Poet Writer Albany NY
Oh, Spotify, how I love you.
While I’m writing at work, I can pretty much pull up any song ever and listen to it—thanks to you, Spotify.
I can also do stupid and pointless stuff, like imagining what songs might be on Holden Caulfield’s Spotify playlist—were he actually a real person, alive today, as a teenager, with access to modern technology like computers and such.
So that’s what I’m doing today. I’m taking a stab at coming up with a Spotify playlist for perhaps the most annoying character in modern literature, Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye.
While he’s annoying and hardly bearable, that doesn’t mean his musical selections are:
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I am the wandering poet,
I do not sleep
I am wasting these days in the dregs
Of the deep.
I live in the church of myself
Bizarre & unfulfilled,
The spirit of the waking man,
And the fool, the reckless fool.
For I am walking round the circle
From the outside looking in,
I am the shadow on the wall
And the wall is growing thin.
So can you see me?
Only Here
And There,
And Now?
_____________
~ R.M. Engelhardt
And in this corner;
It’s the hollow man &
The drunken muse
And that song
That goes like this’
As the rain came down
Upon the city streets & poets, sonnets
And upon all of the earth
As If Mozart had just
Written it all for you
On a Saturday night
Himself
[And In Parenthesis]
The next round begins,
And they ring the bell
It’s the ghost in the machine
And all the silences in-between
Lifetimes.
Lovers
And friends
And strangers
And there’s a savior on every block
Just waiting for you with
The answer in their hands
Saying;
I’m alone in the dark
Without the directions home
So there,
Do you see?
All the desolate and the
Lost, the poor, and the rich
Who still ignore them,
See the universe
In vibrant words
And they just ignore you
Still.
As you,
Wordsmith of
The angry masses
Can only scream
Fuck you!
To Thine
Own Self
Be True
Be True.
And in this corner
It’s the serpent’s coil
And the soul of the dragon,
This world a weeping failure
In thy form, and in thy sight
As they pour more champagne
Half full into the glass
And it’s still the same damn song that goes like this,
As they lit our cigarettes with dollar bills
As all the children starved to death
In Shitsville & Manhattan,
And in the U. S. of A. America
Where all the rains came down
A hard rain still
Falling In buckets, sonnets & poems
That changed nothing
And never will
Because no one even
Bothered to ever
Read the words or
The writing on the wall
To see.
___________
~ R.M. Engelhardt
Tonight on television
there is an actor
talking about his battle with
drug addiction, sex addiction and life.
You would think that by the way
the host is interviewing him
that he is wise & worldly, an
ancient sage from his
battle with the curse
of “celebrity”
And there are a billion lights
in the great big city, a million lives
that get up everyday and go to work like
everybody else. And their addiction is food,
their addiction is rent and how to somehow
get thru the next day and make sure that
their children are dressed, educated & well-fed.
So the question is is that when you
look at the world do you see a gift? Or do you see an
enemy? Do you have faith or do you pretend that
all of these famous people are like you or your friends?
The constant partying,
the good life, broads & booze,
high fashion, money and
Paris Hilton bending over your
patio bench just waiting for
a piece of what you’ve got to give.
But there are those of us who
happen to live in the real world,
those who believe in more than just
the shallow trash that all the others
seem to admire.
And they call us the survivors who don’t
need the shit or the television to fulfill our
needs. The survivors who don’t need the
drama or the fake religions of the moment,
the meth or the cocaine, a little dog or
a brand new $400. dollar purse.
The most important things to do in the world are to get something to eat, something to drink and somebody to love you.
~ Brendan Behan
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
So
You want to be a poet?
Then stand in line
Because just like every other damn poet
That ever came before you
You’ll have to write
And Twitter, Tumblr, Fumblr
Whatever, will never save
Your sorry ass
And the Pushcart Prize?
They won’t reward you
For writing a Facebook
Status that’s poetic
And just like
Emily, no one no
Publisher will ever
Come knocking
At your door
Looking for your poems
So listen;
Because there is no new
Jack Kerouac, no new Bukowski
And no new Poe
And Shakespeare?
He threw down his pencil
A longtime ago after Marlowe
Bought the farm
So just like all of the most
Famous poets of old expect
No compliments, no fortune
And no dough and learn how
To live on noodles
And believe me
When I say that
When you tell Mom & Dad
That you want to be
A poet someday?
Don’t expect them to
Embrace you or let you
Ever move back home again
Because remember
That this is the life that you chose
And if you ever finally find
Finally write that one piece
That one amazing epiphany
That says it all and that says
Everything and that has the
Power to knock the world
On its ass?
Then maybe one day
You’ll be able to look
In the mirror and say
It was all worth it.
_____________
R.M. ENGELHARDT
R.M. ENGELHARDT 