by Charles Plymell

We’ve seen the trace of tears on dusty Texas cheeks
      and cliffs of far away Pacific spray
           eat away timeless Redwood scented root.
We’ve caught the salty tang of brine
       diffusing on our tongues for all eternity.
Innocent, foolish fun loving seekers
     mixed our presence in the hot baths
   cleansed the poison from our spores
        before the new age occupied Big Sur.

by Charles Plymell

The moon is sometimes bathed in night’s full light
and the earth is aroused as when a woman bathes
turns in her phases bringing blood to half the earth
of men’s rallied avarice and ambition and battle cry
of eternal wars we do not know women would wage.
The eternal wound I know not of but almost certain
that the eternal sores of life are fed by fear of death
and my remorse is forever lasting as empty space
knowing that battles and wars will continue when
earth falls ill with battle and thunderous wars from
every side to keep the blood of innocence flowing
in collaterally damaged fatally wounded virgin birth.

by John Wieners

low
down and dirty I sit
having found the connection
Eddy and Taylor

to
day they reprint Cocteau’s
Diary of a cure I am
hooked and you are sick

of my self my eye
sees my

I
rene Taverner sit down
in front of me The gimp
of Love Oh this is the

place
fifteen forty six Grant
Ave how could anyone tell
you Bass Piano and

I
am the drum skin you can
swing from the rafters nearly
on the nod make soft

sound
to put in place of this
thick instant There are so few
left for you for me

bereft of that love
the gimp

by John Wieners

down at the corner
I worked in the variety & Drug store

having nothing to do
I hung out with kids at the wall

in a small town, stomping streets
It’s nothing lovelier in the world

that passion, autumn leaves
playing ball each afternoon after school:

hating Sunday, putting on new clothes
and when nobody was home

did we knock it around in each other’s pad.
Mickey & André

Dorchester, Bucky Burgess’, just
making out as much noise as it could

play the radio & sorta take off our clothes.
Purity had then the biggest sound in town.

Dating, sipping sodas out of straws
up the square & elsewhere

Those were days when everyone
knew who you were

And did we wig behind it ?
The wildroot cream hair oil

Meant what everyday’s mail means now.
And the girls more than plastic poets show.

To swell millionaires I cannot go
as I hung out around down corners after school.