Blues, Booze, Romance, and Revolution: From the Poetry Notebooks

After my first story about a drunken gig, I got a demand from TA Demings to put some poetry up here. Not all of them are pretty, but they’re all honest. If you dig it, let me know, I always got plenty more in the notebooks.

Rainbow in June

(By Walter Beck)

Pt. I: Day (Scales Falling)

Where were my brothers?

Where was the righteous anger

I spent many nights drinking deeply of?

Where were the scarred eyes

That could blaze across a thousand headlines

At a moment’s notice?

Who were these plastic young men

Strutting around shirtless

With shaved, chiseled chests?

Swimming around

In complimentary Coors Light beads,

Weaving in and out

To a synthetic dancing rhythm.

The only glimpse of any fire

I saw

Was someone busking for donations

With complimentary gifts

To pay off their lobbyists.

I had finally made the pilgrimage;

And saw that our fathers’ house

Had been turned into a den of thieves.

Pt. II: Night (Heart of Salvation)

At the stroke of midnight

As I stood outside the gates to the Freaks’ Mass;

I saw a short, stout young man,

Shirtless

With a nipple ring

Flashing in the moonlight.

He had eyes that said

He had walked with the kings,

He had seen the mountaintops.

He had eyes that said

“Walk with me in madness.”

He had eyes that said,

“I can show you to love flesh to flesh.”

He had eyes that said…

No ID Piss Break Blues

(By Walter Beck)

There ain’t no right

To drop a deuce,

To drain the lizard,

Down in Phoenix way.

There ain’t no liberty

To take a squat,

To have a slash,

Down in Phoenix way.

There ain’t no guarantee

To piss in peace,

To take a dump without being asked

To see your papers please,

Down in Phoenix way.

The old side is still too crippled with fear

To let our people go,

Too invested in rumors of crimes

Of strange rapists and perverts,

To let our people go

Down in Phoenix way.

Our brothers are marching in the street,

Calling their reps,

And emailing their senators,

All for the right to go when you gotta go,

Down in Phoenix way.

Oh down in Phoenix way,

Pissing is still a crime

In the land of the free.

It’s Like Giving Roses for a Writer

(By Walter Beck)

Walking off the stage;

After the longest set of my career,

Forty-five minutes,

Spitting romance and revolution

To half a dozen people,

Plus the sound guy.

But it doesn’t matter;

It was new ground broken

And I still felt alive.

I ran into you

After I walked off stage,

Still high from the performance

And about a dozen beers.

You only heard part of my diatribe on stage

Because you were getting ready

For your own show;

Holy Christ, you were beautiful

To my boozy poetic eyes.

I gave you my set-list

So you could read it for yourself;

It was the closest thing

To a romantic gesture

I’ve ever really done.

No More Martyrs Blues Pt. III

(By Walter Beck)

The headlines keep screaming

“VICTORY”,

Again and again.

State fourteen rings the bells

And fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen

Seem lined up at the gate.

But the backlash is brewing.

After ten years of riding high

In the highest courts of the land,

And in main street America,

Riding the crest of public favor

And the wave is getting ready to crash.

The backlash is brewing.

It’s brewing,

Under the glare of knife points

Flashed on a digital screen.

It’s brewing,

When messages flash

Still calling for us to be locked up in camps.

It’s brewing,

When the homegrown hate

Crosses international borders.

The backlash is brewing.

It’s brewing,

While we’re falling asleep at the wheel,

While we turn our demands on autopilot,

So sure of the mountaintops we’ll see.

It’s brewing,

While we turn over our hopes and dreams

To the professionals,

To let them sort out all this mess.

The backlash is brewing,

And I still wonder

How much innocent blood must be spilled

Before our last bridge is crossed?