I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs

To Whom it May Concern 176

Behan sipped his drink that Hemingway bought because we were all skint and twisted as a car wreck then he asked,” Why are you still even here?”. I really had no answer so I smirked ,”Because Ernie is still here and he keeps buying the bottles.”So he laugh then the smile on his face turned to a scowl, “You don’t belong here there’s work to be done.” Mr. Behan had the knack as the Irish do to say something without saying it.It’s the reason Fitzgerald already pissed off the conversation to sulk in the snug away from our lot. I did my best not to answer in my usual manner that I usually give Brendan.I really had no answer so snark and whiskey it was,”You lot drove me here and just like the other lot it’s always the stay stay stay we’ve work to do and your the one we picked so accept it.” Hemingway threw the empty bottle and the fire ,ordered another and sternly almost yelling,”He is here for the same reasons why they couldn’t kill me,I go when I want to go.”The silence could cut holy stained glass and it explained everything in one brief moment. I eyeballed the glass and drink remembering when I first met moaning old Yeats and Behan. Brendan handed me a drink and we spoke of poetry taking down all walls and tyrants if placed correctly.We spoke of context and love.The whiskey and Guinness flowed to the point of realizing myself that in fact these were the stories.The world was an open canvas for drinking,fucking,and,fighting.The poetry in motion topples barricades ,words can crack stone and conscience.The world is the poetry and the worded art of freedom.Behan in the most gentle way that he could said,”Shut the fuck up,one battle at a time and you have to find it for yourself”

Rollins

there is nothing to be said when it’s been said with recycled words melting into morbid shapes and what
whats to be done?
I can’t help myself so it’s just wandering forward to the bright unthinkable where light never shines and its always last call for the wings on the barfly
an abyss in a person can never go away it drags everything inside even if it hurts it embraces the horrible but always shows up with a smile and a battle plan
a scowl to be reckoned with plus scars to prove the worth of the worthless standing before you saving hope for the hopeless
some people are better left be as they are
chain to themselves to a pushing stone uphill at all costs because the ending would be unsettling then urban myth that you can get everywhere but here
the lies ring off the brick and mortar into a choir of angelic meloncholy raining through back alleys jumping freedom cages it runs on
the natural habitat of the left alone is anywhere that will just leave them alone in the wild running through castles that cover the landscape that the insides will never be seen
Not meant for here is harder than guising that everything is lovely and grand and no one will let you leave knowing freedom lies within and not out
there are other places but they have to left go of them
holding on pains everyone
standing around worthless because reality had you useless at birth
or
stand up with bleeding knuckles and knees just to pretend this place is home
in the end with no winners
its plain old broken down heart born of hurt

Black shoes

Boundaries on an emotional content are two parts nitroglycerin and 10 parts rage
hiding
the fuse from yourself and others so not to spark the start of ticking clocked
Enola Gay destruction in the wake of
nearby humanities lunch dates and conference calls about the next socially coerced life
Secret timers
Secret plastic detonators
Wrapped in worlds gazes of could have beens
and quick winks of the eye

Black shoes

Boundaries on emotional content are two parts nitroglycerin and 10 parts rage
hiding
the fuse from yourself and others so not to spark the start of ticking clocked
Enola Gay destruction in nearby humanities lunch dates and conference calls about the next socially coerced life
Secret timers
Secret plastic detonators
Wrapped in a gaze of could have beens 

YOUR BODY ON THE GEARS

Streets lined with dire faces of American Idle lost love, there has to be more than this
The scale balancing act along the burning tightrope one foot in heaven whilst the other in the machine stuck in daily first gear slow grind well beyond immaculate design
Social grease lubricants
Coated since birth

To Whoever Finds This

Hopeless is the hollow inside the running hopelessness of the John Dread crawling the pavement towards every match light glowing in thorny short distance ,hope judges all and none inside the heavy heart hanging from sleeves hidden under every coat.passing daily through streets all keeping the weighted wrists well covered from the ugly sinister truth that hope wasn’t their burden no longer they embraced the easy hollow crumbling for flickers of light ahead in every tunnel that no one seems to find just scraping pavement into the next hopeless void ..Woody wails from his soul against the walls echoing the tale of the hopeless pain of cranium to wall whilst raising his sleeve in defiance showing his fiery scarred arm where his heart sat that was ripped off in vain on Madison Ave.just for his watch as an art piece

To Whom it May Concern 2901

To Whom it May Concern,

Do you remember this as well I do,
some time ago.. well longer than that time ago but you’ll get it sooner as I go.There was the average New York lad selling his wares around the neighborhoods with the blessings both respectable groups,you know the guys who controlled these things think concernedHi heavy community members who had businesses.
Our young man here was liked in the all the boroughs of course he was handsome.charismatic and one hell of an athlete at least from I was told.A guy could make a good dollar channeling these talents into a lucrative sales position with great hours and the love of the ladies,right?
With all of that and blessings our boy became to do well for himself,the muscle boys gave him no static and things are were solid enough to start a home.So a little boy ran around the modest apartment as cash was not a problem,so it’s sorted no?
Of fucking course not this is my story I am telling and it’s New York know what I mean?
Some of these great sales now were a little too hot except not in the 66 Mustang sense but in the hot boilers of the good old Titanic .So this raised an eyebrow at the community board because they knew the warranties would be included in the colorful obituary columns.So worried the board that they give him a list of who not to let into his candy shop because their kids had sweet teeth,you know?He held good sale practice until he couldn’t anymore so of course you know what happens right?
They ran him over then backed over him ,ran over him then back over well you get the scene cause there is a few more back overs.There is a red light put there to stop speeding fathers from driving down their own salesmen who can sell their shotty shots to your kids but not theirs..

Liam

A quick wink of the eye

And everyone knows it’s there peering at it with the corner of a right eye
sitting next to support beams almost out of view
silently glaring back to the conscience adding a washed up heavyweight with a case of glass jaws
it’s not your day kid
self destruct in the 3rd
a private war of melancholy lust filled eureka moments you could call it but only translates into a mumbling Behan to himself about the drink,the fuck and the fight
the ritual
we pray for the language and explanation just to be met with low angry jeers waving the white flags of the constant let down that cements these beams to the peripheral vision
wearing skin down into the crow wrinkles and the almosts
and bartender is not the talkative type

And they shuffled him to the back of the 6th year classroom where they kept the bathrooms and coats were kept.
the students could not see me only the teacher when she walked side to side or to come quell
what I was speaking loud to answer proper of the topic.
Unseen and unheard was the student but he could hear enough of the teachers coarse voice of theology.
3 years in the back of the class
Absorbing Yeats,Whitman,Bukowski and Kafka like a sponge
Learning more from St.Joe Strummer Jello,Bob Mould and D,Boone as so called education was being fed to me through a veil of incompetence
Reading heavy theology for answers with Black Flag hiding in his ear
Gestas and Dismas were crucified next to the big JC but it was My War that was bouncing around his brain
Suspended from school for reading Dr Strangelove and the Torah
KRS One teaching in the walkmen with Woody Guthrie
just one of many kids raised to see the writing on the wall as it happens
the prophets of the folk gospel sang it loud so the
punks knew it then and now as they see it unfold now worse than any outdated lyrics book
just change the names
history is ours set to the beat of the human heart hungry for the love of fairness
your own history is as important as any because it is yours

He learned more from the truthful raw guitar than in any school

And punk rock saved his life