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.
Steve Richmond -- Lawrence Robbin
accused of
ReplyDeleteself 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.