by Jack Spicer     

It is as if the poem moves
Without the poem. I have captured you.
Done all my will. Have done with all
Emotion.

There is something that bothers me about the poem
Not anything real. But a poem. Your body
The noise that nothing makes upon the shore of an ocean
The big without.

It is as if a poem moves
Without your reality. Your not being there
That defines a nice set of arms
Not holding.

Not holding what. An absentness of you.
This bed is there. Defined,
Without the poem.

Jack Spicer, “Blood and Sand, ”1959, from the Homage to Creeley notebooks at the Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley, appears here courtesy of the Literary Estate of Jack Spicer.

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