Two Jacks or Better

A handful of new poetry books by California poet Jack Crimmins have come across my desk and there is some solid work to pass along. Two I've had the chance to look at are very good, indeed: Blue Cat Buddha and Summer / War / Haiku.

Blue Cat Buddha consists of 5 poems in memory of Beat great Jack Micheline. The lengthiest, "Poem With Blues Harp" (key of A), is one of those few modern pieces that actually bridges the gap between poem and song. Even rarer is a poet who tries to capture the "simple" rhythm of blues, though many have tried. Crimmins has done it in this fine piece which is worth the price of admission. Here's the poem that finishes off the collection:



I Speak of The Jazz Poets
---------------after a Micheline painting

you call me brother
and I say truth is our song
no more waiting in shadows
religion is crisp fire
and it is not religion we seek

oak trees in the hills
the hills themselves
your hands covered with paint

cats all around
the horses are spiritual beings-- you said
no one believed you

it's not about belief------------ you said
you said water and paint and luck and her eyes
and all our friends scattered

bring them together---- you said
write them a poem of madness
write them a poem of winter rain
write them a poem of horns beyond thunder
write them a poem and tell them

I was right
poetry and painting and the life of the spirit

and her eyes
in the music
of everything

Jack Crimmins

The second chapbook by Crimmins, Summer / War / Haiku, contains numerous haiku about art and war in the universal sense, not so much apolitical as beyond political, returning to the human in all things. Here's one that tugged deep at my heart strings:

San Francisco Haiku #7

Wind grips the wet coast.
Seven hills teach us about

gull sorrow and air.

Jack Crimmins

And one that returns us to his ongoing interest in Micheline:




Jack Micheline Painting Early At Susie's Ranch

That one will cost you
more because there's three things there.

Dog. Sun. Piano

Jack Crimmins

Seems to me, since poets are so notoriously under-compensated, that Micheline has come up with a sliding pay scale for poets as well as artists: payment by the number of things you stuff into a poem. Seems fair; the poor poet can try to catch up on back rent knowing what's needed.

Might even encourage some moderns to put something in their poems.

Just saying.



Dog. Sun. Piano.

I'm not sure where these chapbooks might be obtained (N. B. abebooks sounds like a good bet, plus see Jack's comment to this post) or what the prices might be. Blue Cat Buddha is 12 pages and Summer / War / Haiku is 20 pages. Both are published by Low Tech Press (P.O. Box 191 Kenwood, CA 95452), so that would be the logical place to start. And don't be fooled by the name: the chaps are simple but functional in design and execution, a very nice addition to anyone's shelves.

suddenly
the dog stops barking...
lotus blossoms!

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don

Letter to Kerouac in Heaven: Jack Micheline

This is from Jack Micheline's latest volume, One of a Kind, which I mentioned in a previous post. All original punctuation, spelling etc. retained.



Letter to Kerouac in Heaven---------Globesville, Colo
---------------------------------------------------Oct 15, 1984
---------------------------------------------------4411 Logan
---------------------------------------------------Denver Colo 80216

Dear Jack,

---I'm sorry I never made it, but I tried to do it my way.
I just could not find a courageous publisher with distribution.
None of my 9 books can be found in any American bookstore.
I want to thank you for your encouragement. It's been a
long hard road. Bobby Miller is still getting drunk in North
Beach on week-ends. He tells some good corny jokes he must
be close to sixty and he still chases girls—Goldfinger is still
alive in the Village. Walking the streets, that beautiful crazy
Jewish elevator man. Harold Anton has passed and your
drinking buddy the composer Chuck Mills has departed the
earthly plane. They had a Kerouac Conference at Boulder a
couple of years ago. You would have been proud of me. Ken
Kesey gave me the most valuable performance award. A
bottle of wine for Harvey Silver, and a bottle of whiskey for
Jack Micheline.¹ ­ I was really on that afternoon and I hope
you heard me up there in Heaven. I hear Bobby Donlin is
still alive managing some club in Cambridge. Charlie Min-
gus is also gone, passed away, gave up the ghost. People are
more frightened than ever now. The reason I never made it.
I wouldn't play the game or ball with the publishers, they
seem so self-involved, publishing mediocrity. Rick Kids play-
ing games with a pack of ass kisses always around them,
when was it any different. The arts is not for us poor kids.
we create because we have no choice. It is what we have
to do—no matter what. I swear I'm not jealous of these
people. with their power that is the way they show their
love. I guess I should have more compassion, they always
refuse to go for a walk in the sunlight. Frightened Men. The
Ring of fear. Sing me a song baby Blue. A song that rises to
the heavens. A song that dances with The Stars .. Sing me a
song Baby Blue. A song of the open road. You have a beauti-
ful daughter, Jack. By the name of Jan. I don't see much of
Allen and Peter. I was never close to them, they seem cold
and detached, they're lousy trying to make it. But you see I
always was a loner, A bare stick in the water, A hot piece, An
outlaw, a runner, Doing my chaotic happy dance across this
land. I want to tell you, I tried Baby. God knows how I tried
to say it like it was never said before.
---You know this world never loved genius, we exist in
spite of the world. I heard Charles Mills talking to the lions
once in Central Park. He wrote over 90 pieces of music in
his lifetime. I'm putting this book together—Let's Ride the
angel goodbye! I am staying with an old buddy from Chicago
now in Denver named Ken Krebs, you'll be happy to know
all your work has taken off all over the world. They read
you everywhere now. You are a departed legend of time,
and I guess you knew it all the time. I saw Carl Solomon at
the Kerouac Conference. He still lives with his mother and
works as a messenger boy. I was in TAOS New Mexico last
[break in manuscript] celebrating an art show at Shadoni of
Bill Gertz a painter friend. A guy you would have loved to
have known. He introduced me to Geronimo's grandson who
is a painter and a poet. Heavy dude you take one look at him.
He gives you the willies he is so real. Life goes on to the end.
I hope they are treating you nice in heaven. You know how it
was on the earth and I hope it's better up there.

----------------------Love your friend
------------------------------Jack Micheline

P.S. your acquaintance Rainy Cass disappeared, The guy,
The sleepwalker from New Orleans, the guy who plays
the cornet and put out Climax Magazine. Some guy named
Willie put out a magazine called The Willie, he disappeared
too. It seems all the good people disappear. There are too
many phoneys in the world. The arts are loaded with them.
Somehow we must rescue the consciousness of man. Some
way some noble purpose must exist. Away to a new aware-
ness. At the Kerouac Conference Chellon Holmes was such
a Beautiful gentleman. He really loved you Jack. He called
you the great rememberer and read a soul stirring piece
about you, what rare, fine soul. and such a gentle spirit. Too
many people do not live their poems. We are still in the dark
ages baby. Bless you Jack your kind gentle spirit. Shig is still
alive and is very sick and has moved to Southern California
to spend his last years. The one armed [words missing in
manuscript]
---I hope you are well in heaven. And god bless the damned
and bless the angels too. bless em all the long and the short
and the tall, bless all their children and their bastard sons
Bless em all.
---Remember that song Jack
---Bless Em All!


----------------------Love
--------------------------forever
--------------------Jack Micheline


¹ Jack Micheline was born Harvey Silver, also known as Harvey Martin Silver, on November 26, 1929, in the Bronx, New York City


A bare stick in the water.

Kerouac did an introduction for Micheline's first book, River of Red Wine, which is lost in a pile somewhere around here or I'm sure I'd be quoting that right now.

In any case, if you never knew how to talk to the dead, this has been your lesson. And when you speak like this, friend, the dead talk back.

someone else's affair
you think...
lanterns for the dead

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

******* George Harrison's birthday ********

And here's a little something from John and George in honor of George's birthday. Enjoy.






best,
Don

Jack Micheline, One of a Kind

Back cover: One of a Kind

Here's a little something from the most recent collection of Jack Micheline's work, One of a Kind, from Ugly Duckling Presse, with original spellings retained:



Intercommunication Satellite 1

Dear Charles:

---------------I have come to come to a decision, about
freedom and responsibility, about loneliness and curiosity
about greed and more greed. About America and its des-
tiny, about dreams and fantasy, about cats and dogs, about
love and hate, about history and demagogues, about mass
murderers and comic relief, about desire and the fulfillment
of a lifetime is predestined before our birth; do not judge, do
not judge, do not judge, do not judge, and let me be, I did not
seek fame, I did not seek money, I only sought to con-quer
the unknown, the vast territories of the unexplored mind.
No one gives a shit for the artist, Power is respected.
--------------------------I deal in color and truth
--------------------------I deal in unknown quantities
--------------------------I deal in the zodiac
--------------------------I deal in preson and prisms
--------------------------I deal in shit kicking
--------------------------I deal in fear
--------------------------Knowing that fear runs the
--------------------------wheel of the world
--------------------------I cannot deal with cunning
-------------------------------------hustlers
-------------------------------------con men
-------------------------------------and cliques
-------------------------------------I can only be me
-------------------------------------I can only be
-------------------------------------That is all I can do
-------------------------------------The best I know how
-------------------------------------That is all I can be
----------------Be patient
----------------It is all coming
----------------in its own time
----------------The rainbow of colors in the night
----------------The rainbow of my dreams
----------------Be patient
----------------It is coming like the sun
----------------in a dark cold day
----------------like a hot iron and a forge
----------------Each being is a different species
----------------There is no two fish alike
----------------You turn the knob on the clown
----------------Not on me, The fishtank of your childhood
----------------disturbs me throw the fishtank away and dance
----------------in the street, My car is not in your driveway
----------------Love the crazy Jew
----------------Keep the faith
----------------Keep the faith
----------------Relax
----------------Laugh in your belly
----------------Smile brother it is just beginning
--------------------------------------Farewell—Jack Micheline



best,
Don

Jack Micheline's "Manifesto"

(Note: an incomplete version of this post went out this morning. My apologies.)

Earlier this week, stuck home with a bad cold and no voice, I sat down with a pile of books I've been going through: two by James Wright, an R. H. Blyth, the "new" translation of Anna Karenina, Paintings in Proust, Rommel Drives on Deep Into Egypt by Richard Brautigan, and Outlaw of the Lowest Planet by Jack Micheline.

Yes, I was feeling miserable, but what a way to go.

I read the Tolstoy in chunks, slept, ate soup, picked up some poetry, read more Tolstoy etc. It was a plan.

In between some incidents of high Russian soap opera, I picked up the Micheline book and this fell out:

Click on the image to read

What a treat! What starts out as a manifesto, dips into Beat history, than personal history, and ends up as one hell of a wacked publisher's blurb written by the wild man poet himself. I loved it.

And the book itself - Outlaw of the Lowest Planet - I enjoyed very much, overall for me much better than River of Wine, his most often cited work. The poems here come from three different decades yet have a cohesive feel, Micheline's voice never wavering over the years. Over at Outlaw Poetry, there is an article by another small press icon, Todd Moore, on Micheline, entitled chasing jack micheline's shadow that is worth a look.

Here's a couple of poems from Outlaw of the Lowest Planet that give a good feel for Jack's work.





Beauty is everywhere Baudelaire

Beauty is everywhere Baudelaire
Even a worm is Beautiful
The thread of a beggar's dress
The red eye of a drunkard
on a rainy night
Chasing the red haired girl
Baudelaire across the sky
Your raggy paints
Laughing in the rain
Beauty is everywhere Baudelaire







A Look Back at My Youth

A highway crosses the playground of my childhood
the shoemaker is still on Archer Street
the druggist
the same faces inhabit the wilderness of the Bronx
its superstitions
its narrow minds
the synagogue of old hebrews
the church of black cloth Catholoics
its Irish sons with yellow ties
the football field is still there
night descends over the houses
Willy the mad Russian where are you
Tullo carrying ten men over the goal line
lost junky after the cheers died away
wild Murray where are you
Joey Cohen pimples on your face where are you
Little Abie do you laugh that loud anymore I wonder
voices of the children playing in the park
the boat house is deserted
the grass is still green in October
night is descending over the Bronx
the wilderness is but a memory
The Ritz movie is long gone
the whores have all moved away
It is time to gon on
time moves so quickly
My mother still prays nightly
I used to play hooky and go to Bronx Park
and look at the lovers in the grass
the leaves are brown and green now
water flows down the fall of the Bronx River

------------------Spring 1959








River St. Poem

Out on the walk
by the Louisiana shore
the early morning light meets the darkness
the waves roll in slow but sure
one star
one red floating light
one freighter from Tampico
one barge
one riverboat
one bridge
one radio tower
the waves consistent with the tide
one slogan painted on a wall
"Be Yourself Forever"
Algiers, Savannah, Tampa, Santiago, Havana,
the do shakes its shaggy tail
the human condition remained the same
nothing really changes but the drone of engines
Mindanao, Monterrey, Madagascar,
-----------------------Montego, Montana, Montezuma
the dark freighter crawls into port
4 monks statue-like on River Street
A green light flashing
The sky turning black to pink to red
Evers to Tinker to Chance
A triple play
One solitary bird saluting the universe
the sky grey to white
the early morning smoke rising
the dark freighter crawls into port
the hooker walks on

----------------7-11-87, New Orleans, LA




These are poems to be heard, to be read aloud, to be chanted. They are poems of wonder and beauty and horror, all encompassing and spontaneous, poems of a tradition but not in it.

These are Jack Micheline poems.

It seems that Outlaw of the Lowest Planet is still available from the original Zeitgeist Press. Toggle down about halfway on the page (or hit control "f" and search "planet") to see the listing.



best,
Don

A. D. Winans on Jack Micheline

Jack Micheline, pictured above with jazz legend Charles Mingus, was one of the great unsung poets from San Francisco in the later half of the 20th century. A. D. Winans, another small press poet from SF of considerable renown, remembers his friend in this fine three part article, here (part 1), here (part 2), and here (part 3).

Here is the write up on Micheline from The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, along with a few poems. For more poetry by Jack, check out the webpage for his Selected Poems. From that page, comes the following touching piece, composed with fellow neglected Beat poet, Bob Kaufman:

Poem For The Children Of The World

A child walks in a dream
Her eyes dance in the night of stars
Someday when the moon is full
The gypsies come home
They will come home forever
And all the boats that never sailed will sail forever
And all the flowers that have not grown will bloom forever
A child walks in a dream
And all the stars that have not shone will shine forever
And all the children that could not dance will dance forever
A child walks in a dream

Jack Micheline and Bob Kaufman

Thanks to Ron Silliman for pointing to the original posting.

best, Don