"benzedrine" poems
2 million way to go green.
0 number of people we want to
Die for a reason we can easily fix.
Only time will tell, but in this
Late hour, please explain to me, What is time?
Longing to live peacefully,
Again, when times were simpler and the
Rain didn't fall so hard.
Now sitting underneath this
Old Cork Tree,
Shaded from the falling rain; the
Evening looking beautiful, I call out, *"Give me a pen & call me, Mrs.
Benzedrine!"* And now
Laughing; soaking wet, from standing in the rain.
Everywhere I go, people look at me like I'm a nobody...
Even though, I'm more of a somebody then them.
Don't lose control on reality..... it's all a dream, anyways.
Feb 5, 2011
Feb 5, 2011 at 5:32 AM UTC
the Beats high on Benzedrine
wandering the upper west side
before there was an Upper West
Side; following the jazz to the
heat; scouting Times Square [& runaways]
for H & down to the Village; where pale
women w/ accents pick up strange
colored dudes on St. Marks Place,
dancing to hiphop; bobbysoxers
transition from Swing to Rock-and-Roll;
becoming universal Harlem hipsters
from anywhere on the globe; she,
a Japanese painter & body artist;
what bebop was to the beats; hot jazz
& jumping ***** jive, ****** & H,
***** & *** ******* **** drunk;
strung out, hitchhiking; writing poetry
Aug 18, 2018
Aug 18, 2018 at 12:50 PM UTC
like a hot-wheel guided by
a holy hand above, he makes
impossible feats as if the car
creates the road, his free hand
is just as busy making
fanatic gestures to guide
scrambled linguistics
or it rests out the window
seeking a courtship
with the wind
clasping the door handle, wide-eyed
the passenger rides safely adjacent to Fear,
but at every turn Momentum carries Fear deep into the heart
where its is pumped via veins, icing the body
with awe inspiring visions.
Visions controlled by the last true
American Driver.
He drives like only a thief
can, poised by paranoia, pure thrill
achieved only through the drive, race or
getaway.
in a past life,
Neal was a great Outlaw
outrunning potbelly sheriffs
to plump on the saddle to rival
the great horsemen of their day
he’d chase trains down,
taming and taunting them
with speed and skill.
or
perhaps
he was a horse himself.
a terrific thoroughbred
bluegrass fed.
tritting
trotting
his way to a Triple Crown.
trainers fed him Benzedrine
to gage the beast. they feared
he would run through the finish line
and straight across the country
like a maniacal madman
looking for the last
true road
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 9:22 PM UTC
Take any apartment block and stare into its empty eyes;
behind the curtains,
past the stud wall kitchen and into
the bedroom,
they’ll be a couple copulating in
the afternoon sun,
below on the sidewalk
strip, no-one knows of the
grip they’re in-
a vice tight hold of
infatuation:
in-fat-u-ation,
beyond this,
after the ***
the lovers will sit and read,
bleed out to Benzedrine;
puncture parecetemol to avoid headaches;
mess with the myriad marijuana;
raise the stakes and place everything they have
on a red seventeen and hope
they’ll come out sane in the morning haze.
Take any apartment block and stare into its empty eyes.
Mar 6, 2013
Mar 6, 2013 at 11:30 AM UTC
Immaculate Breakfast
I should congratulate myself on choosing the Raisin stuffed and Lemon Drizzle Scones
Who else would?
Spill the milk gently into granola and berry cereal
And an Immaculate breakfast is laid out in front of me
Like a pastoral English farm valley disturbed by thunder in a Turner painting
Which makes you consider how the sunset depicted must have occurred on a Sunday and
you can almost hear the firebrand puritanical country church sermon that was lanced unto the congregation that morning.
But the sun's high and full of itself here-urban nature's reliable humblebrag.
Underwhelming Work Routine
The reason I doublebag tea -most apparent in its amber hue before the whisker of a milkdrop eases the cannonroll
Is that I need to be aware
Of my shortcomings-personal, financial, strategical, spinal, ****** lexical
While typing out this or the next sentence on a screen that could really do with some Mr Clean
-A line that sounded like it made far more sense in my head
A head that is probably in need of a good dose of Ms Benzedrine
A dilemma which lays the foundations of an oft shoddy, disingenuous, misappropriated, underwhelming work routine.
Oh, the work gets completed
just with far more of an effort and
far less of the breezy confidant
self-satisfaction than I originally intended.
And the tea needs to keep me awake
or else I would daydream restlessly, evoking
rats in cages who make political decisions and far away destinations where
I can at last make my life
completely redundant, or, whisper it, a success.
But that's the great kicker of working life, isn't it?
You make a meal out of the easy stuff
And wish the good bits didn't capture people's attention.
Sep 22, 2016
Sep 22, 2016 at 7:24 AM UTC
I often write my poems too fast
And the emotion gets passed by
In a rush to be finished
I gotta remember
I'm not Jack
I can't write on a continuous scroll
In a Benzedrine blur
I wish I could read my poems
With a jazz backing band
I keep a terrible rhythm alone
And when I'm in my car
Listening to Thelonious Monk,
The Jazz King of my heart,
My voice has this growl of feeling
But when I'm on that stage
With the mic staring back at me
I hesitate
It doesn't come out right
It doesn't sound like I rehearsed it
In my bed late at night
Or on those countless car trips
Oh I wish I could take that car
Gun it down an empty highway
Windows down
Air rushing in
And the Miles Davis trumpet
Screaming for me to go
Go
Go
I want to write about more
Than just how I'm feeling
My hero Woody Guthrie said
"All you can write
Is what you see"
But I've spent too much time
Looking in the mirror
When I should be looking out the window
But the window reveals my reflection all the same
I can never truly escape my self
But still I write
I know they are in me
The true holy poems
And maybe they won't be howling
And maybe they will never have been to Chicago
And maybe they don't know any Rimbaud or Garcia Lorca
And maybe they can't sing the blues
But when it is all said and done
No matter what they are
They're all I've got
And you can never hate something like that
Sep 21, 2015
Sep 21, 2015 at 11:28 PM UTC
Stagnancy living
in colorless morning.
sunflower sunshine disconsolate
the rooster sings
eulogies and clamored verses
ringing alarm bells in cockcrow
cough drone weary eyes
dew-tied memories of
reverie weepy
aching legs and chest pains
cotton cozied pills crashing
underneath plastic caps
prescription taps
Tylenol Benzedrine
relapse body thinning
cities wearing
ergonomic tragedies
encircling business quarter
daffodil rooftops
steady rain descending onto
varnished sidewalks.
Addicts pirouette dazzled the
hazed-minds dreaming of
Aprils and consistent harmonious
ecstasy visions stampeded
by the brickwork flickered with
lamplight demons overcast this illusory Babylon
trembling flesh retreats into the shadows it came
and nightmares remain similar to days before and after.
Recycled horrors lightning flash abhorrent death
whether they be wearing black suits or black robes
scythe or satchel the wide eyes scour gaunt alleys
for fixes to fix the monotonous life bewitched
with false material variety anxiety deity
Desecration City express way to depression
oppressed people hide away in simultaneous acts of
camouflaging fireballs
spiraling into decadence.
Diamond days few and far between
communal woe reverberates through skins
and skeletons in opening of top story windows
during Winter. Despite the fragrance chaos,
pandemic paranoia,
extinguishing elation,
All bodies continue to be
alone.
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 8:47 PM UTC
You slept again with that unknown man,
I sniff your clothes, freezing my cheeks sending a nervous shudder,
Radiant exuberance rushes through every cell, as my mind enters a ****** state of pleasure and Benzedrine.
Fire ignites from within every hole, I cry out for my thoughts are their own, and they are spinning on the floor.
I look to the sky and say "forgive me father" as I enter this state of perfect purgatory.
Breaking down crying naked I shriek with delight.
Burning a cigarette hole in my arm I let the supernatural ecstasy encompass me, as Imagine his fiery eyes.
I want to pleasure him, I want him to rip my limbs.
Sit on my *** and worship his soul.
Feel the feeling as he lifts your legs to his waist,
as he chokes you out of consciousness, forcing you to imagine my reaction.
The feeling of having him inside you as he fills you with pain, pleasure and joy.
For you think you cheated,
and got away,
but in reality I was always really gay.
Apr 2, 2017
Apr 2, 2017 at 9:32 PM UTC
Stood lonesome beneath the old floodlight
Sweetest embrace, the Gods shone down
Forging great dramas in steel slabs
and returning home with a picture of Hollywood
I, sad-eyed fool, asked after you, and heard nothing
Though, in Benzedrine dreams I was gifted your scent
and awoke to the stench of ********** ***** and the powder dissolved
Ah, I have heard your voice
Yet you ignore mine
The great whale twisted in the alley, with biceps bulging
and tussling with hoodlums we were sent packing,
Awaiting us were the sterile walls of some grande hospital
Lined with officers, their pads and pens at the ready
Beds spinning, squinting under neon, docile
and confused
Bars and bars, from one t' other, flicking roaches into the gutter as we went
and howling at the harlots stood 'neath street lights, flickering
Poisoned in body, poisoned in mind, the spirit on it's way
Brick lanes and paddy wagons, urchins and knock-a-door run
The unshaven dealers, passing poor product to the children
and they, still in uniform, bleary eyed, satchels and sandwiches
We, tied, cuffed, stranded and free
Flags! The flags were a sight, satirical and stupefying
Patriotism always made me chuckle, it being so absurd
Yet her majesty still reigns supreme, have we no shame?
Oh justifiable mockery, tainted our streets, the names we know
How can one free one's country if one is but one person,
and how could one simultaneous be one million?
But even here in this mournful cell that layeth ten feet below, I am free, I may not know it yet, but I am...
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 6:37 PM UTC
More of a man at 20 than at 22
All of the passages about One, there were no others
Regressing into sin, no art without misery
That old cliche, right? Right.
I read somewhere that he wanted to be a writer
He wanted to be a great writer, Remembered
Taking, making great sacrifices for art
Alcohol, Benzedrine, Isolation
Checkmate, One and Two and Three
The night (this night) will be my Desolation Peak
For now,
Looking back through the pages
Who exists in this manuscript?
Who is Marg?
Who is Sil?
Won’t you please tell me?
Won’t you come fill my Head. I’m not asking
Won’t you come fill my bed?
So I need not pretend
Were it that I could let you in
Save for those rare times when everyone appears not unctuous
To my uneasy usurious eyes
In an act of desperate atavism I return to the roots,
To the past, to the Grass,
(Looking)
To the glass
Only momentarily half empty
Before it is refilled
Where will we find our answers honey?
When will we cease to believe this positive psychology ********
You don’t need to be happy
You don’t need to be comfortable
You need to Mean
to have
Meaning
to create a legacy
Not shrouded in shame
and neglect
and fear
It doesn’t have to be the same
New city, new hope, new name
Erase the stain with pen and paper
Evoke change
See the world through baby blue eyes
The bucolic beauty brilliantly beats and beads down, blooming
Bright flowers in early mildew sunlight
Or Big Sur - view from the mountains
Or the moon
Soon my love, soon
Swoon, sweetly suggest
The sight of a lover’s supple *******
And her name like poetry on your soft still whispering lips
Tantalizing and tickling tongues
Tickling and tucking shyly
Soft skin swimming in hushed tones, brushed bones and quiet sighs
Wide eyed, clenching belies
The beginning and the end of far more
Jul 29, 2014
Jul 29, 2014 at 9:39 PM UTC
Long arm gendarme
My mistake namaste
Backpack bivouac
On the Road with Kerouac
Brilliant stars, silent nights
Fireflies, Northern Lights
Mountain streams, fresh air
Fall asleep anywhere
Small town, take a chance
Pig roast, barn dance
Allemande left! Do-si-do!
Spontaneity here we go!
Long arm gendarme
My mistake namaste
Backpack bivouac
On the Road with Kerouac
Beat Zen's hey-day
Doing things our own way
Nonconformity, anything goes
Kerouac-Ginsburg-Burroughs
Shot to pieces, picking skin
Benzedrine, adrenaline
Don't forget the Phenergan
Notify our next of kin
Long arm gendarme
My mistake namaste
Backpack bivouac
On the Road with Kerouac
Oct 19, 2019
Oct 19, 2019 at 12:11 PM UTC
Sing me to sleep, Allen Ginsberg
The entire fluorescent universe pulses and breathes in your chest
Or mine, or his, or Hers, particularly Hers
And I wish nothing more than to be nothing
Or everything
Tell me, were our souls cut from the same stars?
If I trace the hieroglyphics of our scars will I reach some understanding?
Will I ever look upon your papier-mache mountains or caress your Mohammedan angels?
Will the blood red sun burn my bitter heart out before the Benzedrine kicks in?
Tell me, will I touch the face of God or grasp at phantoms forever?
If this is the apocalypse why do I feel such discontent?
I wish nothing more than to be the center of gravity
At which all things meet, and break, and fall away
To drift in to emptiness like crumpled up phases of the lonely moon
Tell me, are my veins pumping gasoline?
Was I born to die on the road, and what manner of Valkyrie will lift me to my rest once I do?
And who will I thank, once I am there
For the opportunity to sleep?
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 1:31 AM UTC
Wake up and follow me home
We can't get that far when he doesn't want me
But I can't let up
He's everything that keeps me up
I'm sure I could write a novel
And package it in two or three
The best kind of love
where everybody bleeds more than once
I saw you through those old-fashioned flings
Sea-glass for Wendy and nothing for me
It began with Benzedrine
And me forgetting how to sleep
For welcome home
You just gotta shed your skin
I'm sure you could if you tried it
And if you let me in
If you let me in
Jun 18, 2014
Jun 18, 2014 at 9:57 PM UTC
Sing me asleep, Allen Ginsberg,
Now somewhere wrapped in plastic and oak, splinters of eternity under fingernails,
and hold a note high enough to peek into heaven but low enough so that I may climb into it, and live there, breathe there, believe there, flower of the world, open and take in the light, let me take it with me to dreams of machinery and wake new, oiled and energized, into a vast and endless morning, all sunflowers and tall grass drinking rain to hangover, get me heatsick and dizzy in the aftermath of a sunrise and let me wander these streets all year, plucking daisies from sidewalks and watching news through storefront windows, wishing on crime scenes, putting up posters on walls of the names of the companies who have gutted this land dry; I, and you, and we collectively, built these cities from scrap metal and twine, and when those hearts howl into that space who will answer them? Who will orchestrate this night when the angels retire? When I close my eyes will the valkyries come down? Who can I thank for the opportunity to rest?
When I close my eyes in that night, I will think of you, beat and never broken, Benzedrine prophets and papier-mâché mountains, sitting there in the center of it all and I will long to join you, to become the point where all things meet, connect, and are intertwined, and in becoming, to know, and in knowing, to find peace, and in peace, to rest
Jun 12, 2017
Jun 12, 2017 at 11:41 PM UTC
we belong to the starving places, the broken places,
the screaming, shattered, hallucinated alleys
of blood and smoke and demons of shuddering righteousness.
floating lovers running high and poison-drunk
into doorways and neonic windows crying out
for absinthe and holy, holy benzedrine
in glazed teacups of library cafés.
demonic siren-songs,
shrieking car alarms in afternoon machineries,
when all the righteous are sleeping
and the chosen come out to scream
in front of shutters closed down to the ******
vibrations from the drilling drilling drilling
into the pavements of greying rain-tears and rainbowed gasoline
spilled carelessly from engines
releasing rotten and evil from the deepness of the earth.
those righteous-shutters blow half open
in the madness of waxing moon-winds.
beautiful, beautiful darkness,
beautiful, beautiful damnation,
golden deception,
golden lucifer,
golden hell,
golden lights straying off pathways of dark-deep forests,
golden souls in eager rivers of underworlds,
golden addiction,
golden smiles of torture,
golden wheels of death and birth
and dying, dying, dying for the darkness,
dying with blood running purple
into the indigo road- drains of night,
reflecting golden constellations and golden lamp-posts
and the golden windows of empire state and the l-train.
scream, scream, scream into your indigo death.
fearful, ground-sleeping, six feet forgotten,
fires below, regret above, redemption and tears from the righteous
with their closed windows far above the bodies now.
those starving places belong to us.
the dumpster-fainted concussions,
the vomited acids of last night’s drunken affairs in amber side-streets,
the hollow-eyed babies born out of terror and war
and atomic demises of love and perforated money,
those flawlessly created youths with their drugged immortality
shining broken-skinned from out of their eyes and mouths
those nothing-brained men of poetry and heavenly visions,
those meilleurs esprits,
those wanton dreamers of scotch and rosé
and pure ethanol gulped from glassware,
burning throats and minds and talent
and running genius into drains
with the purple blood of the dying.
the starving places belong to the starving,
and the starving belong to their indigo deaths.
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 5:57 PM UTC
Under these streets runs the blood of the promises we made, with gold plated markers placed every few feet to remind us of what we lost:
The dream of the beatniks - a needle in the railroad veins of America, the grand old night skies illuminated by the halos of the restless Benzedrine angels circling overhead with thumbs outstretched for a ride to Somewhere Else,
The dream of the old folk singers - the hatred of tyrants surrounded and forced to surrender, with liberated love and the joyous hymns of the workers filling the cities in equal measure,
The dream of the punks - a Molotov inferno sending politicians from coast to coast running for cover, and everybody able to get off a few good punches before it's over,
The dream of the hipsters - to hit the bottle running and black out before anyone knows they were ever there, to let it all fade out in distorted chords until everybody has to leave and they are the only ones still clapping,
As with all things, there is a story here if you are willing to listen,
For the ghosts of waves who crashed the shores of lakes long dried, destined to rise and crest and break and crash again,
For the muffled beauty of a young boy listening to his favorite record hoping no one is close enough to ruin this moment,
For the faint but distinct sounds of ripping fabric as he discards the days miseries, folded up and prepared to resume come morning,
For the hesitant snip of scissors in another room as he accepts the terms of surrender, followed by the rustling of hair and dignity falling into trash cans,
For the indignant howls of desperation that divide each night into portions,
Those who feel and those who are numb,
But the feeling is only treatable, not curable
And once it is there, one eye is stuck forever watching the horizon waiting for bombs to fall,
The other studying cracks in the foundation waiting for total collapse,
Both know that this has to end one way or another,
And the beatniks sing,
And the old folk singers sing,
And the punks sing,
And the hipsters sing,
And the ghosts all sing,
We either get there or we suffer
We either get there or we suffer
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 2:39 AM UTC