Friday, April 19, 2019

Brenton Booth writes


Demon Master

It is a Wednesday
morning and I haven’t
written a poem for
over 2 weeks
thinking about Steve
Richmond and his
demons
poor son of a
bitch
living easy off his
family
he should have worked
45 hour weeks
and instead of sounding
like film puppets
his demons would have
had some real
bite
though he was a
great writer
I’ll give him
that
one of the best
when he was his
best
and the man responsible
for breaking this
2 week drought
so thank you Steve
and your phoney demons
that were of course
nothing more than your
iambic-pentameter
and worse things
have definitely
happened
just ask the
racetrack
bars
or
whores.
steverichmondlori

 Steve Richmond -- Lawrence Robbin

1 comment:

  1. accused of
    self indulgent narcissism
    I
    admit it

    demons clap
    they like me honest

    --Steve Richmond

    Richmond, a member of the Meat School of American poetry, came from a wealthy family in California. He received a juris doctor degree from The University of California at Los Angeles Law School but failed to pass the bar exam, so he collected rents for his family. Eventually he inherited $2 million but spent it in a dozen years, largely on his heroin addiction. At 22 he embarked on a 3-week marriage; his wife took him to a reading at UCLA's Hanss's Steps, and he noticed that most of the attendees were women. So, in 1964, he began publishing poetry and became closely associated with Charles Bukowski and Jim Morrison. Influenced by gagaku ("elegant music"), the oldest form of Japanese classical music (introduced from China in the 6th century), he wrote between 8-9,000 gagaku poems.

    the demons teeth
    are inverted and pointed
    like lime circles hardened but white
    and are glistened

    the eyes are black holes
    encircled by matter torn like a rag
    only their tongues are red
    lower lips are turned to orange

    green spattered on lower fringes
    staining upward like spider web
    hoods of white cloth pointed
    and flap with cotton muff at tip

    in groups they clap single fingered gloves
    gloves white but turn to leather
    the seam turns red, blue is soaked all over
    fingers scraping blue turned multicolor from the barrier

    their teeth puncture the glass barrier
    the glass cracks.


    John D Robinson memorialized him in his "The Gagaku Warrior: Steve Richmond":

    He inherited millions of $
    and he was a poet
    and he spent the millions
    like a poet
    on drugs and women and
    property and cars and
    ended up in a homeless
    shelter
    and he never stopped
    writing and creating art,
    be it poetry or
    painting or music,
    he published his Gagaku
    and Bukowski and
    Blazek and other
    fealess souls who took
    the pen and shoved it
    where light would
    never
    dare venture.



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