Wild West Withdrawals – 6/3/2023
“Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviours, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences.”
Greetings fellow underground rabbit hole poets! We’d like to thank you all for your continued support and submissions to us, because without you, the writers, our Cowboy would have fallen off his force and had his leg trapped underneath the bucking beast.
But today, I would like to acknowledge Robin Barratt, and his site THE POET: POETRY FOR MENTAL HEALTH and their latest anthology, on the subject of Addiction.
It is undeniable that putting thoughts, feelings and emotions into words, on paper, either with poetry or in a short story format, can be both therapeutic and an incredibly effective method of self-help and healing. In this brave and uncompromising collection 61 writers and poets in 13 countries (Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, England, France, Germany, India, Malta, Nepal, Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Spain and the USA), explore the themes of addiction, either from their own personal perspectives and experiences, or from the experiences of friends, family and people close by. Covering both substance and behavioral addiction, an anthology on this subject is undoubtedly thought-provoking and emotional, but also positive and uplifting too as, for many, putting their feelings into words has set many on the road to creativity, healing and ultimately recovery.
This will be the last such anthology from The POET, due to the high financial cost and no returns, so it’s very important to support those who have been fighting, not only the opium war, but every battle against addiction, which has claimed so many lives over the last generation. It is available in both print and Kindle. Get your copy today!
https://www.poetryformentalhealth.org/addiction
The BC Editors
…..
The Jaundiced Cowboy 5/2/2023.
Life with all the trimmings. The older you get the bigger the banquet. But you must live to be older. You can do it. Tomorrow awaits. What’s trouble anyway? Ha! Laugh in the face of ruin and death. Ha! I once walked into an empty bar, at noon. The bartender says to me, “We don’t want any trouble in here.” “I say Jeez do I look that bad?’ Bartender says, “what is it, money, a woman, or the law?” “Woman,” I said, embarrassed at my weakness. He handed me a beer.
Broke my heart is what she did. Oh, I saw it coming. Just couldn’t get out of the way of that slow moving molasses train, that one chilly slow-moving frozen winter Arctic season of love. And to think, I could have met penguins, if I’d only been thinking. But I thought. I thought about the following, instead of the other pole.
Serialization. Old time stuff, just like the heyday of the great magazines. Except here, instead of Colliers, Saturday Evening Post, Look, or Life, you got the little beatnik that could. That’s right. I said it. Here, you get the intrepid little, small b fella. And pound for pound, that’s a whole lot of literary slugging weight. Whew!! Popeye himself, with Olive Oil, might magnanimously agree.
For I propose nothing less. Nothing less than the serialization of stories, yours, mine, ours, in the pages of the notable cowboy, literary magazine of the stars. Tuff gong.
First, to begin this bedevilment, I hope to bewitch. Thinly veiled as a heuristic (learning) tool to get us writing novels (where the money is) I beseech thee. Follow my lead, write in installments, send in installment, if approved and run in the magazine, continue. Write our story of you in our pages. We will continue publishing your story, if good, if our readers approve. If not, even I will give myself the hook. I will allow another, the next serial novelist to write free…using the cowboy’s pages. For recognition and fame. Hallelujah!!
I shall start this exercise mission fame garnering gambit with my newest. It is titled “When The Corn Has Gone Bananas” by Editor Randall K Rogers, cultural scribe.
Next post: Corn going bananas. by Randall.
…..
Dear Cowfolk,
Leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Cowboys we’re doing it. Fame with its attendant riches await us all. There for the taking – if we want them. I’m kind of too old to frolic in wanton abandon anymore. But I can try. Days, weeks on end, drunk with advanced asceticism. Don’t go out, stay in, Schwan’s delivers no contact, freezer stocked. Just have to go out for milk. Read, write, cook, smoke and play guitar. I must be in heaven.
No, just my apartment. Gloriously alone.
Tues. Jan. 17, 2023 – dispatch from the front
Sat. Jan. 21 – couple of days later, poems are coming alive. Big ones, small ones, oblique poems, exercising their – obliques. Washboard abs to clean clothes on, scratch zydeco rhythms, scratch golf played on washboard abs
make poems from scratch, bake them in a moderate oven, watch them lest they burn…don’t touch them; first draft best draft
writing is a way to learn to read, writing is total surprise, writing becomes life – put away everything first write, all is second to doing writing, and reading
you must read way more than you write
writing builds self-confidence, improves by doing it, reverses depression, indeed, in deep depression it’s hard to start or keep writing or reading, but if you can…it helps…Burroughs said he had to ‘write his way out of” the funk he was in after shooting his wife while playing William Tell in Mexico, as you do
Hemingway’s recipe for writing success: stay healthy and keep writing…purchase a twelve gauge
Bob Marley’s education: ‘If I’d a gone to school, I’d be a dam fool.”
Beatnik Cowboy advice: Don’t be smelly, write poems. Use your nose.
I’m on my way to Madrid, where I’ll be writing poems. Reading “Death in the Afternoon.” Might enter into a junior bull fight tourist competition. One never knows where the muse, port and strong sherry will allow entry. I’d like to meet Sancho Panza or maybe his archetype atavistic expression in real literary life. Picking up tomatoes at the huge Easter bullfight in Madrid. Me, metal joints, and sombrero. Taking guitar lessons in Spain, too from an alien. Gonna be a gas. If I make it, in one peace, Talk later
Adios amigos, until we meet again, write poems. Live, dream, realize a potential to make our gathering of poems happy. Thank you, for your service to the totality of Being and being. I think.
The Beatnik Cowboy rides….rain or shine, in acid rain lashing shine, Scatman.
Poems from you all are interesting reading, they touch, move, humor and educate us, so please keep them coming, we are getting more views than ever, from the entire world – except Gambia. What’s with that, Kebba? The Theory Of Love, indeed.
…
Cowabunga,
Success begets success. At least we hope so. Jane Mansfield might have said this in her heyday. Bodacious tatas. That was Jane. A love for the spotlight that had her bouncing around the fifties and sixties. Until her head bounced off its shoulders. That was little Marissa Hagerty and her sibling in the back. Law and Order. Just saying I like Marissa too.
You know people always tell me. They say, Marissa looks good, but she’s no Jane. Opinions vary, yet often, as Mark Twain used to say, because of feces in the pants they have to be changed for the same reasons. Because they’re diapers. And they fill up. Still, there is something more that is said. It is this: Marissa looks good, but, she’d look better reading and subscribing to the Beatnik Cowboy! $40 dollars a year. I know it’s high. Trust us, we’d give copies of the thing away like bright and shiny new dimes, if anybody’d take ‘em sprinkled with cyanide as we like. Like a New Orleans baked snack (beignaut?), or a 1970s PCP smoker, we like it dusted. Not thru the fingers but thru the brain. Filling it. Like a diaper. Piling it higher and deeper. To prepare y’all for the outside world. Because it ain’t a bowl of cherries out there. That is, unpitted cherries.
Pitfalls. Everybody has ‘em. The secret is to keep driving. Or pitstops. Life is the pits with severe acne. Known as zits. Don’t press in when you pop, pull out. Just like sex. But seriously. I figured out a number of things. One is the prescription for a great world great life the other is the old chicken versus egg question. The first is to write poems. But first to learn how to write poems read the Bible, straight thru, beginning to end, in order, twice. Then pen to paper poeticizing. Maybe smoke weed while you write, too. Up to you. No cigs! Only tea, no milk, no sugar, following coffee in the morning. Bagels and cream cheese when you’re hungry. Read more than you write. Read when you don’t write.
But the poems. The sweetness. The lift, the vision, the thought! The craft and the joy. Immense welling of achievement! A cracker jack of a poem. To then read and marvel at the gem. The piece of history. Personal and world. That might lead to your Edna St.Vincent Millay! And Beatnik marriage.
Or not. Living single is always the best. For a writer. That’s what Kafka maintained. Couldn’t write with a chick hanging around. A poultry Fraulein.
We love reading your poems.
Editorial Staff
A force of two. The Randallchris.
Villa rides….
…
July 9th, 2022: Since the bear creek haiku, the long running micro/short poetry publisher, does not have a presence in the electronic spectrum of creative writing, the internet superhighway should be aware that their latest issue is now available (and just do happens to feature 3 poems by Editor Butler, as well as pieces from some Cowboy regulars). Check them out!
“The Others”, “Higher Power” and “Six Seconds on Twitch Is a Lifetime of Infamy” have been published in the latest print issue. You can find them here…
bear creek haiku
PO BOX 596
LONGMONT, COLORADO
80502 USA
ONLINE AT:
bear creek haiku
assistant editors: Tama, Frosty and! Kitty Kali
editor: Ayaz Daryl Nielsen
darylayaz@gmail.com
…
In regards to submissions to The Beatnik Cowboy
Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we have received a few emails lately regarding our submission guidelines. The specific guidelines can be found on the “About” page. We must ask that poems or prose submitted be pasted into the body of the email, and not as an attachment (unless your poem requires specialized formatting, in which case, please make this clear in your submission that this is the case). Also, due to the minimalist format of The Beatnik Cowboy, shorter pieces of poetry and prose are more likely to be accepted than Epic Odyssey’s. However, if you happen to write the greatest story ever told that exceeds the 1000 word limit, please send a query to us prior to submission and we’ll determine if we can make an exception. If you have any other questions regarding submissions, please revert to the “About” page first, and if your question is not answered on that page, do not hesitate to email the Editors directly. Since you, the writers, are the stars of this site, we will answer your question post haste. Thanks for all of the great words folks!
The Editors
…
Poetry is not for the weak. If so inclined abandon thy inclination. Retract quill from inkwell. Skewer it into an eye; that’s it put an eye out. Because that’s what your writing does, puts eyes out. Generally, cyclops enjoy, the work that – sharply, dangerously – graces our pages. Ha! Tempted there to say “holy” pages, our holy pages!! But it’s true. All Satanic forces have left my body. At least I hope so. Not that they were steeped in my bones to begin with, but I know, when you’re humble, and wise, you ask the little fella to leave. Because that’s what she is, a fakir. Capital k. Now let’s get down to business. Any soul-sellers reading this? Faustian Fauci bargaining time? Again? Be sure not to miss that silent movie “Faust” which just might freakify you if thine eggs get to peel it. Do the silent movie educational freak fest as you write poems. Or read the subtitles. As the ladies say “up to you” and “same-same but different, Cheap Charlie!” Read “Dispatches” and “Street of No Joy” by Bernard Fall and get back to me. Send poems. Put out an eye. Editor
…
Co-editor of The Beatnik Cowboy, Chris Butler, has released his latest addition to his “Poems of Pain” series, entitled DOOMER. The 20 poem chapbook, published by Ethel and available for purchase, follows the Age of the Zoomer as it traverses through the downfall of “Western” civilization and the rise of the anti-social networks that rule the world with an iron finger. The poems featured in DOOMER have been previously published by Black Listed Magazine, Dead Snakes, Horror Sleaze Trash, Mad Swirl, Plum Tree Tavern, Synchronized Chaos and Your One Phone Call. Help support small presses to sell out the 1st edition, and those who have graciously given a home for your words. Follow the link below to the book to lend your help to the poetry industry before it fades away. https://www.ethelzine.com/doomer
…
An Announcement from the Editors
Greetings and salutations all, 2021, this foul year of our lord, sure has taken its toll on all of us. But as the hours count down to 2022, we are happy to announce that the Best of the Beatnik Cowboy Volume #4 is now available! At the start of the new year, we will begin considering poems for Volume #5 (we cannot believe that the revival of The Beatnik Cowboy from an extinct print zine, edited in Cambodia and shipped from Australia, and we already are at the 5th volume of the best words sent our way). For this, we thank each and everyone of you, and owe the unexpected success of the Cowboy to each and every one of you. The champagne is on us…no Napa Valley sparkling wine here…only the best for the BEST on the Eve of a New Year. Copies, as well as subscriptions, can be requested either through our official email, or directly from Randall K. Rogers in his South Dakota neighborhood. We truly hope you enjoy the book, full of previously unpublished work, so only the author, us and you will get to indulge in the best words we read this past year. A special mention goes to Donna Dallas, our featured writer for this issue, and her “Wretch” poems. So now, the title for the 5th and next Featured Writer is now open to be claimed, so keep submitting, and most importantly, keep writing. Until next time, take great care in this mad, mad, mad, mad world. To a safe a happy new year to all, and to all a good night…
The Editors, Randall K. Rogers and “Anti”-Chris Butler
A New Announcement from an Editor My brother from another mother and my oldest friend, Captain Jack, has his sold-out children’s book, “Who Farted?”, available per request on Amazon for sale. It ran through the 1st edition in a mere few months, but additional requests will lead to a 2nd edition being printed. Check it out here: https://www.amazon.com/Who-Farted-Captain-Jack/dp/057877092X/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=who+farted+book+captain+jack&qid=1640998305&sprefix=who+farted%3F+book+c%2Caps%2C105&sr=8-6
…
A New Announcement from an Editor Pyre Publishing, one of our comrades in the world of underground publishing, has just released their “Ez.P.Zine II: Issue Eight: Cyber//Reality” is now officially released, and is available for (FREE) digital download, and/or in fine print (only $3)! Poems featured in the book are written by (in alphabetical order): Robert Beveridge, Glen Binger, A. Lynn Blumer, Chris Butler, Drew Campbell, Andy Carrington, Dave Cullern, S.R. Malone, H.R. Parker, A.E. Shirtz and Adrian Slonaker. The versions of the book can be found here: https://pyrepublishing.com/merch/qcnwv90s1i6j9hloxi07ilkciq5okl https://pyrepublishing.com/merch/ezpzine-ii-issue-eight-cyberreality-ebook The super-duper trippy outer space VR cover art was created by Casey Miller. Published by A. Lynn Blumer, Pyre Publishing.
…
An Announcement from an Editor
In this mad, mad, mad, mad world, our co-editor Chris Butler’s latest book, DOOMER, has been published by Ethel and is now for sale! The chapbook includes 20 poems available in one collection for the very first time, just in time as a gift in this capitalists’ holiday season!!!
Pick up a copy the book now here: https://www.ethelzine.com/shop/doomer-by-chris-butler
Please help a starving artist and an independent publisher by selling out the 1st Editions in this season of giving!
…
Life – The final Crusade. Beatnik Cowboy Introduction 11/10/2021
Sometimes misery is the best company. Especially when you find yourself getting too happy. Gettin’ giddy. Things can never go well from there no matter how high you’ve come. Unless you’re getting giddy because you’ve hit rock bottom, then you’ve got class. Being classy myself – yeah Marx I said it! – I know one must laugh – ha! – throughout total destruction. I read “Le Miserable – the unabridged edition” and the French rebels, at the barricade, so cool. Naturally all die in the hopeless cause, first sending all the married folk home. With the urchin, the gamin, the ragamuffin wise street homeless hustler kid, playing around the fortification, inspiring them. One gets the sense just another day, another rebellion, in the home of communal fraternal slaughter. In such instances I always try to quote the great cigarette consumer – Woody Guthrie. Woody don’t beg he just differs when he croaks; “Right wing, left wing, buffalo wing.”
I’ll toss you another Woody (Allen) quote: “Me and nature are two.” That’s usually me though I’ve never been purposely camping. Unless passing out outside (in summer), sleeping in high grass weeds till dawn, off the road, nestled in so no one not hiking can see is camping. You can always tell a real boozer when they show up with cockle-burs on their clothes or suddenly emerge from a cabinet or utility closet after a night slept outside or in the bar. I noticed in Manchester, England, along Withington and Didsbury streets, doing the Didsbury dozen pub crawl, my gardener friend from when I worked as a security guard at the Britannica Hotel slept outdoors often. Drink a lot there, they do, and for a lightweight like me the pints stacked up. Nice blokes, me meeting them all, they buying. Then we’d get to getting into the scotch shots. They have the bottles hung upside down there, calibrated to dispense an ounce. We had many.
I was beaten once. Fellow pushed me out of a circular booth seat and stomped me. Two kicks. I was on the carpeted bar floor, surrounded by legs. He tried to kick me in the head. But naturally whenever I fall in such circumstances I move my arms to protect my head. So he kicked me twice, hard, in my ribs. Cracked my ribs but of course I could not feel them at the time. I sprang to my feet only to see him barreling through the crowd and out the door. I went after him. I’d lost my friends, too drunk to find them. Wild Turkey with beer. Boddington’s. The place had mirrors that confused me.
Once outside I stumbled down some steps. Out in front of the bar, he came out of the bushes. A big fellow, he came at me. “Oh boy,” I thought, “this is it. Hope I can fight.” But he came at me slow. Drunk as I was, I’ve always enjoyed combat. I smiled. Clenched my fists. Braced. And he smiled and walked right by me, down the sidewalk away from the bar. At least I think it was the same guy. I walked across the street, through a yard, into my building and up to my apartment. Later that night, in bed, I could barely turn over. By morning I could barely move. All in good fun among those scally Mancunians.
Send the poems. You set ‘em up, and we’ll knock ‘em down. Thank you, bless you, the spark in our souls is amplified in absorbing thy Beatnik. Thank you.
…
Check out our beloved Editor Randall Rogers, and many of the poets you see here, at Impspired (Issue 11). Issue 12 out now.
…
A post from an Editor:
Randall K. Rogers’s short story “While The Poor People Sleep (With the Shade on the Light)” was recently accepted for publication by our comrades and friendly folks at MadSwirl, one of the best literary journals this side of the world wide web.
A little bit from The Beatnik Cowboy’s Editor in Chief: I lived for fourteen years in Thailand, China and Cambodia, two years in Kingston, Jamaica, one year in Kharkov, Ukraine, one in St. Johns, Antigua, one year in Manchester, England, and briefly in Chisinau, Moldova. The other years I’ve spent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Rapid City, South Dakota, where I went to Central High School. I am a sociologist, historian, and taxi driver. A new religious movement specialist and specialist in farmers’ choice of wetland conservation practices. I’m fifty-five and still alive, currently living in Rapid City. Greetings to all. Editor of the Beatnik Cowboy.
And a little bit about MadSwirl: This mad swirlin’ creative outlet is a place to showcase the many diverse artists in this big, blue, beat-utiful world of ours and to get this madness into as many heads as possible. If you are new to writing or have yet to hear of them (although if you’re a writer who hasn’t, where have you been?) check out their site and guidelines here: https://madswirl.com/
——-
Caballeros,
Poetry is the highest art. Just ask the Masters. You can find them all over our little website. One word names like Vasillev, Borczon, Ian, J.J., John D, Judge Burton, Lifshin, Winans. Out on the front lines, the vanguard, art warriors fostering peace. Trans-valuing values in a way that pops the old ones right back in place; thus saving the world. Just another day here at the Beatnik Cowboy. Recognizing talent and confronting the development that common sense isn’t common anymore. Not to belittle but…well…I’d better not say the worthiest poetry embosses the most valiant of magazines. I dare say we shall transport you dear reader to a different place, a newer, more truthful, less vibrant era. A journey right back to the center of your mind, where blood flows home with the Amboy Dukes. There will be no lying here, only truth, except in sleep. For no poem worth its salt has lost its saltiness.
The truth is we’ve philosophically wrapped ourselves in conundrums. We’ve wrapped enigmas so tight, with dogma, that karma has no place to go, but inward. With devastating consequences on both the micro and macro level. Into this physical and social-psychological morass rides poetry as the highest most determinate art showing the way. Leading society into new ways of looking at old light. Learning transcendence in and thru science. Rippling the world with a new cosmic consciousness of old. Come! Mystify the world, your life, into eager living! Eager living into a world of Grace, exported, to one another, as neighbors in Life.
Poetry, when raised again to its rightful sphere influences princes, kings and queens, and me. As we edit through the mountain of worthy poems we increasingly receive, yes separating brain cells from chaff, almost cutting our hair, we pile up tally points in the win column. Sometimes, here in the editorial newsroom, deep in our cups, someone will suddenly brighten, rise and resound: “Hey Mr. Talleyman tally me banana!” Then we know we’ve uncovered the crumbs of a shooting star. And we take appropriate poetic action. Rejections are rough.
I pity the fool. Let us rise as leaven bread. As poetic turn-overs, empanadas of delight. Let us care for others better than ourselves. Work at forgiveness before exploding. Then blow forth in good moral standing with resounding success! By writing artistically fruitful poems. Danke Schoen
Beatnik Cowboy Editor Randall
7/7/2021
New hard copy “Summer Best of the Cowboy” soon mailed out!
Congratulations to Howie Good, along with every other poet and swordsman and woman with a bloody red pen who have found their words a home here, for reaching our 500th post of the electronic incarnation of The Beatnik Cowboy. He would not be possible without ALL OF YOU, Beatnik or not, Cowboy or Cowgirl or not, but artist nonetheless. And keep submitting! Best Of The Beatnik Cowboy Volume #4 is close to completion, so all of those with their best words still sitting in their folders please submit, and maybe you will find them next in print!
Also, t-shirts are still for sale in the back! Marlboro Man and Red Cloud remain our main designs, and come in all sizes, from child, all the way to triple X-L. Contact our editor in chief Randall Rogers, or our general mailbox (thebeatnikcowboy@gmail.com) to place your orders!
Poetry is not for the weak. If so inclined abandon thy inclination. Retract quill from inkwell. Skewer it into an eye; that’s it put an eye out. Because that’s what your writing does, puts eyes out. Generally, cyclops enjoy, the work that – sharply, dangerously – graces our pages. Ha! Tempted there to say “holy” pages, our holy pages!! But it’s true. All Satanic forces have left my body. At least I hope so. Not that they were steeped in my bones to begin with, but I know, when you’re humble, and wise, you ask the little fella to leave. Because that’s what she is, a fakir. Capital k.
Now let’s get down to business. Brass tacks. Any soul-sellers reading this? Faustian bargaining time? Again? Be sure not to miss that silent movie “Faust” which just might freakify you if thine eggs get to peel it. Do the silent movie educational freak fest as you write poems. Or read the subtitles. As the ladies say “up to you” and “same-same, but different, Cheap Charlie!” Read “Dispatches” and “Street of No Joy” by Bernard Fall and get back to me. Send poems. Put out an eye.
Adios Amigos,
Randello (Carmello) Rides (with good taste) 4/17/2021
Viva Le Cowboy!!!
Greetings boys, girls, and all you beatniks out there,
Our contact information has changed! Submissions and queries should be forwarded to thebeatnikcowboy@gmail.com, the exclusive email for anything and everything beatnik. Those who submit to the previous email address will still be considered for publication, but responses will come from the new and improved electronic mailbox. Any questions, suggestions or submissions will still receive a response from The Editors, and the artistic business will run as usual. Thank you all again for sending us your best words of art, and we hope this will be the best year yet for the Marlboro Man, Chief Red Cloud and all you Beatniks out there.
To all of the artists contributing to The Beatnik Cowboy:
Last week, for approximately 3 minutes, my email, the current contact email for The BC, was compromised, and some Nigerian “Prince” (as I was easily able to track him down to the African nation that for some reason has become the favorite of long-lost relatives’ million dollar inheritances, electronic panhandlers soliciting bitcoin change on every exit ramp of the infomaniac superhighway, or offering sweet deals to purchase cheap Canadian bootleg Viagra pills) is neither a message from myself, nor Randall Rogers. The amount of firewalls now encircling our site and my email will keep the fraudsters at bay from now until eternity. But all apologies to all of you who received these fraudulent correspondences, as I am the original Illiterate Poet. As always, submissions are open, and your words are always welcome, and your emails will remain protected. We hope you all continue to take great care of yourselves, and each other, in this mad, mad, mad, mad world.
peace/love/empathy
Illiterate Chris
…
Hello Beatnik Cowboys and Girls.
I want to address cancel culture. Cancel us. I’m ripe for canceling. Why? Because I didn’t even see it coming. There is an error in Chris and I’s latest, nee our first, book. Fifty lashes with a wet noodle! Oh, let me tell you, that can of chicken noodle was well worth its salt. Still, it remains the question. Canceling. Yet, of course, to cancel beatnik cowgirls trans, as this publication ascribes, the angered-irked consumer must of course read the publication and subscribe first. Again why? Nothing more than to fill our coffers. To enrich-en our account in order to bring you hours of angry beatnik style reading enjoyment in future. To twist your nipples so to speak and demand, “Whistle or lose it!” Cowniks, how do you like them road apples?!!
No matter. Trifling irritant. ‘Cept…when your anxiety is in the stratosphere, and you’re double clutching. Do loud noises frighten you, they ask? Gee, I guess so, I suggest as I jolt and leap when the heater kicks on. But thank the Lord I have a (lethal) heater, shower, and bed. I’m grateful. Thanks hot water and pipe that brings it! Thanks shower head! God who created iron ore and Bob Dylan! Thanks smelting and the heat effect that browns bread. Mmmm.. caramelize.
Here I would like to belch forth a poem. To try one out on you. Please consider not reading it. Do you, in your wildest imagination, in the argot you profess think I want your eyes slurpily feasting on my words? I do. Rotate on this:
That’s all folks. Send in poems O you that art Great!!
And we’ll try making us all famous.
Editor Randall 2/12/21
Greetings our fellow writers and readers,
2 of our best contributors have just published books of their work that are must-reads.
Judge Santiago Burden, with the help of one of the best publishers around the whole world wide web Arthur Graham of Horror Sleaze Trash, presents “Stray Dogs and Deuces Wild Cautionary Tales”. As fans of our contributors, we implore to delve deep into Judge’s words. It’s an experience that cannot be forgotten after it’s gotten your attention.
Also, Donna Dallas’s novel “Death Sisters”, a wondrous combination of fiction and poetics, transforms the pen into a paintbrush, illustrating in great detail the tales she tells for the enjoyment of the world.
As impartial editors, we encourage all to check out these books! And don’t forget, every book contributes to the life and times of your fellow artisans.
Until next time, party on people.
An Editor
…..
What’s the difference between Angela Landsbury and Paul McCartney? Answer: One plays guitar.
Hello Folks,
I hope everyone is fine and always doing better. Drink well. Remember to trans-value your values. For fun and maybe profit. What does that mean? It means whatever you value you value the opposite. It’s the way to gain super-human status. Also maybe to hatch a poem or two. Maybe not. Just an idea. Until I get in power. Because then whoosh! Instant Enlightenment. Edicts, papal bulls, I’ll issue them all. Yet, and I’m sorry to say this; I will ban poetry. You heard it here first. I’m up for the ban. Prohibition. Stop the art form (if you can call it that) dead in its tracks. Out of work poets? Sure we’ll round them up, like stray dogs. After that, you don’t want to know. Just check the chuck at the local supermarket.
Yet, as I like to say to everyone; “Don’t worry your pretty little.” I know some folks think I should add “head” to the end of “pretty little” but these days I don’t want to upset anyone. To me everyone is a pretty little and that’s the way uh huh uh huh I like it. Okay here’s the skinny. To get your voice heard and influence afoot put the suffix “-tastic” on certain words, nouns. Then repeat, ad nausea. Like this: Trump. That’s Trumptastic! That’s Trumptastic, man. Or… well… that’s the only one I can think of. Chosen especially to annoy. Isn’t it Trumptastic? That’s Trum-tastic man. Don’t even need to use the “p” when you’re chosen audience catches your drift.
What does all this have to do with poetry you ask? Hey! I am the Meander Commander here! Undisputed! I heard that moniker from my friend Mike, because he I guess is the original. The first I know to holiday in Afghanistan during war. He walking around the Meander Commander told me people – units – kept driving up to him asking him who he was with. His girlfriend had left him. Very interesting, Afghanistan during war, for a brokenhearted tourist from Thailand. Doing penance. But don’t worry your pretty little. With this “war holiday” he won her back! I hope he is okay. I’ll trans-value.
Any of you out there natural born _______(s) fill in the blank? I suppose Woody Harrelson could fill in the blank with “killer” due to he being in the movie. Or many may opt for the “idiot” option. Natural born idiot. Probably this exercise is best where trans-valuing comes in. For filing out the blank with the real then opposite-ing the word for you is the real you. Same for your poems. Remember when the doors of your perception are “cleansed” you see things as they really are. For instance for me I may say “natural born phony.” How about you? Natural born orgasm. Natural born incel. Calling yourself this means you’re a big stud. Natural born hetero = you’re gay. Natural born trans. You get it. Now write. And submit.
Vaya con dios,
Ramon, editor, cowboy
PS: screw writing
Fun Fact for the Day: Woody Harrelson’s father was a professional hit man.
LOVE BOMB INCOMING!!
We were there at the birth of the Beatnik Cowboy. It was a breech birth. The baby came out blue, a blue blood baby. Well don’t you know it he was a strapping young lad, yet confused of gender. He thought he was a cowgirl. No ordinary cowgirl. He thought he was Annie Oakley. And not only that, he believed he was a cross between Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane (real name Chlamydia Jane). As Chlamydia-Anne she grew in infamous ill-repute. Then she had the child. The little beatnik boy. It is said the young man’s first word was: Kerouac. The little beatnik boy was quoting from “The Subterraneans” at age two. “Desolation Angles” he recited in full from memory at three.
The kid was some beatnik. His father? Who knows who that was. But he was at the GemTheater that night in Deadwood. The night the aliens visited.
Now…the Kid has a ‘zine. A beatnik rag he squires. For like the great windmill tilt-er himself the Kid is Beat. As in beatitude. Sportin’ a beatitude. That’s a humble, quiet, meek inherit it all attitude. The kind we have here welcoming you. So now – The Transgender Cowboy rides….
Adios Amigos
Hasta la Vista!!!
Mrs. Ramon Rodrigo, Editor 6/17/2020
Send in your poems. You set ‘em up – and we’ll knock ‘em down (not really).
Vaya con Dios!
Feliz navidad!
If ifs and buts were candy and nuts – we’d all have a happy Kwanza!
The least among us.
……
Obla di obla da our friends,
The ages change but will everyone stay the same? Every microsecond one successful little swimmer finds a laid egg to make another one of us…the populus of a single planet…into the precondition of power bestowed on Darwin’s choice. But when it comes to crematoriums, only what is left behind is your choice. So join up! Buy a ticket for the ride! We continue to seek the best writers and their best words. Are you one of them? Then welcome! (No purchase necessary, just your words). Take care in this mad mad mad mad world before you become one of the zygotes lost in time.
An editor
Hello readers and writers,
We hope that everyone out there is doing as well as possible during this tumultuous time for The Divided States of America, and the entire world united by this global pandemic that continues to make us sick. Whether trapped indoors due to quarantine or military curfews, we all have become accustomed to this mad world.
But in this time, it seems necessary to occupy the mind when the body remains stagnant. The 3rd edition of the best poems submitted by the best writers to The Beatnik Cowboy is now available for purchase.
The print edition features writings previously unread by the world from Cee Williams, Daniel J. Flore, David Boski, Grant Guy, Ian Copestick, Jake Cosmos Aller, Jeff Perchuck, J.J. Campbell, Jonathan Butcher, Paul Tristram, Ross Vassilev, Ryan Quinn Flanagan and Dr. Samil Sharma.
Requests for a copy of the book can be made to Editor-in-Chief Dr. Randall Rogers at randallrogers01@yahoo.com, or it can be sent to the address for general submissions. We hope that you all enjoy these works of art. In the meantime, we hope that all of you will remain safe, healthy and most of all, alive.
The Illiterate Poet
………..
Hello,
Life in all its glory. That’s what we’re living. Poetry, writing poems is such a craft. It is the highest art. A combination of philosophy, wisdom, language alliteration, and pizzazz. As Verlaine puts it he is probing for possibilities when writing. His successes he calls “happy accidents.” I’ve started trying to write this way. Or, I guess I’ve always written this way. Except Verlaine appears to have many more successful accidents than I. Often, I’m probing an addled brain.
Not addled enough. Rapidly we rise. The Beatles always said they wanted to make it to the “topper-most of the popper-most.” We here at the Beatnik Cowboy aspire to poetic privilege. And yes, that’s privilege with no “d”. But where does the period go? In front of or after the quotation mark? Punctuation can be mystifying. Be consistent even if you are doing it wrong says one academic writer I know. That is, if unsure as to which punctuation mark is most correct to use in a text pick one form and follow it even if is not most correct. If you switch punctuation uses in mid-writing you confuse the reader.
The “poetic peak of peons” is our goal. And we are just the peons to get the job done. If I could step out my door I’d peak. Actually I’m often peaking. Go figure. Colorado is not that far away. If not waylaid by saucers on the way I reach the Promised Land, by auto, in five hours. Takes me ten hours there and back.
Ever read a book while driving? You can do that out here. Ever heard that song? The one where the gravel voice fellow sings “Did you find the directing sign on the straight and narrow highway?” We have roads like that out here. Signs are not needed saying “go straight, young man” unless rehab is called for. Personally I’ve read on I-90.
Sometimes…I go a little nutty. Depends on what I’m reading. Whenever on I-80 – the busiest semi-truck route in the Americas – I like to pop in the movie “Duel” with Dennis Weaver, watch, and play along.
That’s George Lucas’ first movie. Really? No.
Who cares?
Truckers do. “Weed, whites, and wine, and show me a sign….”
Poems. With the poems you dear readers and submitters send in…the pinnacle of poetry shall be reached! The Everest of poetry, the Hawaii! The Slim Pickens of poetry! Send ’em baby. Send ’em sleek and cool. Make ’em hum. Zing. Ping. And Pong. Soon come.
Reality is reeling. Time peeling back its fangs. Ready to lick in love.
Adios Pokes and Pokettes,
Editor.
This year of our Lord CE 2020. The whole year. Barbara Walters hosting.
Beatnik Cowboy needs your work!
Greetings Beatniks and/or Cowboys and/or those who cannot and/or refuse to be labeled,
For the first time since my graduation from university, I will be performing my words in front of an audience greater than 5 people. I will be opening fire upon a group of patrons in my hometown, at the Killingly Public Library in Killingly, CT on July 11th at 11 a.m. For those in the area, attendance and free and I will not be pimping out my latest printed books, but instead will be there for as much fun and entertainment one can obtain from sitting in a library at 11 in the morning on a Saturday. For those unable to visit in person, my reading will be visually recorded and posted online. More readings in and outside of New England to come…
peace/love/empathy
Antichris
…..
“Endless Disturbance” by Randall K Rogers Copyright 2019.
It was a cool, dark night. No moon. I was sitting in my chair pondering life. As I often do. Staring into space, wondering. Wondering, what the hell? I heard a faint rapping coming from my balcony door. The second floor sliding glass balcony door!
No one could be there. They’d have to scale the outside brick. Climb over the railing. Yet there it was again! Surely I heard it. Whomever it was they were just outside! On my balcony! Right next to where I was sitting! “Good thing the vertical blinds are closed,” I thought. With the blinds closed I couldn’t see out. I presumed he, she, it, or they, couldn’t see in. Yet, there it was again! Someone was outside the sliding glass door! A mere two or three feet from where I sat! Someone, or something, intermittently, gently rapping. Insistent, it seemed they wanted me. That they were summoning me to the door!
I remained sitting in my chair. The TV was on. Maybe it was a branch, being blown by the wind. But there was no wind. A neighbor, perhaps, climbing over from the next apartment. Really? What the hell? A worker for the apartment complex? They had been having plumbing leakage problems in the unit above. But it was 7:10 in the evening. Unless there was an emergency all workers had gone home. And there was no emergency. Except someone or something oddly rapping at my balcony sliding glass door.
I wasn’t going to open it. I wasn’t even going to move except to eye the room for potential weapons. I hit the mute button the TV. My Taser, my small can of mace, and my dagger were in the other room. I eyed my metal sculpture. It’d be a good club. I got it at the Killing Fields in Cambodia. It’s a statue of two ancient Khmer warriors locked in battle. One warrior is climbing up upon the other with sword sticking out ready to strike. The other warrior is stabbing the man jumping upon him and has grabbed in his hand the lower man’s thrusting blade. It is a one piece, black metal, defined but worn – could be a fake antique. My motorcycle taxi kid took me out there late one day, to the Killing Fields. It’d be a good club.
The Killing Fields
I saw the pagoda. The glass encased mountain of skulls. The dug up earth ridges of the mass graves. I went in the tiny gift shop. No one was there. I and the young man motorbike driver were the only ones in the entire area. He stayed outside with the bike. It was beginning to get dark, around 5:30 pm.
At first I didn’t think anybody was working. A vacant shop. Fitting. I looked around. The shop didn’t seem to have much stuff. Like nothing. A rotating rack of postcards and that’s it. There were no kids around selling stuff. Nobody. It appeared there wasn’t a soul in the entire park area except the kid and me. It was getting dark. There were low hanging clouds. The wind was picking up. It was going to storm.
The place smelled musty. It was a medium-small round building; one largish high ceiling round room. “Must be Communist architecture,” I thought. The ceiling came together in the center of a conical roof. I noticed there were dusty glass cases with nothing in them. I already had a bunch of postcards, and besides, these looked like cheap, old ones. The all-attached fold-out accordion style set. With pictures from the 1950s. From the concrete floor to the small ancient looking dull-metal “clerk” desk the place looked a remnant of an older era. Yikes. The Khmer Rouge era. I wondered “Is everything dead here?”
Yet this was 2001. The war was over. UN peacekeepers had been gone since 1990. Prosperity was returning. Tourism on the rise. People went to see this tragic area commemorating the atrocities of the 1976-79 Khmer Rouge time in power. Just then a man came out from behind an open door. It appeared as if he was returning from a bathroom break.
We startled each other. Me more than him. He smiled at me as if it was the most natural thing in the world, for me to walk in. He was short, a little bent over; wispy gray beard, quite grizzled. I thought he must be an old ex-Khmer Rouge soldier, and he’d killed plenty. “He must be a cripple,” I thought, left behind. Assigned in perpetuity to live out here and care for the murder monument. Care for the skulls, the ghosts, and lone tourists like me.
But he was able-bodied. Old, yes, but he looked fairly normal. He gazed at me expectantly. I wasn’t sure he spoke English. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me, smiling. I looked around the room: “You got anything special that I can take back to my homeland?” Immediately he disappeared back the way he came. I got to thinking: “I bet he killed a lot. Massacred innocents. He looks so nice, torture was probably his game. Murdered plenty and this his penance. To be in a dusty gift-shop with no goods, at the Killing Fields massacre site, for infinity.”
He didn’t look like a killer. I looked out the door. Looked again for my driver. Yep, he was still out there. In no time, however, the man was back. In both hands he carried a statue. It was on a small pedestal. About a foot and a half high, six inches wide; made of black metal. Two figures, one climbing up on the other, both figures’ swords raised in mid-strike. Ancient Khmer-Thai-Burmese fighters decked out in samurai-like wood and padding protections locked in mid-fight. One seems to be a creature-human jumping up on the other. Both are stabbing each other.
The older gent held out the statue for me. “Oh,” I said, “nice.” I took it in my hands. It was black metal, aged-looking, and dust encrusted. I held it. It wasn’t that heavy; it was hollow in the middle. A mold or wire someone adhered molten iron to? Or however they did it. It could be a kid’s industrial arts project, for all I knew. “How much?” I asked my new friend.
“Twenty dollars,” he said. It looked good. Dirty, like a found heirloom should be. A centuries old tourist knock off. Some kid’s high school industrial arts project. “I’ll take it!” I exclaimed. From the Killing Field gift shop. The Twilight Zone Killing Field gift shop. Something substantial. Of considerable hardness and durability. Who knows when – in what era – and at what knockoff cottage industry manufacture it was made. I opted for in the reign of Jayavaraman II, of the great Angkor Empire. Forged in the rustic tumble of ancient metallurgy.
There was no bag. No sales slip. Nothing. He handed it to me and he wouldn’t take it back. I liked it. I handed him twenty US. I thanked him, and left. Outside the clouds were threatening. With the oncoming dark, we being the only people remaining in the mass grave park, or the glassed in mountain of gleaming, white, skulls, the place was eerie.
I climbed on the back of the motorbike. “Something special the guy found for me,” I told the driver, the kid.
We raced back to town. It was really getting dark, and it began to rain. The clouds were low. Raining and dark on the road it was like we were moving into a tunnel. A rain-driven lowering black cloud tunnel. I clutched my statue. We lowered our heads and barreled into the driving rain.
He dropped me off at my hotel. It was a quaint little French place at the edge of town Phnom Pehn. Run by a Frenchman, the place had a kitchen. They served French food and French wine. I checked in. On my way up to my room I met the proprietor the Frenchman. I showed him my book. It was “Nausea” by Jean Paul Sartre. He looked at the battered cover. “Not his best,” he said.
I never read the book.
Radiant Transference
When I first heard the the tapping my gaze instinctively went to the the statue. The object ‘d art before me. For I’d placed my find, my treasure, directly in front of where I sat. My throne, so to speak. I’d carried the thing all the way back to my home. I gave it a favored location in my home. Who knows how much action it had seen.
There was no stamp. No sign whatsoever of whom had manufactured it. It was sturdy that’s for sure. A perfect metal club. And maybe it was really special. I mean maybe the old shop-fellow, the murderer, was being honest! There was nothing to sell in that shop. Was the man even real? The building looked shabby; like no one had been in there since the 1950s. Or, I thought, since the late seventies – when the Killing Field killings were taking place right there! As they said, in Cambodia, every house is haunted.
Maybe my statue was very old. Maybe it was a real treasure. Maybe it had seen more death and happiness, among its multiple curators, than hundreds of years of history. Possibly it was made to come to me in some type of magical fantasy connection. I almost convinced myself.
The rapping continued. Just next to me. On the other side of the sliding glass door. Was what?! He, she, it, could not see me. Nor I them. Long white vertically hung seven inch wide drape strips separated us. Stylish. But maybe they can see me! Maybe they can see through the drapes! I got to thinking. He, she, it, they must know I’m in here. The TV, the lamp. I sat still. The rapping, the tapping, the knocking, became more insistent. As if they know I’m sitting mere feet away!
Go away. Who are you?! What do you want?! I wanted to yell these things. But then I’d prove I’m really close. That I’m only sitting on the other side of the drapery strips. If whomever has a gun, fire. I’m just on the other side of the pane.
But I’m not going to say anything. Not going to reveal my position. I wonder, can they see through? Probably hit me with a brick thrown through the glass. What the heck are they doing out there anyhow? And how did they get up on the second floor balcony?! And why the tapping, the insidious soft rapping?! Who wants what?!! Leave me alone!
I wished I had a gun. Just blast’em. Home defense. No friend of mine would do this. No person in their right mind would. I should be afraid. Whomever is out there is either crazy or has ill intent. Not a branch; an animal? An injured bird? Condor? Robin? Pterodactyl? Screw it! A flippin’ nutcase startin’ to bother me!
I started thinking supernatural. Lordy, could the Leprechaun be out there? Little Satanic dude? One of those gargoyles from that movie of the same name from the 1970s? Some Cretan from down the block?!
Maybe it’s a lady. Highly doubtful. I leaned forward. I rose from my chair. I grabbed the statue. I opened the door. No one was out there. I put my head outside. Nothing.
What could I have been thinking? Of course I’d heard it. I shut the door. I put the statue down. I acted as if I was returning to my seat but quickly sprang to again snatch the statue. I fast opened the door and saw him clambering over the railing. A small being; I barely got a glimpse of it.
I say it. It could have been anything. I did get a glimpse of it, however, and you’re not going to believe this but…. well, let me just say, those workers that put up the Christmas lights freak me out.
“finis”
…..
Hello again dudes and dudettes,
We would like to inform all of our loyal patrons or passers by that Horror Sleaze Trash has recently released 2 e-books just in time for the holidays, River House Blues by Mendes Biondo and Blowfly by Thumper Devotchka. We encourage all to sit back under a warm blanket, decline all incoming phone calls, text messages, and all social media and get wasted on these words.
P.S. To all of our fans, the “Best of The Beatnik Cowboy Volume #3” will be shipping out soon, and will hopefully arrive to all in time for the holidays. Any one who would like to subscribe to us and receive a copy of the best of the best words we’ve seen in the last year (not featured online and exclusively available on the corpses of dead trees) may contact the Good Doctor Randall Rogers, or myself.
P.P.S. Keep submitting!
The Illiterate Poet,
Chris Butler
…
Hello Chaps and Chaplets,
Old age got you down? Don’t worry, you’ll be dead soon. Scared? You should be. Yet, legend has it, scrupulous reading and submitting to the Beatnik Cowboy bypasses melancholy. Joy is radiant in any reader of this eclectic beatnik rag. Get one in your hands. Feast your eyeballs. Climb aboard the beatnik beanstalk of amplitude, and grow. Do not, however, grow in the sense of microbiological decay, or gangrene. Grow in the sense of not turning the other cheek whenever parasitism is concerned. However, truthfully, is there any sense of being in or on earth that is not parasitical?
I say to you. Nothing. Everything is nothing unless it’s you. But that is not the point of this missive. The goal of this piece is to bring out your life. The life of you. And exorcise it. The cost of this exorcism is not prohibitive. When you consider the cost of a hell-bound monkey on your back. You do know the cost of not paying your exorcist do you not? This non-payment is not to be countenanced.
Why get rid of you? You’re not serious with this question are you? Look at yourself. Take a good look. What do you think? Serious? That’s what I thought. Now let me tell you. Because you’re right you’re wrong. Don’t believe it? Think about it. It’s called trans-valuing values. Nietzsche did it. Then he went for the horse.
Now, quite simply, why not? It’s a lot like wondering. Wondering, what the hell? That don’t fit no category! Where to put it!? Kill it! Shunt it to the side. Discount, minimize. Because it’s just too damn powerful! And good!
No, no, I’m worthy! And proud! To be a poet! In limbo! Transitioning to a wordsmith extraordinaire! Crafting golden phrases among the gilt-hallowed pages of that every posting, every hard copy, swilled glorious nugget of a publication; the trend setting, style maven dowager of best taste, the redoubtable Beatnik Cowboy!
Yay!
Sincerely,
Beatnik Cowboy November Guest Opinion Host
The Butt Crack Kid
10-27-2019
P.S. send in poems.
…
Greetings friends and contributors,
Volume 8 of my “illustrious” Poems of Pain series, Montage of Madness, is now available for the first time in print and is up for purchase on Amazon.
This book, selected by one of the best literary addresses on the infomaniac superhighway, Scars Publications, has finally come to fruition after years of purposeful procrastination, as the title artwork for this book was a collaboration between myself and my best friend, Kyle Baris, in the infancy of our artistry at the ripe old ages of 16 and 15, respectfully. Unfortunately, my friend passed away a couple years of ago, so this collection finally was able to see the light of day after coming to grips with the loss of life.
All proceeds and profits of this book will be used to establish a college fund for his young 6 year old son, Zachariah. So even if you are unable to afford the lavish cost of $8.99, please pass on the words to your friends, colleagues, artists, and everyone you know to contribute to a young man’s future. Every unit shifted will help make his dreams come true, and would make his father proud.
Thank you to all of our readers and contributors for your continued support.
The Other Editor
……………………………………………………………………
I’ve got some ideas to report. First of all, what do you think about the name “Daddio” for a beatnik-oriented magazine? Too Lolita? Too pedo? Okay, how about the title, “Fear and Loathing at the Rabbit’s Foot Factory?” Alright, I’ve been thinking about creating this character, my main character, in a new magnum opus dei concerning the character. The thing is this cat is sad! So sad you might ask why. Why so sad? Well, truth be told it is his son. The son went and did a thing, some call it a call for help, some label it explicable. You be the judge. The kid went and got himself a Bigfoot suit, put it on, and went out in the forest. He was running around in the suit and a couple of hunters shot him. They bagged him. Had to, they said, otherwise nobody would believe they saw the smelly, hairy beast. Imagine their surprise when they got the top part of the costume off – and there was Jimmy! Dead Jimmy!
The father took it hard. If only it had been an orangutan suit, he lamented, something legal! Why son? Why? he cried. Then, yes, it made sense. The plot of the whole rest of the story is why it made sense. I don’t know. I haven’t figured it out yet. Why would it make sense? With teenagers we always know, but…similes, metaphors, sound better. They are more romantic. For one thing there were problems. Where does one get an orangutan suit? Why not just go with a real orangutan if going orangutan? Sasquatch suits, nowadays, are cheap, and plentiful. Comfortable, easy breathing in them, nowadays, I hear. Heavens not like the old days! Those Big Foot costumes, in the beginning, were worse than the early Pluto outfits! You can’t forget them.
I have a vision of a House of Representatives restricted to only Down’s Syndrome officeholders. With the Senate filled with Tourette’s folk. Judicial Branch of Christ imitators. Real practical common-sense governing. No Icelanders allowed!
Okay, now this is serious. Very, very serious. So serious, I don’t know. I do not know if I should share. I do not know if I should share this great wisdom. Some say it’s the greatest wisdom of all. But I doubt that. It is simply this: write. And send in.
Thank you just like Jose Feliciano would singing “Feliz Navidad!”
I want to wish you a merry issue of “Daddio” the non-porn Beatnik hep ‘zine for muscle-bound lads in leather. From the Sphincter Stretcher!
Well, what do y’all think? Editor
………………………………………………………………..
Hello,
Been a while. Anybody die? This goes out to how many? I hope all your lives are christened with happiness. If not, hold on. You can do it. Get out the crayon and write. Yeah poems. Dig? I’m not really writing all the live long day. I’m cheating death, though, but considering becoming more equitable with the process. My poetry career certainly needs vodka. That is, if I ever had one. A poetry career that is. Ever been out and someone asked you what you do and you answered: “I’m a poet.” Lucky you don’t get your ass kicked.
I remember when I was young I told people I was gay so they wouldn’t think I was homosexual. My friends told me to stop telling people I was gay. I figured they wouldn’t think me gay if I told them I was gay. Is that cultural appropriation? Hope so.
We all fail. I’m just better at it. Does that bother you, dear reader? It should.
But please, brothers and sisters, and trans of all types, please send poems. That’s right I said it!! Poems! Write and email them to; anilliteratepoet@hotmail.com? You set ’em up, and we’ll knock ’em down. Legend has it that Mr. Butler has bustled his way into a few poems. Cowboy poets and poetesses from Wyoming never met him, however. Go figure.
Write I tell you write!
An Advertisement from The Editors:
SUBMIT
AND
SUBSCRIBE
buy a T-shirt…
Marlboro Man Red Cloud
T-shirt: $25
Subscribe: $25 – 4 print issues a year
Checks only: Beatnik Cowboy
Hello Niks,
Centered, that’s what I am. Finding my space smack dab in the Beatnik poetry explosion. Riding the Big Bang I’m a real whacked Sally, baby, let me tell ya. I named my last band the S.O.B.s. Band members when asked said, “Yeah, I’m in the band. I’m an S.O.B.” Just think calling home to Mom: “Mom, I’m a son-of-b-bitch!” Band of realistically whacked Sallys, that one. Good at hitting the stage with de-tuned guitars and laryngitis. Oh sample the you-tube to check out my buddy’s band, “Weed Whore.” Talent does seem to improve when you’re on you’re on stage on your back rolling around, screaming.
Yeah I still sit around writing instant classics. Classics that get rejected outright. The gems then sit in a file, not lonely, but content, may I say happy? Yes happy they are happy they were written by I, Al Franken.
But thanks. Grateful art I. Another way of saying that is Art Garfunkel. For the poems. The spasms of brilliance that grace our ‘zine. We are climbing! With your help! You are us but we are not you! You are you! Give thanks for that. It’s like a poem I wrote. It went like this:
Somebody’s got to be me,
and dammit it’s me!
I thought about prefacing the dammit with “Van” name checking “the muscles from Brussels” but thought twice and decided upon the negatory in choosing such usage. I will leave you this time good readers with a bit of Beatnik wisdom. Passed from ‘Nik to ‘Nik down through the centuries, listed in many ancient Beatnik books of wisdom, it is eerily prescient and uncannily accurate. It goes like this:
Some men smoke
but Fu Manchu.
Thank you and keep from not choosing voluntary death. Learn not to spurn. Please send poems! And thank you!
Mahalo
Randall
…………………………
Greetings dudes and dudettes,
Kool Aid may be tasty, but it is a breeding ground for social cavities. If I am Googled, on the almighty engine that seemingly continues to turn the world every 24 or so hours, my name appears. Just like everyone else.
But the other day, someone pointed out to me that a “religious leader” named Chris Butler exists on this churning earth. I do not use those quotations lightly, as his appearance is reminiscent of a West Virginia hill hick created by incest who decided that Hawaiian shirts and delusions of preachy fables shouted atop wobbly tables were always in style.
He is a cult leader. A leader of a lost flock. The zombies of a forgotten world. A leader of the ignorant few who see the Light in a man who fucks fourteen year olds and impregnates his follower’s brides. One of many men to proclaim themselves with the nameless title “Jagad Guru Siddhaswarupananda Paramahamsa”. Even referring to himself as a Krishna. A god of flesh and bone and living amongst men. Like the one in the many Good Books and Renaissance arts, would kill and skin the heathens to save a few empty chairs in their version of “heaven”. This “god” with my “Christian” name even murdered a man just to create ripples on a vacation lake.
But as every fairy tale ends, he will get away with murder by cyanide suicide.
To be continued into…Deconstruction
I have spent the last two true blue moons attempting to deconstruct poetry.
We all want to deconstruct poetry. We may hide it. We, however, do wish upon a gunshot star.
We all want to be like Ginsberg and quill the methodically typewritten, “Howl and other poems”, however, his same famous lyric has befallen our generation and the next, and another who will never know his words.
We all want to be like Kubrick. Deconstructing motion pictures with a silent film in the soundtrack era. “2001: A Space Odyssey” may have landed a man on the moon, but Jupiter is still in another universe to us.
We all want to be like Hunter Stockton Thompson. Turning thirty-three words of journalism into a psychedelic prophecy of things that were to come, and things that had already came before him. His stained pages still hold the seed of creativity.
We all want to be what we want to be.
We, however, cannot construct a sentence,
we, however, can deconstruct every language.
P.S. We’ll still sit and grin as the submissions keep rolling in.
The Artist Currently Known as Chris Butler
Hello,
Been a while. Anybody die? This goes out to how many? I hope all your lives are christened with happiness. If not, hold on. You can do it. Get out the crayon and write. Yeah poems. Dig? I’m not really writing all the live long day. I’m cheating death, though, but considering becoming more equitable with the process. My poetry career certainly needs vodka. That is, if I ever had one. A poetry career that is. Ever been out and someone asked you what you do and you answered: “I’m a poet.” Lucky you don’t get your ass kicked.
I remember when I was young I told people I was gay so they wouldn’t think I was homoserxual. My friends told me to stop telling people I was gay. I figured they wouldn’t think me gay if I told them I was gay. Is that cultural appropriation? Hope so.
We all fail. I’m just better at it. Does that bother you, dear reader? It should.
But please, brothers and sisters, and trans of all types, please send poems. That’s right I said it!! Poems! Write and email them to; anilliteratepoet@hotmail.com. You set ’em up, and we’ll knock ’em down. Legend has it that Mr. Butler has butled his way into not a few poems. Cowboy poets and poetesses from Wyoming never met him, however. Go figure.
Write I tell you write!
Sincerely,
Randall 11/3/2018
It is the present no matter what time or date you read this. That is the beauty and pain of everything, including transporting thunk memories and futuristic scenarios. We have to be hopeful, after all death will save us all. For a while.
Now let’s get to poetry. Poetry involves thought-words. Writing it is fun. Or should be. Getting rejected submitting it to editors is not. Therefore we at the Transgender Lesbian Cowboy are temporarily altering our editorial policy. To engender submissions (from same-sex women) we are hereby resorting to a publish-all philosophy. No worry, we shall separate the wheat from the chafed in time, and quite probably retain the by-product. And promote it gaudily. Did you know fanfare means trumpets blowing? Not strumpets, trumpets. Larger than life little Donald’s. Not McDonald’s, the real thing. The real secret sauce. Not just Thousand Island. No person is a Thousand Island – though Xavier Holland comes close. Tried to watch the film “Caligula” the other day, on the Ffilms.org free film site but the site of the naked Malcolm McDowell scared me off. Too with O’Toole, Peter and his scruffy Tiberiun countenance. I prefer my Malcolm drugging at the milk-bar. My O’Toole fastened down in my trousers. But Oh! The Caitlin of it all! Where, dare I ask, or whom, kept the dis-members only, ah, thing? Oh my lord and how long was the operation?
But forget all that. Forget all you can, even the intrusive memories, good and bad. Good because inevitably good turns into bad, and bad because…ah…well don’t forget the bad memories because the bad turns to good. Just ask Fredric Nietzsche when he is trans-valuing the lips of a horse. I remember watching ABC’s “Wide World of Sports” when I was a young humanoid and they always talked about “the agony of da-feet” when they showed a crashing ski jumper. I guess Italian influence has permeated culture more than ancient Rome. Also, I was at a bar in Phnom (Phnom means hill) Penh, Cambodia, speaking to an Englishman, insisting England was “a whole gay nation” when he did some silly-assed begging to differ. Great American I am I won the argument when I told him he was in denial and I don’t mean standing in a river in Egypt. The lady Khmer bartender laughed (I was sitting slouched slurring words at the bar) and I hands downed the little slap and tickler. After all when I discovered they call underclassmen “faggots” at Eaton I just knew they weren’t calling them “bundles of sticks”. But enough for now, though this now will be present whosoever whensoever anysoever ganders upon these signifiers in any galaxy, universe, tiny or big, anywhere, anytime, if they make it.
Let’s make it; write, submit, we publish, all, for now. Let us immortalize at least for…for now…an always present at different times, everywhere. But I’m still angry for all those years the Lone Ranger was calling his comrade Tonto, which means “stupid” in Spanish. But what after all, can you do? Except die, to live on. Live on with your own written poetry published all by us, we cowboys of the unsure, confused kind. Thank your graciousness and right honorable highness-es of all kinds, for all times, of all places, in all ways. Even Muslims may your bombs dud and aims not be true…God willing.
The some kind of range rat,
Randall 4/19/2017
A
The Beatnik Cowboy 