Free Verse
The Venice Beat
Poets
The Great River Outside the Mainstream
James Ryan Morris
By Shanna Moore
Winter of 1959 and
the boardwalk was bare, riding my bicycle along the boardwalk
from Santa Monica down the coast. I'd stop at the Carousel, a
gay bar on the Venice boardwalk where all the dudes and dudettes
did a line dance...I loved joining in. One day this guy with the
eyes of the ocean was sitting on a table watching me dance...our
eyes met and never moved away, this poet taking me in as I was
digging those eyes. Later we talked and walked, my bicycle
between us, from Venice to Santa Monica. He just blew in from
New York, this man of many words; I had a suitcase full of
poetry I had written and never showed anyone and I wanted to
show him. This was only the beginning; we were constantly
together and finally he hocked his typewriter and rented the
whole basement of what is now the Morrison, just kitty corner
from the Gas House where I worked as the art director. We lived
in the cellar, Tony Scibella, and Bruce Boyd Jimmy and myself.
We rented four apartments,
two were water-logged at high tide; 20 dollars a month, what a
deal.
the rhythm
of the beat poetry
wail of a soprano sax
Billie Holliday was
Jimmy's musehe
wrote for her, he wrote of her, he dried her tears and set them
to paper; the lady, the inhumanity of the men in her life, man
and the system and their wars, the blues . Jimmy blew bare fist
to bone but softly, he cared. Tony was softer still and Stu
bellowed it out. The Venice West, the other end of the tram
ride, had more poetry...fingers snappin' instead of
applause...one hand clapping...so the establishment wouldn't
shut us down... The words a warningwould
they listen?
the first drumming
echoes across
the sands of time
Jimmy wrote a story
for Hollywood of Billie but they weren't ready for such stark
reality. Instead the story Diana Ross played was so far from
what he knew and saw. He lived in her neighborhood, he new her
blues, he felt her pain, he lived for Billie Holiday and it was
her essence that traveled the cobblestone breezeway, her song.
He wrote the blues, blowing ever so soft the fragrance of a
white gardenia.
We were all destined
to meet, the Lady brought us there, to cry out to each other,
the poets with their ax's honed, their words like acid rain,
their humanity showing...break/straight...ah yes ringside with
the off the wall poets and the lady. Man and the system and
their wars..the blues and reaching for the stars...touching the
face of god...all part of the movement...these poets of Venice
set out to change...
...Jimmy blew
Lawrence Lipton
sold us out
the tourists came
We exploded into the minds of many. They came wanting to see
these bards of protest, huarache's flappin' on the cobblestone
breezeway. Tourists who rode the tram pay a dime see the freaks.
From the Gas House to the Venice West they rode, we laughed at
them and walked, our dimes were for a cup of coffee and a table
to sit and write.
bare self to bone
in search
of the answers
I've planted a Koa
tree in your honor, oh Venice poets, on the top of the mountain
in Hawaii next to madam Pele
"The Poet Tree"
where sun and mist live
and the trade winds blow.
I hang poetry on the limbs
and sometimes they blow away
words on the wind.
I always said the
eyes have it, your eyes and the fetch of a wave. You said, "its
the legs, baby, riding through my dreams"...what a winter of
love and no one but us on the boardwalk, the poets waitin' on
the pome...a few locals and the surf and sand...
so many words
inspired by the lady
dance through the pages of time
the "Lady" walked with us...
held our hands
sang with us.
and then ...
there were those
that would bring us to our knees..
The Killer Summer
drugs and death
but then that's another story
Free Venice Beachhead, April 2008, 9.
the beat
the Venice beat
a booming bellwether
for a generation caught without a compass
on the cutting edge
of uncharted oceans
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