elegy
kerouac’s gone
and cassady too
and the road dreams
and the beatness
and bird
and ‘trane
and the life call
that drove them
half-crazed across a continent
in search of
what it was
all about
what they were
all about
what it did
or did not mean
whatever happened to sonny barger
the original hell’s angels
and the drapes and teddy boys
who hung around
shoobopping to the drifters
and bo diddley
and later to the skinny supremes
whatever happened to payola
elvis wolfman jack
levis that shrink to fit
artifacts of a simpler
time and place
where are they now?
still around still around
as the Platters sang
they would be museum pieces
in their original form
but elvis is dead
and the wolfman too
and levis have made it
in the suburbs
where they wrap around
the sprawling asses
of middle-aged housewives
who wouldn’t wear them then
for fear of losing their chances
at the dream lawyer
who’s now boring them to death
and driving them
to these pale reminders
of an age
that’s lost
and gone
Charlie Rossiter
(sorry I can’t be there this year)
A FUNERAL TO REMEMBER
ReplyDeleteIt all got started in Folsom Prison, never mind what they say about the 303rd bomber crew from WWII, It all got started in sunny California but it didn't end there, Kenny Yates, Cleveland chapter, shot and killed in Joliet Il. Same with James Cleve Webb, Anchorage chapter, shot and killed by Cool Ray Mullen outside the Broken Spur Saloon in Louisville. Hurricane Vinny, NYC, stabbed in a knife fight, they got him in the spleen on East Third. There's plenty more where that come from. 'Hey wherever we go it's the feds who get people scared,' said Irish Mike.
Irish Mike O'Farrell, who missed his court date. Irish Mike, who was killed in a bloody bar brawl himself, in Alameda County. Irish Mike, second in command only to Ralph Sonny Barger Jr. All the cherry red Harleys were parked in a row and Irish Mike was stabbed in the neck and stabbed in the chest, he was stabbed five times in the back and he took four bullets from behind, besides. 'Hey we all get older, we change, we mature,' said Irish Mike and he died.
But he got a funeral to remember, did Irish Mike. He got a black marble tombstone and floral arrangements in the shape of a flying skull and a thousand people filed into the funeral home, a thousand people paid their respects and the San Leandro cops stepped aside when Hells Angels women and Hells Angels men, and the son and wife of Irish Mike O'Farrell himself came out of the funeral home and got on their cherry red Harleys and escorted his big dead body out to the cemetery.
'I ain't gonna say goodbye' said a man known only as Cisco. 'Goodbyes are for movies.'