Poet Writer Author Albany NY
(Goodbye America Goodbye)
ANOTHER DAY
Another Day
Another Dollar
In This Damn Fine
Place Called “Amer~rika”
Living Out Our
Lives Behind The Lies
That Nothing’s Wrong
At All
And If You Can’t See
The Truth You’re Blind
Conform To The Standards
Pretend That Everything’s
Just Fine
Buy Something
Eat Something
Do Nothing
Online
Goodbye America
Goodbye
~ R.M. Engelhardt
©2026
As a writer
In a small city
That in the limelight
Once seemed much bigger
Over the years I’ve
Met them all
Icons
Poets
Rock stars
And even
A few mobsters
The famous
& somewhat famous
Mostly?
All disturbed
Or drunk
Or broken
As the gin poured
Out of their
Skin over conversation
Me?
The younger me?
Either idolizing
Or immediately
Hating the real
Faces behind the
Image or the mask
And I swore that
One-day I’d write
A poem about them
For whatever
The fuck the
Memories are worth
Like a time capsule
Before my mind goes
Defunct
And before everyone
Even forgets who they
Were
Are
So let’s start
With drinking beers
With boxer Mike Tyson
At a club called Septembers
Long ago
Before drugs
Before the champion
Before Don King
And just before the fight
Mike was a good man
A good kid
We had great conversations
He bought me beers
We talked about our lives
We talked about life
I introduced him to clubs
And he drove me downtown
Speeding in his White Lamborghini
Never stopped
By the police
But two years later
His entourage wouldn’t
Even let you near him
The end of innocence
The corruption of fame
See ya kid
It was fun
Same bar
Different year
Wrestler Jake The Snake
Comes in wasted, swears
At my friend, a beautiful woman
The bartender and calls her a
See You Next Tuesday
Me?
About 23 with long ass
Metal hair and a dangling
Dragon earring sitting & writing
At the bar
Gets up
And tells good ol’ Jake
To quote
” Shut The Fuck Up”
Cause I never liked or
Worshipped assholes
Never put up with them
Cowards hiding behind
Their bullshit personalities
So Jake
Wasted & in disbelief
Looks at me and says
” WHAT?!”
Looked at him
And calmly said
“You heard me”
Jake comes flying
At me, I’m ready to kick
Him hard in the balls and
Run but his wrestling buddies
Hold him back struggling
Doorman gives me
A high five and as I
Leave the bar look at him
And say ” Drunk Asshole”
And later on he supposedly
Found God
But the stories of
Meeting with fame
Continued afterwards
So I’ll make them all brief
Because nobody
Wants a boring twenty page
Poem
Did shots
With Anne Waldman
Had a conversation about
Life and writing and a smoke
With a God
Named Jim Harrison
One of my favorite moments
Did shots with
The metal band Anthrax
A long time ago
Other bands that came
And went
Almost
Hooked up
With Samantha Fox
Until Paul Stanley walked
In the club
Thanks Paul
Seriously
Met poet Jim Carroll
Who wrote the Basketball
Diaries after he read in
Albany and drank with him
And a crowd of his followers
But poor Jim
Was so drunk that
You could tell he
Was just sick of it all
And I was drunk too
So when he said ” Fuck Albany!”
I told him ” No, Fuck You!”
We’ve got a lot of amazing
Shit going on around here
And we’re making it happen
Astonished friends &
His followers all at once
And I laughed
And left the bar
Shook Ferlinghetti’s hand
Talked to Ginsberg about
Poetry and The Source happening
Now
Which
Was back then
The true poetry rennisance
Of the 1990s
Don’t let the imposters
Fool you
I once met Frank Serpico
The older version at a bookstore
Downtown talking to Bill
The owner
Nice man. A bit broken.
Shook his hand
Liked him up to the point
Where he talked about taking
His pet German Shepherd out
Into the woods and shooting him
In the back of the head for biting
His hand while feeding him meat
Said ” I could never trust him again”
It was all about ” Loyalty”
Left saddened
And shaking my head
Realized all our heroes
Are really dead
Yet still living
But so much for
Memories and memories
Sake
Full of whiskey
And chance meetings
And conversations
Once asked by a middle aged drunk
Irishman visiting the states
If I’d be interested in joining
The IRA over whiskey at the Punk
Rock club
Said “No thanks”
Over breakfast by 4am
Many nights
Of drinking with
The local corrupts
Back in the day
And these are all the
Memories of time and place
Of music, art
Poetry & debauchery
The local nuance of
What some called fame
Sometimes
I miss them
But then I think
And ask
” Why?”
I’d trade it all in
For 5 more minutes
Talking to Jim
Who I understood
Completely
~ R.M. Engelhardt
©2026
NATIONAL POETRY DAY
What is ” National “
These days?
And what
Is “Poetry?”
Is it the screaming
Sound of immigrants &
Their children being
Handcuffed & pushed
Into a black van?
Is it the sound of
Assholes in masks
Pretending that they
Are real human beings?
Joking
About the murder
Of Poets?
Nurses?
What is ” National “
These days?
And what
Is “Poetry?”
It is the sound
Of jail cell doors
Clashing, clicking
And locking on fascists
& deranged pathetic Nazis
All that is an offense
To the human race
And to the earth
And that
Without violence
Is the perfect poem
That sends the message
Of truth
~ R.M. Engelhardt
© 2026
AN ODE TO THE MEDIOCRE
you rise
you rose
you have risen
then?
after a time
the belittlement
and their ego driven jealousy
begins
and in turn
they will overlook
you to make themselves
immortal for a whole ten
seconds of fame
and they will fear
that you get there 1st
wherever
the fuck exactly
that is
and they will secretly & privately worry that their self made images will disinigrate into the thin air that were nothing to begin with in the first place
they will lie about you in private only for their own acknowledgement
while the crowds
feed on hype
and believe in their shit
and not your truth
or depth
and they will
steal your thoughts
ideas & creativity
and place them upon their
own self worshipping alters
without a second thought
hey
look what I did
(didn’t)
and they will fear that
you will speak the truth and
that the masses will accept it
destroying their existence
wholly built upon
shit
but the true artist
still remains
unbreakable &
unphased
laughing at them
and creating
which is something
and the impossible
that they cannot
do
~ R.M. Engelhardt
© 2026
THE 21st CENTURY POETS
AREN’T DRUNK ENOUGH
The poets
Of the 21st century
Are still well, poets
A bit lost at times
But here & there & now
Recovering from other
Generations words
Vaulted within their
Minds & souls forever
The Beat Manifestos
Kerouac and Ginsberg
Still stuck in our heads as
Frost & Yeats voices
Keep playing in
The background &
As Whitman still
Yearns for an America
We’ve never seen
Never felt
We have technology
We have laptops we have
Our ecology falling apart
At the seams our oceans
Polluted and all our nations
Still divided hate and racism
& unconquered dreams
Running up that hill that
A young black girl mentioned
Recently
At some inauguration
On the collapse of some
Faux American Nazi regime
But there are still words
Verses yet to be written
& sung
As always
The poet of the 21st century
Never getting or fitting
The all & everything
Within an epiphany
Or a sonnet
Some of us even fell off
The back of the railroad car
Living as traveling punks
While others have seen the inside
Of the suburban prisons
Of their own intricate designs
Our philosophies
At best diluted amongst
The need for our own
Realities & God
Cigarettes &
Guns & Coffee
Meaning & Relevance
As we long for our own
Ancestoral forests
Worshipping animals, trees
& rock icons for gone is the
God of the harvest and all the
Poems of the starry night
Lord Byron & Shelly
Burned & buried long ago in their
Frock shirts
The romance at the end of
Their stories
Dead
So we write of our own times
Dancing upon these hardcore
Graves looking for the missing
Pieces of our childhood & the
Events of the moment
The news, the headlines.
No longer to dream or
Transcend without being
Drunk or stoned, medicated
Within the lines of something
Lost ~
For the poets
Of the 21st century
Are still well, poets
Searching
Here & there & now but still
Looking for that something
Looking for the perfect words
But never finding them in these
Drifting days of media
Writing
The Poet
Sees chaos. Hears laughter
Posts randomly within
The vortex
A photo
To see the dream
So others may see it also
But do not
For the poet
Of the 21st century
Is not drunk enough
Will never be drunk enough
Commonly void by information
Random apocalypse
Floating
Somewhere
In the extinction of his own backyard
Ten likes
Five likes
None.
The 21st Century Poets
Aren’t Drunk Enough
T- Shirt now
Available
At Walmart
~ R.M. Engelhardt
©2023
Title Idea by Jason Otero
IN RETROSPECT
The writer newly published
The flavor of the month
The watering eye
A voice trapped in
Another world gone by
Singular
Unique
Those words
Were gold
My favorite poems are
The one’s he wrote
About suffering
Mostly the old love
Poems about drinking
And having your soul
Torn out & ripped apart
Gritty bar poems
& one night stands, sarcasm &
Broken hearts in
Nightclubs
Poetic Noir
All dressed
In black
But then?
That poet?
He grew a conscience
And a dangerous one at that
His verses saw the
Monsters for what they
Were, what they are
The wandering poet
Now the slayer of dragons
The manifestos
The punches landed
A nation’s political demise
That it doesn’t take
Some empath
To see rising
Asking
What is pain &
What is life?
And where do we start or begin?
To walk through the dark
And out of the light
To some strange form of
Awakening
The death
Of the old guard or
Just what we need
Another punk rock
Fucking shaman
Trying to save the world
But in retrospect
Who gives a fuck
About poetry anymore
Anyways?
When everyone
Can be the same
Creating digital horse shit
From home
That gets consumed
And thrown out like
Garbage
Souls, all meaning recycled
In its now withering futuristic
Grace
The man
Mankind
Out of time &
Out of place
Rumor has it he’s dead
Rumor has it he’s been
Locked in a cell
By the monsters
He fought against
And lost
Burned books
And the thousands
Of other voices
Now gone
Without memory
So how’s that for dystopia?
Or a vision received ?
I found one of his books
Thrown in another pile
Mistaken for a Christian
Guide
Of prayer
~ R.M. Engelhardt
©2026
THE DYING TIME, POEMS BY R.M. Engelhardt is a visceral, raw collection of poetry that functions as both a political manifesto and a spiritual eulogy for a fractured America. Published in 2026 by Valhalla Shelter Press, the work captures a sense of immediate crisis, weaving together themes of societal decay, the loss of artistic “magic,” and a fierce, defiant call for resistance against the Death of Democracy and the Rise of Fascism.
Engelhardt’s writing is unapologetically aggressive and deeply cynical of modern institutions, yet it remains rooted in a desperate love for what America once promised: equality and freedom. This is not a book for those seeking comfort; it is a “reckoning” and a manifesto intended to “Witness Man Burn Once More” and create a final stand against the darkness.
*Published By #valhallashelterpress
Bohemian Soul ~ R.M. Engelhardt
BOHEMIAN SOUL
Bohemian Soul
No Overlords
Freedom & Democracy
The Past
Still Remains
In The Future
For We Are The Caretakers
Of The Human Race, The Earth,
The Skies & The Seas
The Denizens
Of the Underground
The Keepers Of The Peace
Unchained
Bowing Down To No Man
No Monsters
No Kings
Burn Down Our House
And We’ll Rebuild It
We’ll Tear Down Your
Swastikas And Knock
Down Every Racist That
Insults Our Being
Like Walt Whitman
With A Protest Sign
Standing At Every Corner
Of The Earth
For Are We Capable Of
Violence?
Yes
If Necessary
For To Be Free Means
To Stand Up For Every Single
Mortal
Soul
Every Animal
Every Human Being
And Every Breath Of Every
Creature
For Humanity
Shall Not Cease
And Our Numbers Only Grow
And Multiply In This Place
Poets
Artists
Accountants
It Doesn’t Matter Who
We Are Making Our Path
Through This Burning World
Our Voices
Our Fearlessness
Stands
And Never
Surrenders
Bohemian Soul
No Overlords
Freedom & Democracy
The Dream Of A World
That’s Better
That Lives
That Cares
And Against It All
We Shall Win
And Cannot Be
Defeated
~ R.M. Engelhardt
©2026
