Beat (12)

"See it was like this when" - a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

See
it was like this when
we waltz into this place.
A couple of papish cats
is doing an Aztec two-step
And I says
Dad let’s cut
but then this dame
comes up behind me see
and says
you and me could really exist
Wow I says
Only the next day
she has bad teeth
and really hates
poetry

Beat (11)

"An Eastern Ballad" - a poem by Alan Ginsberg

I speak of love that comes to mind:
The moon is faithful, although blind;
She moves in thought she cannot speak.
Perfect care has made her bleak.

I never dreamed the sea so deep,
The earth so dark; so long my sleep,
I have become another child.
I wake to see the world go wild.

Beat (10)

Number 8 - a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

It was a face which darkness could kill
in an instant
a face as easily hurtby laughter or light

'We think differently at night'
she told me once
lying back languidly

And she would quote Cocteau'

I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say'
whom I am constantly shocking'

Then she would smile and look away
light a cigarette for mesigh and rise

and stretch
her sweet anatomy

let fall a stocking

Beat (9)

Driving a cardboard automobile without a license - a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Driving a cardboard automobile without a license
at the turn of the century
my father ran into my mother
on a fun-ride at Coney Island
having spied each other eating
in a French boardinghouse nearby
And having decided right there and then
that she was right for him entirely
he followed her into
the playland of that evening
where the headlong meeting
of their ephemeral flesh on wheels
hurtled them forever together

And I now in the back seat
of their eternity
reaching out to embrace them

Beat (8)

Those Two - a poem by Alan Ginsberg

That tree said
I don't like that white car under me,
it smells gasoline
That other tree next to it said
O you're always complaining
you're a neuroticyou
can see by the way you're bent over.

Beat (7)

The Mad Yak - a poem by Gregory Corso

I am watching them churn the last milk they'll ever get from me.

They are waiting for me to die;

They want to make buttons out of my bones.

Where are my sisters and brothers?

That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap.

And that idiot student of his--

I never saw that muffler before.

Poor uncle, he lets them load him.

How sad he is, how tired!

I wonder what they'll do with his bones?

And that beautiful tail!

How many shoelaces will they make of that!

Beat (6)

"Yes" - a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Yes
And we stood about
up in Central Park
dropping coins in the fountains
and a harlequin
came naked among
the nursemaids
and caught them picking their noses
when they should have been
dancing

Beat (5)

"On Burroughs Work" - a poem by Allen Ginsberg

The method must be purest meat

and no symbolic dressing

actual visions & actual prisons

as seen then and now.

Prisons and visions presented

with rare descriptions

corresponding exactly to those

of Alcatraz and Rose.

A naked lunch is natural to us,

we eat reality sandwiches.

But allegories are so much lettuce.

Don't hide the madness!

Beat (4)

"The Plough Of Time" - a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Night closed my windows and

The sky became a crystal house

The crystal windows glowed

The moon

shown through them

through the whole house of crystal

A single star beamed down

its crystal cable

and drew a plough through the earth

unearthing bodies clasped together

couples embracing

around the earth

They clung together everywhere

emitting small cries

that did not reach the stars

The crystal earth turned

and the bodies with it

And the sky did not turn

nor the stars with it

The stars remained fixed

each with its crystal cable

beamed to earth

each attached to the immense plough

furrowing our lives

Beat (3)

"In Back of the Real " - a poem by Alan Ginsberg

railroad yard in San Jose

I wandered desolate

in front of a tank factory

and sat on a bench

near the switchman's shack.

A flower lay on the hay on

the asphalt highway

--the dread hay flower

I thought--It had a

brittle black stem and

corolla of yellowish dirty

spikes like Jesus' inchlong

crown, and a soiled

dry center cotton tuft

like a used shaving brush

that's been lying under

the garage for a year.

Yellow, yellow flower, and

flower of industry,

tough spiky ugly flower,

flower nonetheless,

with the form of the great yellow

Rose in your brain!

This is the flower of the World

Beat (2)

"I Am 25" - a poem by Gregory Corso

With a love a madness for Shelley

Chatterton Rimbaudand

the needy-yap of my youth

has gone from ear to ear:

I HATE OLD POETMEN!

Especially old poetmen who retract

who consult other old poetmen

who speak their youth in whispers,

saying:--I did those then

but that was then

that was then-

O I would quiet old men

say to them:--I am your friend

what you once were, thru me

you'll be again

--Then at night in the confidence of their homes

rip out their apology-tongues

and steal their poems.

Beat (1)

Dove sta amore

Where lies love

Dove sta amore

Here lies love

The ring dove love

In lyrical delight

Hear love's hillsong

Love's true willsong

Love's low plainsong

Too sweet painsong

In passages of night

Dove sta amore

Here lies love

The ring dove love

Dove sta amore

Here lies love

"Dove Sta Amore" - a poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti