do something pretty while you can


Christopher Saah, Nightscene, 2004

This Poor Life; The Rain
and the Shining Guide:
The Nest of the Horse and the Scales of Eternity
Make a Pattern But I've got My Life Caught
In a Road Going Nowhere
-- by Kenneth Patchen

The empire is
Officially a goddamn bore

Money's antennae
Feel over the asses of everybody.

As far as that goes a fire ten miles high
Wouldn't warm some of these toads.
They shake my hand and their gloves stink
With the sweat of my people.

They ride a blind horse in a race to hell.
But they sing pretty fat now,
Try tickling me under the skin!
"I just met the most amusing writer. . . "
How perfectly snotty.

For the pittie o' 'em,
O for the pittie of their bloody ways. . .

As now I've said their death--
I'm sure they will know whose friend I am.


To A Certain Section of Our Population
-- by Kenneth Patchen

It is ordered now
That you push your beliefs
Up out of the filth high enough
For the inchworm to get their measure.


Letter to the Critic
-- by Carl Rakosi

There's no living with you
when you pass yourself off and an interpreter.
For whom is this game played?

Are you less entitled to imagination than the poet?
Django on a borrowed string,
I'll vote for that!