A small re-run of all our 2009-2010 titles has appeared. If you’re interested in buying any of the books, the price is 5€ per book. For a full list of titles available see: https://newpolishbeat.wordpress.com/starsze-tytuly/
Contact: aj_kaufmann[at]yahoo.com
PayPal only (+ shipping). We’d rather not ship outside of European Union, but if you’re living elsewhere, and need a book or two, contact A.J. and we’ll see what can be done.
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by Adam Jan Kaufmann.
Gripe by night the love giants, the life we share
Twinned-wings, wave all, gentle within the angels
Vision grove, diamonds and passion-laden eyes
Lotus-face, delicate birds and beautiful hum fans
Of moonlight-pearls
Divine morrow, mark of leaves, tenderness, calm
Night follows the thirsty singing much
Lovers kissing much, gloom and midnight
Hands sense the beautiful, subtle-sweet sky
Of us the stars speak
The lightest heart, strong milk-warm solemn
Grown so blue, human and clasping for wake
Unknown, blessed, mute, dim stars enchanted
Now in sternness, sitting with forest-flowers
Dread mouth of piteous joys
Rare comets shining on leaves of love, spray
Of sweetness, follows the shots of fire, yellow
Fierce dark blooms – you are the ancient grove
Understand the high moon’s fragrance
Yours eye is the highest
Damsels, jewels, given their end, dancers in
World heart, deep and forgiven, summits
Of dream, sitting in fourfold, golden and
Merry, you are merry, modestly watching
The coldness dancing with arrows of day
Lifelike, like soft eyes, touching the gate of spirit
Fish god, what a dream, praise your kings at twilight
You resemble twilight
Cut the monster hand
Light us a song
May your error lead to pleasures of blossoms
25/05/2010
Button Sucking
She stands
on a rock
and places
her electrode
nipples on mine
as though a shock
of youth is due
me but embrace
is as far as
the treatment goes.
Under stars
that read
like an EKG
we’re in
a Japanese
garden
so still
I imagine us
wrapped
in a transparent
cast.
Physicians
and moralists
studying
the ancient
phenomenon
of nipples
arcing
from short
circuit or sin.
The goldfish
cast their vote
when a sudden breeze
drops her blouse
and my shirt
into their pool —
riotously
they suck
on our buttons.
Thomas Michael McDade
Lucky Water
A brisk Manhattan
dawn a mongrel leads along
the tallest beauty in the borough.
She’s a lofty drug that jolts
our eyes past ever shutting.
Day’s first caffeine fixes
hit the sidewalks steaming.
Rolling donuts powder shoes
and no man here feels spoken for.
When she lights a cigarette
her hands enshrine the flame
as fervently as if she’s praying
all her fans would just drop dead.
Her brown hair dusts
a T-shirt as white as salt
for our wounds
and her braless breasts erase
the lettering across her chest.
Even newsstand headlines fade!
Suddenly, she vaults up
steep stairs and ducks
into a brownstone,
embracing Fido.
Left envying
the lucky water
in her tall shower,
we imagine
that trusty mutt
shredding
her rangy jeans,
and awarding scraps
like Purple Hearts to us.
Thomas Michael McDade
Flat Roofing
The best job was tending
the old black kettle
on wheels where
tar chopped
with a hatchet
like dehydrated
licorice simmered.
The flat roofing
trade called it soup.
There was a spigot
to fill five gallon pails
for hoisting with rope
and pulley for mopping
over tarpaper and nails
and silver disks securing it.
Burlap bags of gravel
for raking followed
and the sound of it
spreading could
lullaby a kettle tender
and soup was famous
for catching fire.
Punishment was chipping
up old roof with what the trade
delighted in calling an idiot bar
right to your soup singed face.
Thomas Michael McDade
Tap Shoes
The produce peddler
hired Project kids
for a buck and a half a day.
The teacher who ran
the playground
said he exploited us,
but there was no money
to be made playing
checkers or horseshoes.
Besides the cash
everything on the truck was free,
even cherries.
A kid had to be careful
not to get the shits.
Sweet corn was the big sell,
fifty cents a dozen,
in the better neighborhoods.
Some kids who had never
been in a home
other than a Project
apartment loved it
when a housewife
invited them in.
The peddler preached
about stealing
from those houses,
but no one would have dared.
Christ, anybody could
have run us down,
our sneakers like tap shoes —
so heavy with silver.
Thomas Michael McDade
Sassafras
Working for Jack,
I didn’t miss the slap
of a paintbrush
in the least when he took
an autumn roofing job.
Both wife and daughter
of the house were
lookers and out back
planting flower bulbs.
I was thinking of
nail heads
nudging shingles
the following spring
like daffodils
pushing up dead leaves
when I noticed the ladies
sneaking glances at me.
I took my fantasies
to the bar where in
keeping with the season
they spiraled
like sassafras foliage
outside a maximum
security prison.
A painter is more
productive than a roofer
Jack preached,
since for the most part
he faces his work and his eyes
are less likely to wander.
Drinking to me
he confessed that thanks
to him the gardeners thought
I was a felon out on work release.
Thomas Michael McDade
Juice Bottle
Flynn is 80 and has never paid
more than $100 for a car,
never insured one either.
His latest is a ‘78 Belvedere.
Flynn’s eyes are bad
but risky driving beats boredom,
Meals on Wheels his only visitor.
His wife doesn’t know him anymore,
stays with the daughter.
Strikes Flynn the Plymouth
is the color of an old zipper tab
parting teeth like tension
as he pulls away at 10 miles per hour.
V.A. is going to rip open his chest again
to service the pacemaker that’s idling
as bad as the car.
Drivers cuss and beep but Flynn doesn’t care.
He peeks at the mirror,
hopes as many vehicles in his funeral procession.
At the Indian Lounge,
he honks his horn until the bookie storms out.
Flynn cuffs $20 on a horse at Saratoga
and mutters to himself he could live
with dying owing that son of a bitch.
Before Flynn leaves to buy a Black Label quart
he’s not supposed to drink and chop suey
he’s not supposed to eat,
he enjoys a Dutchmaster
he’s not supposed to smoke.
The diuretic kicks in on schedule.
Flynn grabs an old prune juice bottle
from the back seat and pisses
the piss of a man who never paid more than $100
for a car or bothered to insure even one,
never had an accident.
Thomas Michael McDade
Recorded on a primitive tape recorder in the Summer 2005, and released on CD-R, but only distributed locally among friends, so very rare – this album is bordering between music and non-music, radioplay, dark comedy, and drama. Inspired by the work of Antonin Artaud, William S. Burroughs, Damião Experiença, and William Blake, this is a psychedelic voyage through an early 21st century burning brain with a set of 12 songs (1 of the themes returns as a coda) traditionally written, but performed as if a stoned out of his mind Jandek had a bastard child with a male Yoko Ono (minus the screams). There’s also an instrumental cover version of Grateful Dead’s “Clementine” here, and the voice of W.S. Burroughs makes an appearance in the final recording. For the brave and curious of the dark side of modern art, art brut, loner folk, psychedelic outlaws, and outsider music. This is no entertainment, this ain’t artistic pose – this is pure life.
“You can’t fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal.”
– William S. Burroughs
Begird
no bird
Frankly,
I find them distasteful
bones too thin
meager and easy to crush
feathers too dusty
I prefer soap and water
for my plumage.
Me,
all flesh
a loaded shell, round
smoothbore shotgun.
I’m big boned like river rock.
An earth animal
despite dreams of flight
my paws never leave the ground
they pound and they pound
so I don’t drown.
I admire the sentiment
the folding and unfolding
your own little accordion
readying for lift off.
But I’m more of a mule in a quagmire
and damn but,
that carrot looks good!
I get rode hard put away wet
keep a pistol in my muff
a secret in my lips
too voluptuous for bird beaks
to kiss.
Do you want to touch
the meat at the back of my throat?
more than words
come here.
Wishing Well
We grew up with well water
problem was,
and there was, always a problem,
Come fall the spring dried up.
From our tap the last drops
sucked through muck
dead red leaves
frogs sinking down into mud
hunkering in for the winter.
If only we could hibernate
shut down our needs
before the frost blanket…
We threw steaming yellow buckets
from the back door into snow
bore hot holes
to the brown grass below.
50 gallon drums filled from streams
heated on the wood stove
that’s how we washed ourselves
in the years of Dynasty.
It’s hard to feather your hair
with no electricity… Dad.
We had an empty room
with hardwood floors
new wood window casings
against white walls.
We imagined
a toilet here
and a bath tub
close to the furnace’s iron grate.
I’d step out of the claw foot tub
onto a clean towel a thousand times,
reach back to flush
am imaginary chrome handle.
Everyday I passed that room on my way to the outhouse,
and Dad you died a dreamer.
A Park Avenue kid
with only a pot to piss in.
Without A Roof
This love between us
grew up
from under the desk of a speed freak
it tapes LED lights with black electrical tape
cooks iguana over open fire
sweet like suckling pig
sparked by a kiss in Foods Co parking lot
we rode on jetliners
landed in the same city
moved in a closed curve
points on the same plane
I kept your stories in a red bandana
carried them over my shoulder coast to coast
all these years
a love born of heartbreak
me tired from the weight of belongings thrown out the door
exhausted from being a “good” girl to men
who could only see me in the rearview mirror
and you sat on a curb leaking
the tears wouldn’t stop
so you walked
away from your job and everything you owned
smoke circling a glass pipe blood in a syringe
I spent my inheritance did a great job playing house
had boyfriends who smoked weed in bed
all weekend long shades drawn
boyfriends who strung me along
fought with drunks till dawn
relationships left me
looking for morning
bare foot and alone in my kitchen
But now you’re here
and we are the pot-bellied versions of our young selves
only we know these wrinkles are illusion
I do recall my hands full of your hair
you can still see me black rimmed eyes flight jacket 32 waist size
only we know these love handles
this baldness
is transient too
and should be worn like a badge.
Knotty Heart
We explore junk piles
and you admire tree stumps
they remind me of home
like chainsaws
I want to take you there
through trees holding hands
but I don’t know where home is
Mom and Geoff’s is not mine
a cabin in the woods full to the roof
with them, not any
of me save for the school photos of my son
that I’ve sent.
I have no history here.
The houses I grew up in,
Dad’s houses, are standing
but have been gutted to the studs
remodeled minus the nicotine yellow walls
chewed up floor boards
cracks full of droppings and dirty animal fur
these gamey places I grew up in
distant as a place can be
withiin the same century.
I’m a time traveler
trying to explain to you
how we lived
how good a carrot can taste
with the dirt still on
how hardened your soles become
barefoot all summer long
dodging perverts and drunks
at your own kitchen table
under layers of smoke in the dragon’s liar.
No one drives those old cars anymore
kids rattling around the backseat
loose and unstrapped
wild as Bobcats
pointy ears listening
waiting to lead me back
through time.
Wet and Reckless
The Wind
holds words
of a lover.
He calls
from behind a trash can
in a building of sick people.
In this wind storm
the lover I belong to
snores at my side.
Watering cans,
pieces of lattice
clatter across the back porch
with hot pink petals.
Inside me something else
burns hot pink
restless
but I stay
spill the ice water he brought
rub the eye cream around aging orbs.
Little lights hit the window
create the rocking atmosphere
of a boat
and we are adrift.
In a confusing world of want
the hunger isn’t filled
by green curry last night
or handmade tortillas this morning
only fattened.
Greedy and lazy it wants something
for nothing.
A lover on the side,
an income
without a job.
