Beat Haiku: Kerouac on Haiku

I can dig this:

Jack Foley. Beat Haiku - Terebess Asia Online (TAO): As many of you know, Jack Kerouac’s Book of Haikus, edited and with an introduction by Regina Weinreich, has recently been issued from Penguin. Ms. Weinreich did an excellent job with both her editing and her introduction. I’ll be quoting from some of the points she makes and from some of the Kerouac passages which she herself quotes. Her introduction begins with a wonderful little poem of Kerouac’s, “Reading Notes 1965”: Then I’ll invent The American Haiku type: The simple rhyming triolet:-- Seventeen syllables? No, as I say, American Pops:-- Simple 3-line poems Kerouac even went so far as to offer a definition. This is from Some of the Dharma: POP--American (non-Japanese) Haikus, short 3-line poems or “pomes” rhyming or non-rhyming dilineating “little Samadhis” if possible, usually of a Buddhist connotation, aiming towards enlightment. BOOK OF POPS. 1/

Haiku: Crying Crow

an hour later
the cawing crow still standing
by its dead mate

Two Haiku

watching the water
vibrate in the singing bowl
a sudden breeze

cutting lavender

purple flowers shimmering

in summer twilight

regan lee/june 2017

A Cliche Moment While Fucking

Laughing, groping under my ass for the source of my irritation
a sliver-gold earring, held up in the blue light
the gaudy hoop dangling from your fingers, as you ask
"Is this yours?"



regan lee
long time ago

Meat Counter

Here’s another one for the Professor:
Found myself at the meat counter. Dusty, dim, green-yellow puke linoleum, 
empty shelves.
I asked the woman standing next to me -- she was heavily sunglassed and wore a terry-cloth turban -- if they had any Operatic Peacock Parfait with Blueberry sauce.

Always the optimist.

regan lee

reworked june 2017

Seminar

Seminar

So the Professor assigns a dream poem.
 “Exactly as it happened” he instructs. 
An exercise in the surreal even while maintaining academic constructs within a decontructionist model of ironic post-modernistic symbolism within personal narratives.

I read my dream. Exactly as it happened. 
The dream had the following: floating zebras, talking mallards, velvet capes, a white-haired woman, nude beneath the moon, and oh,
the giraffe.

I was chided. Told my dream was “too much.” I said:
“Well, I was just folliowing directions. I reported back, truthfully. Tried to be accurate.” 
I was asked, “Well, what does it mean? What were you trying to say?”

“Oh,” I said. “I thought we were to just write down a dream we had. And I did. See?” --
   ...  floating zebras, talking mallards, velvet capes, white haired women (nude, beneath moon) and, the giraffe. I don’t know what it means.”

“Well,” said the Professor. “While it’s true exploring the archetypes and motifs within the conceit of the dream landscape wasn’t a part of the assignment, ... still ... it’s ...
too much.”

“Try again.”

regan lee

june 2017

mother stories

stories about my mother. we all have

them. childhood and before that, theirs

yours ours mine. mothers and mothers before

and my own motheress, which is 

none. Not now, not ever, will not be. Meanwhile

mother stories. Mine are of piers and falls from cars

into the hilly rough asphalt forgotten, lost, falls

into dusty ivy, its papery fakeness full of fireplace

ash.

Guns and shots fired drunks dead hookers 

airplane pilots, monkeys from Mexico in glove compartments.

Steinways jazz clubs the cha-cha in stretch pants cuisine

based on current lovers Japanese Mexican Greek New York

goddamn so many books crossword tarot the I Ching

Jewish mysticism Buddhist philosophies, lies.

Trips to Catalina seaplanes and Shirley Temples goats dance halls gambling

in Gardena while wolf in the back yard illegal and whose godmother

was she anyway? Long night drives from L.A. thick red hair and blue eyeshadow.

Stories of working hard and raising kids alone and going back 

to school nursing drug addictions plastic surgeries movie stars bulimia and ghost

encounters in old hospitals.

Irreverence and a Lauren Bacall laugh chain smoking since 15 anger

flash social phobias small town on the Oregon coast.

Was her dad the Russian Jew scholar or the Irish 

alcoholic who worked on the docks? Stories change.

What of the other daughter, the one adopted out not

my dad or theirs but a new one Japanese fellow, we were told.

somewhere in there was, is, love hard to know until now but now,

now, now, now, now.

now, in her dementia and frailty, now we know this woman's life

was distant and cold and in between life lived as full as possible inside

the hard cracks between her and them, well, no  one deserves this.

regan lee

feb. 2015

haiku: Pale Beige Room

the pale peach-beige room
reeking of dog, sweat and heat
after three years, death

UPDATE New Novel: Wildman by J.C. Geiger

Finished it. Beautiful, the ending could have gone in a few different directions, and they all would have worked. But I'm glad it ended the way it did. 

I just started reading this, and it's great. It's a "Young Adult" novel, but I personally find that term not quite accurate. S.E. Hinton's work transcends any YA category; Rumble Fish, Pony Boy, The Outsiders, etc. are not "just" for youth. Geiger's novel -- haven't finished, in fact, just started it, but it was hard to put it down. If it weren't for work the next day and having to get up at 5:30 I would have kept reading. So far, excellent. Very visual, descriptive… so visit his site, order the book. I hear he's working on another. Can't wait.

Reworked poem: Goat People

I didn't change much at all regarding the words, but did change the line structure. I like it better. Below is the reworked version; you can see the original here.

goat people

dusk, goats stuck in straw

big round bulbs of white light shine down on the little one covered

in its mother’s birth slime, the squishy pop of its arrival from

birth canal to asphalt still loud in my ears.

i am startled by the throw back dress of the goat people: suspenders

holding up pants, small smashed-on-heads-hats, shirtless, sweat,tattoos,cigarettes doing the dangle from the, yep,toothless owners

many seem to barely notice, this goat just born

while we look on, some holding up their kids to look, 

their feet kicking above the short flimsy wire fence

i move on, disgusted not by birth or slime or even dirt smugded and spitting goat people but the All-American families at this circus

this carnival, tacky venue hawked as wholesome,welcome, an economy boon, educational opportunity, fun fucking outing.

later,tigers snarl, elephants slow-motion their moves, the caged ones 

roar and trumpet behind the tents.

muck, sticky straw, stale oil, greasy lights, flaked paint once red, now brown sticks to our skin as we make our through the hot crowds on this circus night.

regan lee

reworked 6/2017