lord

by paul harrison

the ashes
are
in
my mouth

and they
are in
my
hand

the ashes
are
grey
and black

they are
falling
to heaven
covering
all

grey and black

lord
the walking ashes
imagine
they are living

lord
the ashes
are
in
a pile

my mind
a furnace

lord
this world
is
made of ashes

we burn
and drown
in ashes

return to
ashes

lord
the ashes
do
not
understand

(after f a nettelbeck)

mea culpa

by paul harrison

just so you know
it was me who
killed Cock Robin
and Bambi's mother too
it was me who
shot the sheriff
got high with
the Manson crew
it was me who
butchered my neighbours
it was me who
guarded the gates
it was me who
toasted the generals
mocking the disappeared
it was me who
raped thru Fallujah
ran fear with the Tonton Macoute
just so you know sweet Jesus
it was me
down merciless centuries
who mocked
and murdered you

like yeats

by paul harrison

thinking about death
and transmigration
and whether father
flew into son
when the moment came
if a lost legion of deceased
small press scribblers
entered mr. hyde
where richmond is
where wantling went
bob kaufman laughing
in the big buddha sky

these last few weeks

by paul harrison

i haven't written anything
worth a goddam piss in the sink
probably because lately
i've been drinking
two sixers a night
with trips to the bar
and a foil on the side
remembering her
of course on the upside
when i'm not blacking out
in the wild pitch of memory
my skull resounds with
the riotous chatter
of a workshop for frauds
held underwater
or a reading for nuts
with something to scratch
thru their chemical
straitjacket culture

hungover

by paul harrison

in a lunch bar
flicking through the glossy mags
i thought about how inane
and meaningless life had become
or at least
how most of everything conspired
to make it seem that way
another dress, another party
another baby, another break up
another diet, another rehab stint
and then remembered
another car bomb in old baghdad
where life is cheap and meaningful
all at once
hundreds dead, hundreds more
shred like kebab meat
and how magazines like these
or lives like mine
suddenly become
reprehensible
almost meaningless
sweating out the piss
eyes too dry to cry

some advice for aspiring poets

by paul harrison

ride around the wrong way, lights off, with a bottle of scotch of between your legs, a loaded gun in your lap, safety off, singing Peat Bog Soldiers and of course if you don’t know the words and the lights are whooping behind you,

even better

cultivate a daily regime of derangement and despair. if you have a shower, use it wisely. ignore your dreams. god has just spilled another jigsaw. now pick up the pieces. there is no collective unconscious. and of course if you can Walk the line and get back in the car singing Happy days are here again,

even better

or maybe you can stand around a trivia machine with a real poet who reads his thoughts in converted cathedrals and provincial towns singing Hallelujah, i’m a bum, and of course if he's the published bi-polar, Asperger type,

even better

or maybe get sexy tender with a hippy chick and fuck your beautiful brains out forever then watch it all slip away as easy as you entered and as hard as you fell. obviously this defining ecstasy must be repeated, over and over, and of course if you’re incompatible,

even better

and another thing, never worry about what is never achieved or started or finished or really important things like money. stand around with the alkies and buckfast, listening to the sparrows get torn asunder, God’s smile gracing the vast grey skies, and of course if they piss on your shoes,

even better

stand up for the little guy, the disinherited, the disembodied, the disenchanted. stand up for yourself. stand up with nothing to say and say it anyway, everyone else does and of course if you know all the words and your fly is undone and you're slurring your words,

even better

finally, before standing up in a car going 120 down the freeway and adjusting your poem read Bill and Bob and all the beautiful, talented east and west coast lesbian poets. they started this thing. then, when your poem is sufficiently adjusted pull up your fly and sing. sing it man. like the fat lady sings, and of course if the ladies and cops dig your stuff,

even better

and remember all this really happened. poets going from place to place. bed to bed. bar to bar. getting lost, getting punched, crashing cars. weeping. cradle to grave. asylums and jails. advice to page. and of course if you know the words for, To the Barricades

and can’t even read or write or sing,

even better.

nice guy

by paul harrison

i was standing by the bar
smoking a cigarette
when she sidled up
never seen her before
and straight away she was off
i only drink once a month
do you think i'm alcoholic...
i'd been drinking seventeen days
straight
i didn't think so
thought she'd probably been
in the psyche wards
a few times
just got out
maybe missing the odd
social skill as later
i found out
talking to the barmaid
another date
maybe not
anyway i told my new friend
i didn't think so
enquired about her health
then sidled off myself
and later
my eyes raw nerve
i stopped the car on green
as an old, haunted man
jerked slowly past
flapping his crutches
like two broken wings
gotta stop drinking
i thought
cos sometimes
you're a really nice guy
the beer between my legs
and the horns going off inside

that's entertainment

by paul harrison

she was there
at the gig
with some fag
climbing all
over her back
or at least i
hope he was &
i touched her
arm & turned
away & laughed
at the insanity
of love &
outside smoking
a joint said
to the drummer
-still on the
lemon, lime
and bitters
i see
somewhat bitter
myself &
he said -yea
& i said -i’m
impressed &
he said
-no need to be
that’s what
you do when
the doc says
you’ve cancer
of the liver
& i swayed
a bit from
all the bourbon
& pot as
tex swam the
cruel sea
& sang like
a poet with
gravel in his
heart
waiting
for the woman
with a thing
for irish men
to pick me up
the woman who’d
sorted mail 2
yrs longer than
buk & we went
back to my room
& fucked bareback
-any way you want
until she left &
then i took
my daughter to a
circus with other
thrills & said
now that is
impressive as
the clown, juggler
and 2 other
crazies rode
a globe of death
1 sunday afternoon

no laughing matter

by paul harrison

funny the things you remember
followed by a Volvo
bearing R U SAVED number plates
like that guy i used to live with
the guy who had a crazy, desperate, mirthless laugh
who knew the streets and treatment centres
intimately
the floor of his room in the halfway house
thick with tissues spent
and nearly most of everything always too much
usually he would just sit there on the porch
and smoke and watch all that he never knew pass by
drooling meds that never seemed to work
i liked him a lot
and i remember how one Xmas he sent his
long lost, hot shot lawyer of a brother
a bottle of the finest wine all the way to the UK
no packaging, and how that cracked me up
funny thing is, i didn’t laugh
when he recounted how another cold, lonely winter
he trashed a shop for some shelter and Xmas lunch
in the Casuarina Prison
and later knowing the presence of a terrible sadness
and all the humour between us draining away
telling me about that time
he knew the needle was dirty
but took a hit anyway
and how almost every waking moment
he prayed for the earth
to swallow him whole