Mein Kampf
–David Lerner
“Gary Snyder lives in the country. He wakes up in the morning and listens to birds. We live in the city.” – Kathleen Woodall i want to do is
make poetry famousall i want to do is
burn my initials into the sunall i want to do is
read poetry from the middle of a
burning building
standing in the fast lane of the
freeway
falling from the top of the
Empire State Buildingthe literary world
sucks dead dog dickI’d rather be Richard Speck
than Gary Snyder
I’d rather ride a rocketship to hell
than a Volvo to BolinasI’d rather
sell arms to the Martians
than wait sullenly for a
letter from some diseased clown with a
three-piece mind
telling me that I’ve won a
bullet-proof pair of rose-colored glasses
for my poem “Autumn in the Spring”I want to be
hated
by everyone who teaches for a livingI want people to hear my poetry and
get headaches
I want people to hear my poetry and
vomitI want people to hear my poetry and
weep, scream, disappear, start bleeding,
eat their television sets, beat each other to death with
swords andgo out and get riotously drunk on
someone else’s moneythis ain’t no party
this ain’t no disco
this ain’t no foolin’ agrab-bag of
clever wordplay and sensitive thoughts and
gracious theories abouthow many ambiguities can dance on the head of a
machine gunthis ain’t no
genteel evening over
cappuccino and bullshitthis ain’t no life-affirming
our days have meaning
as we watch the flowers breathe through our souls and
fall desperately in lovethis ain’t no letter-press, hand-me-down
wimpy beatnik festival of bitching about
the broken rainbowit is a carnival of dread
it is a savage sideshow
about to move to the main arenait is terror and wild beauty
walking hand in hand down a bombed-out road
as missiles scream, while a
sky the color of arterial blood
blinks on and off
like the lights on Broadway
after the last junkie’s dead of AIDSI come not to bury poetry
but to blow it up
not to dandle it on my knee
like a retarded child with
beautiful eyes
butthrow it off a cliff into
icy seas and
see if the motherfucker can
swim for its lifebecause love is an excellent thing
surely we need itbut, my friends…
there is so much to hate These Days
that hatred is just love with a chip on its shoulder
a chip as big as the Ritz
and heavier than
all the bills I’ll never paybecause they’re after us
they’re selling radioactive charm bracelets
and breakfast cereals that
lower your IQ by 50 points per mouthful
we get politicians who think
starting World War III
would be a good career move
we got beautiful women
with eyes like wet stones
peering out at us from the pages of
glossy magazines
promising that they’ll
fuck us till we shoot bloodif we’ll just buy one of these beautiful switchblade knives
I’ve got mine
a carnival of dread
StandardPhoto by Claudia Soraya on Unsplash