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.
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.
The American Poet Michael Aaron Casares reads a poem from his “Green Tea America” chapbook (New Polish Beat, 2009).
Blood on the street
hero departed
taxi in a hurry
with hydras all around–
you find no help here.
Future waiting
gone to his grave
the worry through the week
bozos stealing bronze so
you take your flowers.
Call off the dogs
fold up the light
searching for your market
alleys and apartments
and no green remains.
More guilt than shame
more shame than love
with shadows under wing
rats out of the mattress
and you out of time.
Tell to moonlight
words up in smoke
the legend never lost
the rhyme takes a toke
sorrow spinning jazz.
You Are Not A Normal Human Being
You are not a normal human being.
I know you
You know you
You have beautiful dreams you are fulfilling
You wake up everyday on the ceiling
And inspire your desires to radiate your feelings
You are not afraid to be yourself
Despite anyone else
You know who you are
You are not a normal human being
You are not the cheesy cliché character in the corner of the bar
Telling horror stories about how marriage is a dead dark dishcloth cemetery
You can get married and love your spouse forever and still be free
You can get a job, make lots of money, and not be a selfish, egoistical prick
No matter what happens to you, you can be happy
You are here to remember, not forget
You are not a normal human being
You do not suffer from the chaos of your own delusions
You are not ruled by the desolate confusion of other people’s illusions
You are not brainwashed by the mediocre mass media
You are the real heartfelt, breathing, bloody, soul filled essence of life
You are not a walking, talking robotic encyclopedia
You are a tender burning gentle loving light
You are not a television set glued to a graveyard
You transcend Middle America like a dark sky overflowing with bright stars
You are not a normal human being
You did not come to Planet Earth to work for green paper and die
You came to satisfy your soul, to search yourself whole,
You came to serve this beautiful world
You came to feel the joy of why
You are not a normal human being
You do not sit around all day gossiping the gospel from one tragic play to the next
You do not live your life for the sake of regret
You do not put your fellow brothers and sisters down
You do not waste your time
Your voice is a gentle, relaxing, indigo sound
That enhances and expands the space within everyone’s mind
You are not a normal human being
You are not afraid of your creator
You are not going to die and spontaneously begin an eternal burning
You are not waiting for a savior
You are here now and you are aware and you are learning
You condemn no one to hell
Instead you invite everyone into heaven
You understand and you are understood
You forgive and you are forgiven
You are not a normal human being
You touch the angels
You scare the demons
You inspire the sun
You have no one to blame
You are not a normal human being
Why?
Because there is no such thing as one
Cliché Poem To A Poet Poem
Write from your soul
eventually your soul will start writing from you.
If you do not have a soul don’t worry,
find the most masculine muscular man closest to you,
kiss him square on the lips,
after he beats your ass,
call your mother and tell her to write everything you say down.
Congratulations, you got your first poem.
For God’s sake don’t stop there,
whatever you do don’t listen to your teachers
that is why they are teachers,
they don’t know shit
so they don’t know you.
The real poets are poets.
You won’t meet them until you become one
until then hang out in the forests, the alleyways, the wrinkled faces,
go fishing for birds, feed your stomach clouds, rip dollar bills off trees,
play football for the coach, study trashcans, and live in a yellow submarine,
hang around pretentious professors pretending you are incredibly deep
while making fun of yourself out loud in front of their family’s God.
You are confused.
Life is war to you.
That is perfect.
You wouldn’t have it any other way.
No one understands you.
Great, you don’t understand yourself.
Don’t worry about it.
All you need to know is you don’t need to know.
Keep loving, keep fucking, keep sucking, keep living, keep giving, keep laughing,
most of all keep writing.
Realize the best poems are written by the air in the tragic part of the night,
by the waves of the ocean, through the minds of children, by the Beatles,
and on the Drive Thru menu at McDonalds.
Now that you know this see everyone as a poem, kindly write them.
If you find everyone criticizes you and thinks you are fucking crazy,
take it as a complement, that means you are on the path to greatness.
If you are not receiving the love you desire,
if you are finding yourself mediocre and bitter,
eating your way into winter.
Don’t kill yourself.
Smoke weed by the fire.
Take your pen to a book store.
Change the titles around.
Make a beautiful stoned hilarious poem of it.
Laugh at your poetry.
If that doesn’t work, find a person in a wheelchair.
See the overwhelming beauty in their preciousness.
Follow them until you have written fifty poems.
Once you got your poems congratulate yourself.
Now invite all your friends to a coffee shop to listen to you read them.
When no one shows up give your poems different personalities
and read them to the wall.
Now walk out of the empty room like Lou Reed.
You are doing perfect, now it is time to give your poems to everyone you can,
I am talking parents, gas station employees, the thunder, the lightening
I am talking hot chicks, famous fuckers, guilty prisoners, rising rivers.
Most importantly find the highest esteemed bullshit licking literary journals.
Send your poems there along with a letter to the editor explaining how every poem you write is because you want to fuck his son.
When you get the rejection letter glue it to the refrigerator,
buy yourself roses.
You have passed with flying colors!
Now it is time to find a lover.
Someone fifty times more fucked up than you are.
Someone who knows from the start the joke is on you.
Someone who can shit out your heart without ever tasting it.
After she fucks all your friends lay in the darkness for two straight weeks.
When you come out you will be broke, empty, talking shit to intimate objects
and exactly where you need to be ready to face the next demon head on.
For this part of the journey you will need the fungus that grows off cow shit.
Don’t be scared it is like pussy don’t think about the taste just let it become you.
Now the feeling you are getting
like there is more life than you could imagine
yet less then you could ever comprehend.
Write that feeling down, that feeling is the place to be.
Become the grass write about how grateful you feel to be walked on.
Become the wind write about how grateful you feel to kiss a tree.
Become the demon within write about how grateful you are to die.
Become the human being write about how grateful you are to ask why.
Now kiss the ground, fondle the sky, you are ready to love everything.
Now you understand the real reason you chose to be a poet.
It is a quick nonstop route to your spirit.
Now let everything be beautiful.
Now speak it, feel it, write it, live it, hear it.
You are apart of everything.
Nothing else matters.
I love you, young poet.
Take my advice or don’t.
I don’t give a fuck, either way.
It is your life.
Live it however you like.
I love your life regardless.
All roads lead to where no roads can go.
Namaste
I Met Your God
I walked into your room to tell you it was time for dinner
and there laid your God crying,
morbid, ashamed, and guilt-stricken
on your bed reading your diary to his dead mother
without the slightest belief she could actually hear him.
“Get out, before I damn you eternally!” He screamed
like a half eaten barbequed chicken wing.
I smiled and said, “No offense God, but I have evolved quite a bit
to the point where I can see straight through your tyrannical bullshit
but we are having a nice dinner and you are welcome to join us.”
“What are you having?” He replied.
“Humus wraps.”
“What? No steak or any kind of flesh.”
“Nope, mom is a vegetarian now.”
He let out a giant screeching yell you could not hear in heaven
but you definitely could feel in hell.
I walked up to your bed and put my arm around your God.
“What is wrong, dude?”
“You don’t understand with all this war and hellfire I have been spraying
out for so long I have led so many people down desolate roads of fear
and hatred.”
“Come on dude, they had a choice.”
“Yeah but I am a really scary motherfucker.”
“Yeah, that is true.”
“What is your god like?”
“I am learning that all the time, creating the best of idea of it;
right now it is everything love all within us everywhere.”
“What kind of drugs are you on?”
“All of them, would you want to be the next one?”
“You are funny.”
“Yeah, I am alright.”
“Will you be my god?”
“No, but I’ll be your friend.”
“Thank you. Friendship is the most important thing, to accept and love everyone
for who they are, it is really the only way you can help anyone.”
“You got that right, God.”
We walked out of your room,
down the banister,
late for supper.
Bad Breath By The Dead Sea Shore
I apologized to God, bundled up like mother’s favorite school boy,
one winter night, a million times at least,
for the thin line of the grape vine,
for the night crawling and the jungle fucking,
for the fortune and fame, the lust and greed.
Still I felt like a child who had been raped by a priest.
I then proceeded to smoke a pack of cigarettes, one at a time,
walking through the midnight woods trying my best
to become a werewolf without the help of a full moon.
I became very angry but fur my anger never bloomed.
Something was infinitely fucked up with me I presumed.
That was the only thing I knew but I felt there was nothing I could do.
My addictions owned my secrets. My hell owned my peace.
I thought I did have a dream but since I hadn’t slept
in weeks, I couldn’t remember it for the life of me.
I was just another blaring, lonely, loony person
becoming the King Kong collective consciousness
that haunts the planet like zombies in the pursuit of flesh happiness.
I told myself I must have been Hitler in a past life. I must
have been Jack the Ripper. I must have been my mother’s
mother. She must have been my daughter. I must have
stabbed her repeatedly in the chest with a knife, broke her
neck with a baseball bat, then drowned her in a lake.
It was the only way I could explain the magnificent pain in my heart.
I laid my body down freezing on the forest floor screaming
“I do not want to be in this world anymore.” I began praying
for an alien ship to take me away. I waited and waited
but they never came. They didn’t want me either.
“How boring it is to be me before death,” was the last
thought I had as I passed out hoping I would never wake up.
But I did in the morning sun, I awoke to a dog licking my face.
I know this might sound strange especially to people who
need pie charts to believe in anything but I took the dog’s
wet tongue and bad breath as God’s infinite forgiveness
for everyone on every planet. I stood up understanding on a
cellular level how the warmth of my heart kept me from freezing to death.
Soul Wonders
I wonder if Van Gogh ever cursed Lynyrd Skynyrd or the odor of a big mac and fries.
I wonder if Jim Morrison ever threw his cell phone into a river.
I wonder if John Lennon ever rode jet ski’s naked with Yoko Ono.
I wonder if Ghandi ever drank moonshine with frat bros.
I wonder if Zues ever got loose because he thought he was about to be consumed as food or if Aaron Copeland ever heard the wind scream his name in vain.
I wonder if Don Juan was ever scared to dance
or if Constantine ever felt more love than he appeared to.
I wonder if Hitler ever smiled at the ocean because of the whole world
or if Martin Luther King Jr. ever made love to a man.
I wonder if John F. Kennedy ever worked at Dairy Queen
or if Mussolini ever got made fun of for having small boobs.
I wonder if Jesus ever drove a steam roller to make side dollars for twenty rims.
I wonder if Kafka ever fantasized about living the American dream with a lady bug.
I wonder if Lord Caitanya ever ate a veggie burger.
I wonder if Meister Eckhart ever rollerbladed through Venice beach.
I wonder if Emily Dickinson ever got her sandwich stolen by a seagull
or if Johnny Carson ever shit his pants and didn’t laugh.
I wonder if Beethoven ever got down with some Vanilla Ice cream
or if Kerouac ever played Playstation two.
I wonder if Joan of Arc ever gave money to a stranger
or if Anne Boleyn ever questioned this reality to be an illusion only in her mind.
I wonder if God has ever seen such a sight.
I wonder if I ever did too.
The American painter Justin Jackley reads from Roky Erickson’s poetry book “Openers” (Pyrymid Publishing, 1972, Austin Texas) over music assembled by A.J. Kaufmann, Poznań Poland native.
Along with Klubokawiarnia Lalka we have organised Justin’s art exhibition in Poznań, Poland on July 17, 2018. This is a memory of that special day. More on the Artist: http://justinjackley.com
Art: Apollo’s Fountain on the Poznań Poland Old Market as envisioned by Justin Jackley, 2018.
The EP “A Universe Alone” has been released on CD-R in 2006 under the New Polish Beat name. Around 30 copies were made.
