tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post8300599376895603521..comments2024-01-26T21:38:25.924-08:00Comments on Duane's PoeTree: Brenton Booth writesDuanesPoeTreehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3407624264627208128.post-84568317841384948972019-04-19T12:05:54.930-07:002019-04-19T12:05:54.930-07:00accused of
self indulgent narcissism
I
admit it
d...accused of<br />self indulgent narcissism<br />I<br />admit it<br /><br />demons clap<br />they like me honest<br /><br />--Steve Richmond<br /><br />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. <br /><br />the demons teeth<br />are inverted and pointed<br />like lime circles hardened but white<br />and are glistened<br /><br />the eyes are black holes<br />encircled by matter torn like a rag<br />only their tongues are red<br />lower lips are turned to orange<br /><br />green spattered on lower fringes<br />staining upward like spider web<br />hoods of white cloth pointed<br />and flap with cotton muff at tip<br /><br />in groups they clap single fingered gloves<br />gloves white but turn to leather<br />the seam turns red, blue is soaked all over<br />fingers scraping blue turned multicolor from the barrier<br /><br />their teeth puncture the glass barrier<br />the glass cracks.<br /><br /><br />John D Robinson memorialized him in his "The Gagaku Warrior: Steve Richmond":<br /><br />He inherited millions of $<br />and he was a poet<br />and he spent the millions<br />like a poet<br />on drugs and women and<br />property and cars and<br />ended up in a homeless<br />shelter<br />and he never stopped<br />writing and creating art,<br />be it poetry or<br />painting or music,<br />he published his Gagaku<br />and Bukowski and<br />Blazek and other<br />fealess souls who took<br />the pen and shoved it<br />where light would<br />never<br />dare venture.<br /><br /><br /><br />DuanesPoeTreehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17053093400086634552noreply@blogger.com