Um, some topical cartoons.

Pedro Pietri ( 1944 -2004) - UPTOWN/TRAIN / TELEPHONE BOOTH NUMBER 905 and a half

Poet, playwright. Pedro Pietri lived most of his life in Harlem, Manhattan, New York. Pietri was a co-founder of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe at 505 East Sixth Street in New York City.
Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on March 21, 1944. Three years later, his family moved to Harlem. He attended public schools in New York City and was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War from 1966 to 1968. A resident of New York City and prominent Nuyorican poet, Pedro Pietri died on March 3, 2004.

Pedro Pietri -UPTOWN TRAIN

I predict that at exactly 10 to 10 it will be 10 to 10 again
then at exactly 10 after 10 it will be 10 after 10 once again
until the hands of time change the subject at which time I will
make another accurate prediction for the science friction public
I predict that if you are caught in a sudden violent rainstorm
and you don't have an umbrella available you will get soaken wet
I predict that if you forget to brush your teeth for one week
your breath will smell worse than all the sewers of the universe
I predict that if you wake up late in the morning you won't get
to work on time and be deducted and instructed to be punctual or else
find yourself another fulltime job to pay for a decent funeral
I predict that the more you demonstrate the less you masturbate
your demands will be met after you forget what your demands are
I predict that after friday night it will be saturday morning
I predict that if you dont put gasoline into the engine of your
car you will have a difficult time getting out of your garage
I predict that if you blow your nose snots will come out of them
I predict that if you can't sing you can't sing if you can't act you can't act
if you can't dance you can't dance and if you can't lose weight you can't
lose weight and you must love or hate yourself
I predict that if you have nothing to say you have nothing to say
I predict that if you go away and don't return and leave behind no
forwarding address your mail; will be returned to the post office and
discarded to oblivion if not claimed by anyone within thirty days.

TELEPHONE BOOTH NUMBER 905 and a half

woke up this morning
feeling excellent
picked up the telephone
dialled the number of
my equal opportunity employer
to inform him I will not
be into work today
" Are you feeling sick? "
the boss asked me
"No sir" I replied:
I am feeling too good
to report to work today
if I feel sick tomorrow
I will come in early
of I feel

Fight the cuts.

Sorry to digress from my usual flavours but soon a wave of Tory cuts will be upon us, backed up by their partners in crime the lib democrats. Soon it will be like 1979 again, once again the conservatives are taking a chainsaw to essential sevices, and like last time it will be the poor, sick and most vulnerable who are hit the hardest. Their vision for Britain is one of emptiness and division, while sitting back in their armchairs of privelege, they demonise and lazily pepetuate an image of scroungers living of benefit as a lifestyle choice rather than people trapped by circumstances beyond their control.
Meanwhile their friends get away scot free with their own lifestyle choices such as tax avoidance which cost the treasury 120 billion pounds, plus their second homes.
While their is money to bail out banks, and still money for war and trident, their surely must be money for our public services.
Lets remember what caused the current recession in the first place, it was caused by the excesses of the bankers, and now it seems the conservatives want ordinary people to pay for it. Cuts being proposed are not driven by necessity but driven by a twisted right wing ideology.
The coalitions power is held by a thread and must be confronted at every opportunity, or we will return to the dark days of Thatchers Britain which still scars Britain to this day.
It is vital alliances are made to defend public services.Lets remember the majority of the electorate did not vote at all for any of these forthcoming draconian measures.We must not take this all lying down, we must show our continual opposition to the conservatives upcoming onslaught, join the resistance before it's to late. We must not give up, that is their probable aim, a country again full of division, rich verses poor. Normal services will at least return here soon. In the meantime fight the cuts.

Below - The Mekons song, Fight the cuts.

Charles Mingus - Mingus and His Psychiatrist.

'In other words I am three. One man stands forever in the middle, unconcerned, unmoved, watching, waiting to be allowed to express what he sees to the other two. The second man is like a frightened animal that attacks for fear of being attacked. Then there's an overloving gentle person who lets people into the uttermost sacred temple of his being and he'll take insults and be trusting and sign contracts without reading them and get talked down to working cheap or for nothing, and when he realizes what's been done to him he feels like killing and destroying everything around him including himself for being so stupid. But he can't - he goes back inside himself.'
'Which one is real?'
'They're all real.'
'The man who watches and waits, the man who attacks because he's afraid, and the man who wants to trust and love but retreats each time he finds himself betrayed. Mingus One, Two and Three.
Which is the image you want the world to see?'
'What do I care what the world sses, I'm only trying to find out how I should feel about myself. I can't change the fact that they're all against me - that they don't want me to be a success.'
'Who doesn't?'
'Agents and businessmen with big offices who tell me, a black man, that I'm abnormal for thinking we should have our share of the crpo we produce. Musicians are as Jim-Crowed as any black motherfucker on the street and the... the... well, they want to keep it that way.'

Picture below; Franz Kline - Black Reflections (1959).

'Charles, I know what you mean by they, and that's ironic. Because don't you remember saying you came to me not only because I'm a psychologist but also because I'm a Jew? And therefore could relate to your problems?'
'Haw haw! You're funny, doctor.'
'Ah, you're crying again. Here, dry your eyes, Mingus, and don't bullschitt me.'
'Haw! Now I got you cursing!'
'You've got no exclusive on cursing. Don't bullschitt me. You're a good man, Charles, but there's alot of fabrication and fantasy in what you say. For instance, no man could have as much intercourse in one night as you claim to have had.'
'The hell he couldn't! Maybe I did exaggerate some things like the weight-lifting and all that 'cause I really don't know how much those barbells weighed but only two other guys could pick 'em up and their feet sank into the ground!'
'You're changing the subject, my friend. I was asking about the Mexican girls. Why are you so obsessed with proving you're a man? Is it because you cry?'
'I am more of a man than any dirty white cocksucker! I did fuck twenty-three girls in one night, including the boss's wife! I didn't dig it - I did itbecause I wanted to die and I hoped it would kill me. But on the way back from Mexico I still felt unsatisfied so I stopped and....'
'Go on.... Are you ashamed?'
'Yes because it felt better when I did it to myself than with all those twenty-three dirty-ass whores. They don't love men, they love money.'
'How can you know what they love, Charles? Here. Dry your eyes.'
'Schitt. Fuck it. Even you just dig money!'
'Then don't pay me.'
'Oh, I dig your psychology! You know saying that makes me want to pay you double.'
'Nope, I don't want your money. You're a sick man. When the time comes that you feel I've helped you, buy me a tie or something. And I won't call you a prevaricator again. What matters is that youstop lying to yourself. Now, earlier you said you were a procurer. Tell me about it. How did you get into that?'
'Why don't you ever let me lie on the couch, doctor?'
'You always choose the chair.'
'I feel you don't want me on the couch 'cause I'm coloured and your white patients might be bugged.
'Oh, Charles Mingus! You can lie on it, kick it, jump on it, get on it, get under it, turn it over, break it - and pay for it.'
'Man, yo're crazy! I'm gonna save you.'
'Your not trained to save. I am.'
'I can save you. Do you believe in God?'
'Yes.'
'As a boogie man?'
'We'll get around to that later. Back to the subject, your one - time ill-famed profession.'
'Well, it's true I tried to be a pimp, doctor, but I wasn't really making it 'cause I didn't enjoy the money the girls got me. I remember the first one I knew - Cindy. She had all this bread under her mattress. Bobo laughed at me 'cause I didn't take it - he said I didn't know how to keep a whore.'
'If you didn't want the money, what was it you wanted?'
'Maybe just to see if I could do what the other pimps did'
'Why?'
'That's almost impossible to explain - how you feel when you're a kid and the king pimps come back to the neighbourhodd. They pose and twirl their watchchains and sport their new cadillacs and Rollses and expensive tailored clothes. It was like the closest thing to one of our kind becomming president of the USA. When a young up-and-coming man reaches out to prove himself boss pimp, it's making it. That's what it meant where I come from - proving you're a man'
'And when you proved it, what did you want?'
'Just play music, that's all.'
'I've been reading about you in a magazine. You didn't tell me you were such a famous musician.'
'That don't mean schtitt. That's a system those that own us use. They make us famous and give us names - the King of this, the Count of that, the Duke of what! We die broke anyhow - and sometimes I think I dig death more than I dig facing this white world.'
'We're making progress Charles, but perhaps we've done enough for today.'



' Mingus and his psychiatrist' an extract from 'Beneath the Underdog'
Published by Knopf, New York, 1971

DREAM.

I see a future
that expects nothing.
as the sheep are grazing
new worlds are revealed
passion is renewed.

Draw breath,
draw fire,
draw revival
keep ideas, on the horizon.

Admire the echoes
remember what has been exchanged,
as silent voices become a mighty roar
we keep returning, along twisting paths,
between the ridge we walk
where winds are gentle.

Exchange values
stare for stare,
take a strangers hand and hug
hold tight and take a chance.

These are dangerous times
turn of the flow of twisted ideology,
let it run and take its course
to placid waters.

Make love
become a friend of reason,
swim like a salmon
head far upstream,
catch truth
follow freedom.

While history is happening
revolutions keep rearranging,
with safety nets of protection
and clouds that continue to float,
I feel the future rattling near.
wake up and smell the roses.

CORNIELLE ( Cornelis Guillame van Beverloo ) artist and poet, born 3 July 1922; died 5 September 2010

Sam Shepherd - RHYTHM

If everything could be sung to the standard rock and roll progression - C, A minor, F, G chords - then everything'd be simple. How many variations on a single theme. The greatest drum solo I ever heard was by a loose flap of a tarpaulin on top of my car hitting the wind at eighty. The second best is wind shield wipers in the rain, but more abstract, less animal. Like the rythyms of a rabbit scratching his chin. Vision rhythyms are neat like hawk swoops and swan dives. Slow motion space rythyms. Digging rhythyms like shovels and spades and hoes and rakes and snowplow rhythyms. Jack-hammer rhythyms make Ginger Baker and Keith Moon look like punk chumps. Oil can rhythyms, ratchet wrench rythyms. Playing cards in bicycle spokes. A string of rapid-fire, firecracker rhythyms. Propeller rythyms. Cricket rythyms. Dog claws clicking on hard wood floors. Clocks. Piston rhythyms. Dripping faucets. Tin hitting tin in the wind. Water slapping rocks. Flesh slapping flesh. Boxing rhythyms. Racing rhythyms. Rushing brooks. Radio static buzz in a car when the engine is the dictator. Directional turnsignal blinkers. Off and on neon lights. Blinking yellow arrows. Water pumps. Refrigerator hums. Thermostatic-controlled heating systems. Clicking elevators with the numbers lighting up for each floor. Snakes sliding through grass. In fact any animal through grass. At night. Buoy lights. Ship signals. Airplane warnings. Fire alarms. Rhythyms in a stuck car horn. Eating rythyms. Chewing rhythyms. The cud of a cow. The chomp of a horse. Knives being sharpened. Band saws. Skill saws. Hack saws. Buzz saws. Buck saws. Chain saws. Any saw rythym. Hammers and nails. Moneyclanking in a poker game. Cards shuffled. Bus meters. Taxi meters. Boiling water rhythyms. Clicking ballpoint pens. Clicking metal frogs. Roulette wheel spinning rhythyms. Tire rhythyms. Whittling. Stitching. Typing. Clicking knitting needles. Parrots sharpening their beaks on wood. Chickens scratching. Dogs digging for moles. Birds cleaning their feathers. Cocking guns. Spinning guns. Bolt actions. Lever actions. Snapping finger nails. Finger popping.Cracking knuckles. Snapping bones. Farting. Spitting. Shitting. Fucking rhythyms. Blinking eyes. Blowing nose. Coughing without control. Candle flicker rhythyms. Creakinghouses. Thawing ice.
And you call yourself a drummer?


FROM:

Hawkmoon, PAJ Publications, New York, 1981.

Harry Crosby ( American poet 1898 -1929) 2 Poems.

Firebrand

What is your feeling about the revolutionary spirit of your
age, as expressed, for instance, in such movements as
communism, surrealism, anarchism?
The revolutionary spirit of our age (as expressed by
communism, surrealism, anarchism, madness)is a hot
firebrand thrust into the dark lantern of the world.
In Nine Decades
a mad Queen shall be born.


Vision

I exchange eyes with the Mad Queen

the mirror crashes against my face and
bursts into a thousand suns
all over the city flags crackle and bang
fog horns scream in the harbor
the wind hurricanes through the window
and I begin to dance the dance of the
Kurd Shepherds

I stamp upon the floor
I whirl like dervishes

colors revolve dressing and undressing
I lash them with my fury
stark white with iron nlack
harsh red with blue
marble green with bright orange
and only gold remains naked

columns of steel riseand plunge
emerge and dissapear
pistoning in the river of my soul
thrusting upwards
thrusting downwards
thrusting inwards
thrusting outwards
penetrating

I roar with pain

black-footed ferrets dissapear into holes

the sun tattoed on my back
begins to spin
faster and faster
whirring whirling
throwing out a glory of sparks
sparks shoot off into space
sparks into shooting stars
shooting stars collide with comets

Explosions
Naked Colors Explode
into
Red Disaster

I crash out through the
window naked, widespread
upon a
Heliosauraus
I uproot an obelisk and plunge
it into the ink-pot of the
Black Sea
I write the word
SUN

Penillion Singing - Thomas Love Peacock (1785 - 1866)

Besides the single songs, there were songs in dialogue, approaching very nearly to the character of dramatic poetry; and penillion, or unconected stanzas, sung in series by different singers, the stanzas being complete in themselves, simple as Greek epigrams, and presenting in succession moral precepts, pictures of natural scenery, images of war or of festival, the lamentations of absence or captivity, and the complaints or triumphs of love. This penillion-singing long survived among the Welsh peasantry almost every other vestige of bardic customs, and may still be heard among them on the few occasions on which rack-renting, tax collecting, common-enclosing, methodist-preaching, and similar developments of the light of the age, have left them either the means or inclination of making merry.

From :- The Misfortunes of Elphin

Hen benillion ( literally 'old verses') are a unique form of folk poetry in Britain. Dating from the 16th century and earlier these short verses, or chains of verses, were composed to be spoken or sung to a harp accompianiment. They have been performed at socialgathering in Wales for centuries, enriching the collective public memory with their mix of proverbs, saws, catchphrases and commentary on local events characters. They are, quite literally, a people's poetry, and regular reciters would have hunreds in their repetoires. They were written in free, as opposed to traditional fixed metres.

from:- A people' poetry, seren , 1997.

PENILLION

Hardd yw Conwy, hardd yw Nefyn,
Hardd yw brigau coedydd Mostyn,
Haddaff lle'r wy'n allu 'nabod
Yn y byd yw dyffryn Meifod.

(Conway is fair, Nevin is fair, the tips of the Mostyn trees are fair, the fairest place I can ever know in the world is Meivod Valley. )

Cleddwch fi, pan fyddwyf farw,
Yn y coed dan ddail y derw;
Chwi gewch weled llanc penfelyn
Ar fy medd yn canu'r delyn.

( Bury me, when I am dead, in the trees under the oak leaves; you shall see a yellow-haired youth on my grave playing the harp.)

Mae dwy galon yn fy mynwes,
Un yn oer a'r llall yn gynness;
Un yn gynnes am ei charu,
A'r llall yn oer rhag ofn ei cholli.

( There are two hearts in my bosom, one is cold and the other warm; one is warm through love of her, and the other is cold through fear of losing her.)

Futher Penillion translated By Mr Glyn Jones

Amser sydd i dewi ar bopeth,
amser sydd i ddwedyd rhywbeth,
Ond ni ellir cael un amser
I ddweud popeth yn ddibryder.

( Theres a time for saying nothing;there's a time for saying something; there never is a time for pouring the whole truth out and nver caring.)

Cyn i mi yfed nid oeedwdwn yn gweled
Ffordd yn y byd i dalu fy nyled.
Ond wedi im yfed yr oeddwn yn gweled
Digon i dalu a digon i yfed.

( Before I got boozed up I just couldn't see, how to pay all the bills they kept sending me, But when I got drunk, oh I knew how to get more money to booze with and pay off my debt.)

Maent yn dewdyd bod yr wylan
Ar y traeth yn cadw tafarn,
Ac yn gwerthu'n rhad y ddiod, -
Dyna un o'r saith rhyfedodd.

I'm told the seagull in some cavern
By the sea-shore keeps a tavern,
Where he sells cheap beer for fun.
Of the Seven Wonders - this is one!

Tebyg ydyww'r delyn dyner
I ferch wen a'i chnwad melysber;
Wrth ei theimlo mewn cyfrinach,
Fe ddaw honno'n fwynach, fwynach.

The gentle harp is like a fresh
Young maiden, and her tender flesh;
What follows fingering her in secret
Is something sweeter and more dulcet.

Pen-Y- Gadair

Edwin Morgan - Colossus of Scotish Poetry has left the building ( 27/4/1920- 17/8/2010).

Edwin Morgan who died last week was the national poet of Sotland, a masterful writer with a vast palatte to draw on, he was both poet and scholar. He was a true innovator and experimenter influenced by numerous forms such as the Black Mountain poets, the Beats ( he was a friend and champion of Alexander Trocchi) Russian modernism, and the Portugese concrete poets. Born in Glasgow in 1920 to presbertarian parents he had a strong sense of fun, mischevious but gentle. His love poems very tender, although gay he never actually came out until ageds 70, so until then the love objects in his love poems were not gendered. He was loved nevertheless by his people, along with Sorley MacClean and Alisdair Gray he opened my eyes to Scottish culture, and its details .He was a true individual who saw himself as a republican Scottish nationalist and was of deep and passionate feeling. Outspoken but gentle. Surrealistic laughter, never guess what's round the corner. Tender, passionate.
He served with the RAMC as a conscientious objector during the second World War in the Middle East. He became a lecturer in English at the University of Glasgow until his retirement in 1980.
He caught in full sight his lyric epiphanies, in the focus and refocus of sequences, the wily reification of words in concrete poems, and the wierd rhythyms of sound poems. His transforming imagination was democratic, generous and inclusive. Ian Crichton Smith wrote that Morgan's poetry ' welcomes the twentieth century, with its gadgets, its paradoxes, graffiti, new languages, torn advertisements, uncoscious jokes, voyages...' His words were always an adventure and were like looking at a stained glass of paradise. A magpies eye for detail , in tune with modern pop culture not afraid at speaking out, mocking,anger, rage but then capable of huge reliefs of quick fire humour.
I heard him last on an album by the Scottish band Idlewild in which he recited a poem , "Scottish Fiction " . In later years he lived in a care home as his health got worse but he never stopped writing.
Yesterday as I wrote these words on a computer I was using in the local library suddenly all the computers crashed and their was a sudden emptiness that I can't explain, I do know I believe in the power of poetry and yet another leaf had fallen. May he be at peace. A writer of many many wonderful books check them out.

The Change

For all its banks bursting with bullion,
the land of injustice will not prosper.

The skyscrapers shine as if they could never
smell black smoke or shake to thunder.

Tanks, whips, dogs, laws - the panopoly
cracks steadily, being built over a fault.

Of course there are battleships, communications,
planes; but the sophisticated do not have it.

The spirit has it, the spirit of the people has it
townships, shantytowns, jails, funerals

have it. It is no use digging in,
rulers, unless you dig a pit to be

tipped into. Ruling has gone on too long,
will not be saved by armbands or the laager.

The unjust know this very well.
They lay ears to the ground, hear hooves.

Beasts, one time; an express, one time;
men, one time; history, one time.

Straighten up and pat your holsters.
Self-righteousness and a ramrod back

will not help. The sun goes down with you,
other fruits ripen for other lips.

1987

A Good Year for Death

Where is Callas la Divina
with her black velvet and her white passion?
Where are the women and women and women
she threw into life for an hour from her throat
to float and fight? She cannot hear
the last bravo.
Death has danced her tune away.

Where is Nabokov with his butterfly-net,
his galoshes, his mushrooms, his index-cards?
He has gone in a whiff of bilberries and blinis,
his fire has paled, his puns have flunked.
Shades crowd the lakeside hydrangeas and sallows
skim quick and low.
Death has danced his tune away.

Where is Bolan, the elfin, now?
Who has taken his spangles and songs,
bongos and gongs, and his white swan?
Who has pied-piper'd the pied piper
ino that childless, teenless wood?
The metal shadow,
Death, has danced his tune away.

Where is Presley all in silver,
with his sideburns and his quiver
of simple rock, and what is that army
he's uniformed for, in a white sheet,
will theslowstep motorcade battalion
never let him go?
Death has danced his tune away.

And where is Lowell that sweet mad poet
with his rumpled suit and uranium finger?
A giant forsythia covers the Pentagon
with better than gold, but the magnolias
wax the Potomacwhite with grief-
in words at least. Be true, be brief:
we lack his fellow.
Death has danced his tune away.

(26/9/77) - a description of 5 famous people from the world of popular culture who died in 1977.

Smoke

I scratch a gap in the curtains:
the darkest mornings of the year
goes grey slowly, chains of orange street-lights
lose out east in Glasgo's haze. The smell
of cigarette smoke fills the bedroom. I drown
in it, I gulp you through my lungs again
and hardly find whatcan be breathed.
Are you destroying me? Or is it a comedy?
To get together naked in bed, was that all?
To say you had done it? And that we did nothing
was what you had done. Iago and Cassio
had a better night. It must be a laugh
to see us both washed out with lying there.
It doesn't feel like laughing, though,
it feels like gasping, shrieking, tearing, all in silence
as I leave your long curved back
and go through to the kettle and the eggs.


Opening the Cage
14 variations on 14 words

I have nothing to say and I am saying it and that is poetry.
John Cage

I have to say poetry and is that nothing and am I saying it
I am and I have poetry to say and is that nothing saying it
I am nothing and I have poetry to say and that is saying it
I that am saying poetry have nothing and it is I and to say
And I say that I am to have poetry and saying it is nothing
I am poetry and nothing and saying it is to say that I have
To have nothing is poetry and I am saying that and I say it
Poetry is saying I have nothing and I am to say that and it
Saying nothing I am poetry and I have to say that and it is
It is and I am and I have poetry saying say that to nothing
It is saying poetry to nothing and I say I have and am that
Poetry is saying I have it and I am nothing and to say that
And that nothing is poetry I am saying and I have to say it
Saying poetry is nothing and to that I say I am and have it











The Loch Ness Monster's Song

Sssnnwhuffffll?
Hnwhuffl ffnnwfl hnl hfl?
Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl g g g g glbgl.
Drublhaflablhaflubhafgabhaflhafl fl fl -
gm grawwwww grf grawf awfgm graw gn.
Hovpplodock-doplovok-plovodokot-doplodokosh?
Splgraw fok fok splgrafhatchgabrl fok splfok!
Zgra kra gka fok!
Grof grawff gahf?
Gombl mbl bl-
blm plm,
blm plm,
blm plm,
blp.

At the Television Set

Take care if you kiss me,
you know it doesn't die.
The lamplight reaches out, draws it
blandly- all of it- inyo fixity,
troops of blue shadows like the soundless gunfight,
yellow shadows like your cheek by the lamp
where you lie watching, half watching
between the yellow and the blue.
I half see you, half know you.
Take care if you turn now to face me.
Foe even in this room we are moving out through stars
and forms that never let us back, your hand
lying lighyly on my thigh and my hand on your shoulder
are transfixed only there, not here.

What can you bear that would last
like a rock through cancer and white hair?

Yet it is not easy
to take stock of miseries
when the soft light flickers
along our aems in the stillness
where decisions are made.
You have to look art me,
and then it's time that falls
talking slowly to sleep.



As I have said Edwin Morgan bought out a vast quantity of work
nevertheless I would strongly recommend his collected poems on Carcanet. Think it was reprinted in late 1990s.