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coyote
Senior Member

since 2001-03-17

Posts 1077

0 posted 2001-04-30 08:42 AM

"William S. Burroughs"

in a nuclear afterlife
  On the Road
they wilted their fresh roses
  amid the defiance
    of your
           Naked Lunch

wounded
by radiated memory
leaking
       across eons
of mundane expectation
you are now
holy-healed
and wholly apposite
fodder
for the masses

we still hear the howling
      of the Beat

your Ka
has finally made it
   to
     the Western Lands
   by
     broken-backed camels
         staggering
        under the wait

on pitch fired barges of death
we now glide you to Osiris

downbeat dirge
of the poppers
Kerouac  Ginsberg  Diane
       floating
in the blue neon dream
  of a Savior painter

pharaohs among pharisees

stroking Cleopatra’s
       adder
and you
a Pontius Pilot
               to
                 paradise

Severn
Member Rara Avis

since 1999-07-17

Posts 7704

1 posted 2001-04-30 04:14 PM

Hey Billy...glad to see you posted this here...

I'll be back when I get time.. to comment and destroy bwahahaa! j/k lol...

K

jenni
Member

since 1999-09-11

Posts 478
Washington D.C.

2 posted 2001-04-30 07:03 PM

coyote--

i really enjoyed this. i'm not a big burroughs fan, but i think you did an excellent job at capturing his spirit (to the extent that's possible, lol). words and meaning ricochet throughout the piece, you have some great images and a very powerful ending.

great job here! thanks for sharing it with us.

jenni

coyote
Senior Member

since 2001-03-17

Posts 1077

3 posted 2001-04-30 08:38 PM

Thanks so much, Jenni.
Burroughs was, in my humble opinion, a very astute linguist. His comprehensive assessment of language as a medium of communication is texbook exemplary.
Glad ya liked it.

"The rose, like the cactus flower, protects herself with thorns. We however, impale ourselves on their beauty."
coyote

roxane
Senior Member

since 1999-09-02

Posts 505
us

4 posted 2001-04-30 11:57 PM

i'll have to show this to my sister; she loves burroughs, and i think you've got a really fitting tribute here. excellent poem. i really like the way you've spaced your words and line breaks. it really adds to the flowing sense of this.

coyote
Senior Member

since 2001-03-17

Posts 1077

5 posted 2001-05-01 12:20 PM

Thanks Roxane,
Your kind assessment is appreciated.

"The rose, like the cactus flower, protects herself with thorns. We however, impale ourselves on their beauty."
coyote

J.L. Humphres
Member

since 2000-01-03

Posts 201
Alabama

6 posted 2001-05-01 02:22 PM

Coyote,
As a fellow fan of the beats i must say you did an excellent job of capturing Burroughs' style. Great job.
J.L.H.

Jason
God is a warm whisper from the cool void.
Jack Kerouac

coyote
Senior Member

since 2001-03-17

Posts 1077

7 posted 2001-05-01 07:20 PM

Thanks so much J.L.
That means a lot coming from you, and I really appreciate it.

jenni
Member

since 1999-09-11

Posts 478
Washington D.C.

8 posted 2001-05-02 02:04 AM

coyote--

lol... i gotta tell ya, i keep coming back to this piece, and i love it more each time.

this is just seriously, seriously excellent work here.

"your Ka
has finally made it
   to
     the Western Lands
   by
     broken-backed camels
         staggering
        under the wait"

-- is probably my favorite part, it's vivid and arresting, and you have that great play on wait/weight... but then i think, no, my favorite part has to be:

"pharaohs among pharisees

stroking Cleopatra’s
       adder
and you
a Pontius Pilot
               to
                 paradise"

-- especially that last phrase, oh my, lol... but then there's the nuclear afterlife and radiated memory leaking across eons, burroughs now "holy-healed / and wholly apposite / fodder / for the masses"... so many different levels here, and so deftly connected to other parts of the poem.  i could go on and on.

word choice, line breaks, sound, rhythm, tone, style and substance, this piece has it all.

ok, i'll shut up now, lol.

thanks (again) for posting this here.

jenni

coyote
Senior Member

since 2001-03-17

Posts 1077

9 posted 2001-05-02 08:49 AM

Thanks again, Jenni.
Wow, I don't know how to respond to such a wonderful "review".
I suppose I should tell you that I tried to write this piece the way John Leonard might have written it for "Sunday Morning". lol
I'd really like to hear him read it aloud.
And strangely enough, it just "popped" out in the course of a few minutes.

furlong
Member

since 2001-04-08

Posts 129

10 posted 2001-05-02 06:14 PM

Coyote

Handicapped by my complete failure to appreciate the allusions to Burroughs I nevertheless appreciate the rhythm of this and its sound. I shall try and come back with more comments tomorrow - still trying to decide whether the single word lines “work” for instance.

But, as has already been suggested, this poem is certainly well up there with the best we see here.

Thanks,

F

coyote
Senior Member

since 2001-03-17

Posts 1077

11 posted 2001-05-03 11:29 PM

Thanks for reading, Furlong.
I appreciate it.

"The rose, like the cactus flower, protects herself with thorns. We however, impale ourselves on their beauty."
coyote

furlong
Member

since 2001-04-08

Posts 129

12 posted 2001-05-05 05:39 AM

Coyote

I totally agree with Jenni.  This poem works very well in many ways and on reflection the stanza I had reservations about:

your Ka
has finally made it
   to
     the Western Lands
   by
     broken-backed camels
         staggering
        under the wait

is now one of my favorite!  The layout of the words and the single word lines simply give force and visual reality to the word "staggering" and the image.

Very good work.

F

coyote
Senior Member

since 2001-03-17

Posts 1077

13 posted 2001-05-05 12:50 PM

Thank you very much, Furlong.
I value and appreciate your opinion.
Billy

"The rose, like the cactus flower, protects herself with thorns. We however, impale ourselves on their beauty."
coyote

Swamp¤Faeryie
Member

since 2000-12-04

Posts 393
fairyland....of course;)

14 posted 2001-05-05 09:20 PM

"your ka..."hmm....a very interesting mix coyote,very very interesting,as always strangely thought provoking...love it.

sammio

much madness is divinest sense,and much sense the starkest madness~Emily Dickinson

coyote
Senior Member

since 2001-03-17

Posts 1077

15 posted 2001-05-05 11:41 PM

Thanks again, Sammi.
Burroughs believed, as did the Ancient Egyptians, that if your Ka didn't make it, you didn't make it, to the afterlife in the Western Lands.
I just wanted him to know, I think it's about time that he made it. lol

"The rose, like the cactus flower, protects herself with thorns. We however, impale ourselves on their beauty."
coyote

brian madden
Member Elite

since 2000-05-06

Posts 4374
ireland

16 posted 2001-05-24 06:46 PM

well I have to admit that I could not finish "ON the road" sorry to Big Jack and I still want to dig deep into Naked lunch to get full satisfaction from it, but I do admire Burrough's writing style. Anyway regardless of my own feelings for the Beats you have written a fine tribute, excellent flow and language.

"across the unfair divide
where black will never meet white
so read my token lips
as though they never exist"

nicky wire

Kurt Rhys
Junior Member

since 2001-05-08

Posts 23

17 posted 2001-05-24 07:29 PM

Nicely construted poem, but a bit too worshipful to a man who did kill his wife by shooting her in the forehead, drunken or not.

hush
Senior Member

since 2001-05-27

Posts 1653
Ohio, USA

18 posted 2001-05-27 12:44 PM

this is very beautifully written- it flows peacefully and quietly.

If I had a soul I sold it
for pretty words

-Allen Ginsberg

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