Verse Hospital Poem so many hospitals with so many names of so many saints it makes the heart want to bleed Saint Francis Saint Mary’s Saint Joseph Saint Luke Saint this one and that one so many people lined-up waiting on death hacking and coughing spitting up their insides so many nurses with dollar-bill eyes strutting their stuff into the parking lot too tired for love too tired to laugh overcome with failure and fatigue so many doctors so sad they can’t be God hiding their disappointment in cocktail glasses or between the legs of the angels of mercy so many doctors beaten-down by death so frustrated they take out their anger on the golf courses of America in the bedrooms of loved one so many cardiac arrests so many dead on arrivals so many John Doe’s so many Jane Doe’s how many only the business office knows and the security guards and the housekeeping staff and the accountants and the gray-haired lady volunteers with eyes worn as an Indian Head penny and the young nurses with bodies like orange blossoms who walk it on by your door and my door worn down stepped on they eat and sleep they masturbate with hands and vibrators some none to cleverly some like Van Gogh returning each day to walk the halls like vampires with pained fingernails that slice the flesh to the bone the doctors the nurses the orderlies in white the priests the patients and loved ones all seeking a private audience with God here behind these sterile walls where death stalks the halls with hot panting breath licking the crevice of the soul death the noble savage death the avenging sadist leaving behind her scars playing out the game to the bitter end a giant hearse among a sea of compact cars     The Man You Don't Want To See beware, he’ll talk you to death while puffing on a cigarette you can find him standing by the jukebox begging for a quarter, waiting at the pool table for an out-of-town mark he’s a would-be soldier looking for a battle zone a boner without a bone he’s a sex addict hiding under the bed a towel-man cleaning up semen from a whorehouse bedspread he’s a second rate don juan reciting the 23rd psalm he’s the chef you never see in a rich man’s restaurant he’s the difference between night and day a preacher who sells options on how to pray he’s the man behind the window in the downtown pawnshop he’s a crooked weather-beaten cop dining on mashed potatoes and pork chops he’s the ugly face you see on cable TV trying to win over you and me he’s a funeral mortician bringing you sadness and gloom he’s into yoga and a master of zen he’s the feed in a pigpen he has his nose up the ass of anyone who can do him a favor he comes in twenty-four different flavors he’s the stain left behind in the church-pew he’s the masturbating monkey at the zoo he’s a shoe salesman, a fortune-teller a dying man with a 106 degree fever he’s a jack-of-all trades dressed in designer jeans and wearing shades he’s as old as mankind, a cheap treasure find he’s the man you never hope to see when you look at yourself in the mirror     For Bernie Survivor Old-timer In search of a fix Burned spoon hovering over Hot flame Like a moth drawn to a light-bulb Arm stretched tight with rubber band Liquid death riding sunken vein Resembling a cowboy looking Forward to the last trail drive     Audience of one Old songs with half-forgotten lyrics play inside my head older still movies play on the bark of my skin Oklahoma, South Pacific, West Side Story singing on the tip of my tongue humming my way back to yesterday left alone with ghostly echoes that serenade the dead I can almost feel the ignited passion lost lovers draped on my bed tasting the melody riding up and down my spine Memories of my parents' old Victrola vinyl records spinning on a balanced groove a love affair so fragile it was like trying to thread a needle in the teeth of a storm Fading fading fading now like an old flame sipping on a cup of coffee at my favorite cafe a smile on her face fingers snapping foot tapping to the music that made us as one Evaporating in the face of dawn like clouds taking foreign shapes like the smoke rings my father blew my way as a child Frank Sinatra crooning in the background the way of music sex love God and death playing to an audience of one     I Saw The Best Minds Of My Generation I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by greed, not so starving hysterical, naked under their fashion designer clothes driving themselves through congested city streets looking for non-existent parking spaces aging hormone driven biological clock mothers offering their purple veined breasts to baby suckling zombies, in and out of public. who stock-market driven and laser vision perception sipped Starbuck’s coffee under protective awnings while watching beat cops shoo off the homeless who chatted aimlessly on their cell phones making reservations at trendy restaurants while whining about the quality of the wine who fucked only by appointment, dutifully expecting a climax in sixty seconds or less who shopped at organic food markets looking for eternal youth while seeking cash rebates with no idea what to do with them who saw the savior while vacationing in Palm Springs and God on Turner TV who taught their children how to use ATM machines while devising cleaver tax evasion schemes who gave up writing to save a tree and claimed it as a tax deduction who drove their cars in the bicycle lane hoping for some excitement who pierced their nipples cocks and tongues wanting to be among the hip and young who pledged their allegiance to the almighty dollar while writing protest letters to their daily newspaper Holy is the sock. Holy is Swiss cheese Holy is the ATM machine. Holy is cable television Holy is the condom. Holy is the U.N. Holy Is pop culture ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching is the new Holy Order the holy of the unholy The best minds of my generation

 

A Native Poet Retraces His San Francisco Youth

A. D. Winans on Jack Micheline

 

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