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Sometimes I Wish I Lived in NYC in the 60's
Or
I've Read Too Much About the Beatniks Again

Not the later
LSD-psychadelic-Leary 60's
of bad trips and hippies,
but the early 60's
with poets smoking
old roaches
and waxing on
in the park
about
No Nukes!
and group-grope sessions.
Dedicating five pages
to bologna sandwich verse,
then stopping a tourist
to recite it.
(who now had a wonderful
crazy beatnik story to tell
the folks back home)
Live in a $50 a month
dive on the
Lower East Side
where all the infamous
no-names hung out.
They were popular
amongst themselves
ya know.
Where there was
a poetry scene,
where bookstores
held reading
and people listened,
even if they were too stoned
to remember any of it.
A bum in the Bowery
would share his
bottle of Port,
and a thrown out mattress
was a helluva find.
Discretion was
not permitted,
and sex was allowed
to be fun.
(imagine that)
Causes were everywhere,
all you had to do was
defy! defy! defy!
The Establishment was bad,
the Man was worse,
and the CIA had a file
with your picture in it.
(sure, they read you poem
in the underground magazine
where you called Hoover a
fuck-head)
I'd know people called
A-Head Andy,
Timmy the Roach,
and Stu Two Hits.
I'd dance naked while
screaming Ginsberg's Howl.
I'd get arrested
and post no bail,
just for the experience.
Just to be in The Joint.
I'd stay up for three days
writing and drinking
and two more
drinking and writing
. I get rejected
by publishers
(like I do now)
and proclaim
I'm misunderstood!
ahead of my time!
THE NEXT KEROUAC!, jack,
and then I'd pass out.
I'd sit in
coffee shops for hours
hovering over my notebook,
staring at the sloppy lines
of crappy drunken verse
I'd spewed,
hardening my resolve to
WRITE MORE CRAPPY VERSE!
But, as someone just pointed out,
I do all of that now.
I guess it's just
not as cool, man.
It's not as cool.

All poetry is written by Stephen Lindsay.

Please do not use or copy any of Stephen's poetry without his permission. Thank You!