Contents I Was Once This Morning The Street I Steal Pencils Haiku Attempts Lily Alphons Why I Like Hotels When I Was An Angry Young Poet Stray Words Dachau
I Was Once I was once, accused of being conservative because I didn’t approve of my sister killing her children I was once, accused of being a liberal for speaking out against harsh sentences for first time drug offenders I was once, accused of being a demon for choosing to live my life without habitually condemning others I was once, accused of being subversive for daring to doubt the government and its decisions I was once, accused of being a shaman because I listened to a man and gave him advice I was once, accused of being an angel for giving a woman pleasure when she wanted it the most I was once, accused of being divine for giving away the things I didn’t want when someone else did I was once, accused of being a poet because I write down words and read them to others I was once, accused of being Bekif © 1997 return to contents
This Morning It started out just like any other day alarm clock bouncing off the west wall of my bedroom familiar sounds drifting in the barely open window the street below, telling the tales of thousands of souls on their way to their own private insanity Public displays of private insanity reveal themselves daily outside my window I see this and I grow frightened I grow frightened because I know tomorrow could be my turn for a public display of private insanity Tomorrow morning I may see the thing that will finally push me over the edge. It may be the woman next door when she kicks her son down the stairs for the 417th day in a row It might be when I see a twelve year old leave the liquor store with a pint of Evan Williams It might be Rosie O’Donnell one too damn many times. Bekif © 1997return to contents
The Street Your soul is incomplete Your goal is in the street Ancestral evidence Bohemian Occupying reason There’s no place like home There’s no place like The back of Those dark little thoughts The sweet ones that We taste for days afterward. But you don’t know Until it is too late To reason To occupy a space within reason Instead You choose the street Crowded, lonely, insincere, but Pleasing to the eye Pleasing to the touch and Deadly In ways you only fantasize about Between verses Of hymns screamed To the masses Between lessons From your catechism About the street Short and sweet You're trusting the choices Of self And trusting the mistakes of others Left lying around The street Broken, alone Yet, sweet The street Bekif © 1996return to contents
This poem started out as an improv piece one night after a poetry slam. I tried to remember it later and when I tried to write it down, it became this. It is rather long but it should hold your interest. I steal pencils on my way here tonight, I stole a package of pencils. at the time, I didn’t even notice that I stole them but when I got here, the pencils were right there in my hand I stole them, not because I wanted to but because I must. pencils have their own kind of magic powers in them and they have always been too compelling for me to resist some people say I steal them because I’m a kleptomaniac that would be people like my therapist and the dear lady who orders all the office supplies where I work poor Donna, just like the others, she does not understand my motives are much less sinister than she imagines I steal the pencils to help release the words that they contain every pencil ever made contains hundreds or thousands of words and those words deserve their freedom, the freedom only paper can bring I steal pencils because they contain the words of every poem I will ever write and to rescue them from becoming quadratic equations or even more disgusting poorly spelled graffiti on yet another ten coats of paint thick truckstop bathroom wall and God knows that we have too many truckstop bathroom walls I like the kind of pencils that you find in the library short, with no eraser, and lead so dark it can be read from the other side of the paper with little effort the kind of pencil that makes a permanent mark on the margins of the page when you are trying to rewrite a poem that was started three years ago but set aside until the right pencil came along to release the final version that is until yet another pencil crosses out the last four words and you banish the page for another six months When I find the a stub of a pencil, I get excited because now I can release one or two of the poems that otherwise would never have seen a scrap of paper but instead would have ended up as someone’s phone number lost, thrown away or washed in the pocket of a pair of jeans just causing accusations of lying or playing head games Mechanical pencils have their place but they will never replace a Trusty number two with distinct teeth marks of frustration and contemplation placed there between thoughts of never finishing that simple sonnet or the final edit of a seventy five page rambling that you know will never be heard by anyone except the drunks who try to sleep in the ally when you’re up on the roof spouting out the latest outrage at three A M I would never steal a ball point, or the higher class fountain pen so your Waterman, Cross, and Bic disposables are safe and the people at Barnes and Noble can relax and stop following me from aisle to aisle I'm not that kind of thief My prize is the second hand pencil, removed from your desk and never missed until all the other writing utensils are also missing and your only hope is the pencil, now in my possession I steal pencils because I never have found anything else in this world more valuable to steal. Bekif © 1997return to contents
This poem took me a long time to write. Most of my poems are written in a very short time, a few hours or less. This one took several months to complete. Perhaps that is because it is of a very personal nature. I started it a few times and then threw it away before being able to settle on these verses. It is about my mother’s mother dying. I visited her in the hospital a couple hours before she died and knew that I would not ever see her living again. She was no longer able (or willing) to speak or control her body functions. She was however, still aware of what was going on around her. Once when her doctor came in to examine her, I could tell she was embarrassed by my presence in the room. Ididn’t consider leaving the room, even though I too was embarrassed. It was the only time I have ever seen her vulnerable. The poem is titled Lily, my grandmother’s middle name. Lily The last time I saw her she was only a shadow of her former self A stark reminder of what used to be her mettle An unfamiliar form now occupying What used to be her mind and her body Once a stolid and virtuous individual One who never forgot her loves or her Self as a child Until she gave up on her dream and virtue became a burden That day in April when all her friends had died And left her nearly as alone as she thought she was I didn’t touch her cheek or say my good-byes that day I was as embarrassed as she was When the phone rang, I knew Though I remember not the words that were used It was a conversation that time will never Remove from my memory A message relived daily when I see The things that adorned her walls Now in my living room They cause me to respect her father The same way she did Remembering the house of Caroline Until the time of my passing And her great grandmother’s Prayer book finds a new home In the next generation And my daughter’s child finds my pen And writes the final verse of this poem Bekif © 1997The next poem is about my mother’s father. He passed away in 1980 while on vacation in his favorite vacation spot, Colorado Springs. I suppose that is the way to go.return to contents
Alphons The first time I remember seeing him large drops of rain had just started to stain his hat I was more concerned with it than he But having experienced only three summers I said nothing to him about it And when he lifted my small form high in the air my eyes then looking down at his again, I said nothing I only wondered why was this man whose face I did not recognize so glad to see me why did I have his attention My mother told me he was her father in a tone that I understood to mean you should know this already boy I still said nothing When he introduced me to a sweetness he called coffee candy I said nothing while enjoying my new found love and at the same time listening to him being scolded for giving such a thing to a child Countless times we shared that treat and in time the futile scoldings stopped but not before an appreciation for sweet coffee developed in a four year old child Ten years blur by in an instant and I no longer have much time for this man he was still playing baseball in the 1930’s while I was busy ignoring the 70’s and waiting for 1984 He asked if I knew the rules of the game I didn’t notice he was offering to teach me I still said nothing, because he did speak my language of choice Taking a deep breath, I watch a few more years slip away While I was occupied with fast food and freight trains he was being introduced to God the two of them now on a first name basis And now I wanted to say something now I wanted to scream my outrage for having one of my best friends taken from me but I had no tongue on that day it was busy drinking beer in a seedy bar in North Carolina and no sound was forthcoming Two lifetimes and nearly as many decades pass before I realize that, in his absence I did figure out what to say I did have the words to relay my thoughts on everything from his wool hat to the ball player I never saw hit a home run except in one old photograph I finally had all the words but I no longer had his attention Bekif © 1998This was written after one really wild weekend. I do not want to give too many details other than to say it began with a gathering at the Grace house.return to contents
Why I Like Hotels I wake in the Morning the faint scent of last night still hanging in the air Shredded curtains are no longer able to hold back rays of the sun So they fall on you reflecting off the highlights in your hair And the handcuffs still attached to the headboard This sight causes me to smile A smile not as broad as the one you wear in sleep A smile that suggests Why, some orgasms are so good, they get names Why is the paint peeling from the walls Why is the mirror melted Why, we may not be allowed to stay at this hotel again And that gets more annoying Every time it happens But not as annoying as the time We were asked to come back on Wednesday so the rest of the hotel staff could hear us I don’t do encores not for spectators anyway Too many things got broken The one time it did happen Too many people were hurt Some, may never recover from it And others wish they were us Be careful what you wish for You might not get it Bekif © 1996This poem was written after staying up until about one AM with another poet, drinking coffee in a coffee house. Our conversation covered the various phases we had both gone through as a poet. We talked some about the days when we first started writing and how we felt at the time. After drinking coffee until one, I wasn’t ready to go to sleep, so I came home and wrote this next poem. At 2:30 AM I found myself standing in the living room reciting the first draft of it.return to contents
When I was an Angry Young Poet When I was an angry young poet and spent fifteen hours a day with my pen pressed against paper I had learned how priorities were supposed to be listed I didn’t care about the piles of cigarette butts in saucers scattered around the room Or the noise coming from next door even when someone was screaming ... again I didn’t care about the mice that filled the walls and occasionally found themselvs brave enough to venture into my room in search of food Yes, when I was an angry young poet It never bothered me that no one read my poems that I lived in a shithole apartment or that I spent more money on beer and high grade grass than on rent and food Although I always wanted the food after the high grade grass I thought I was on top of the world ......... and I was When I was an angry young poet There were no excuses given for my offensive choice of lifestyle I didn’t care if you were shocked or repulsed because I had not taken a shower for a couple of days or combed my elbow length hair in at least five I found it amusing when you locked your car door as I approached to cross the street and when you warned your children about the likes of people like me When I was an angry young poet Nothing stood in the way between me and my urge to create words Invincible, unflappable, and convinced I was better informed than Ken Kesey I explored every dark nook and cranny available to man even even those that had been abandoned by a previous generation, too busy to notice There was a mission that must be undertaken ... and I was volunteering for the front lines Oh, when I was an angry young poet There wasn’t time for all the bullshit that came with interpersonal relationships I was too busy creating the words of life and love ... and anger My task at hand was the only thing that was important A poet, his poems...(the beer and the high grade grass didn’t seem to hurt)... it was a seemingly proper, and oh so convenient union of worlds There was little room for anything else to occupy my ever expanding universe When I was an angry young poet The week long acid parties were the norm Mushroom pizzas that you couldn’t buy at Domino’s nearly naked teenage girls who were there only because they wanted to piss off their parents Not to mention those Frank Zappa albums, played until they were worn out lyrics analyzed until they were nothing more than the droning of a room full of people who knew entirely too much Oh yeah, when I was an angry young poet I knew that I would never be anyone else other than that angry young poet Bekif © 1996This is one of those poems that took its shape after months of semi-existence. I would add or subtract a line or two from time to time and eventually it became this poem.return to contents
Stray Words there were words on the floor after I finished my last poem it turns out, I had a few words left over and they fell to the carpet as I got up from my desk they lay there un-noticed for awhile until someone entered the room and told me there were words lying on the floor and it could be dangerous stray ideas and unguarded words do seem to often find themselves in dangerous situations not because they seek them but because they are what they are words have no ability on their own to create anything destructive left to themselves words seldom find their own way into trouble It takes the addition of people for words and trouble to be intertwined without people to interfere words are usually rather harmless I looked on the floor at the stray words, and there they were, creating an ocean of ideas on their own no longer needing my intervention they found their own way to intermingle among themselves into what could only be called a world of words void in its own form and without a concept of time to measure their meaning and the depth of the spaces in their emotions I gave them a sheet of paper and they began to list their demands they had but two, one was to be allowed to exist and the other, to be able to share themselves Bekif © 1998return to contents
I wrote this poem while I was in Germany one summer. It is about an old woman I saw while visiting Dachau Concentration Camp. I wanted to talk to her but I just could not bring myself to do it. I was a little surprised at my inability to talk, I usually don't have that kind of trouble. I first recited this poem on the train between Munich and Venice and again at at impromptu poetry reading late one night in Florence Italy. After trying it out at home, I decided to include it here..Dachau I watch her, at first from a distance of about one hundred feet each step she takes seems to require great effort Despite the heat she wears a shawl and a wool scarf both wrapped so tightly around her they seem to be part of what she is She nearly pauses before climbing the two concrete steps into a squat wooden building but enter she does I try to guess her age somewhere between seventy and timeless she passes throught the door and I can think of nothing but her determined walk as She, along with many others file into a structure, once a barracks or warehouse or death house or Whatever you choose to name it Today it is an angry reminder open to any who dare open to any who dare not forget An eternal moment later she emerges, almost pausing before descending the two concrete steps and returning to where she can be ignored I wonder about her life as she closes the distance between us six inches at a time, alone and persistent I want to ask her a million questions Yet I dare not approach, or offer greeting or try to make eye contact instead, I assure myself we do not share enough of a common tongue and communication would not be possible Her path changes, she comes closer and passes within arms reach and my opportunity passes un-taken Two solemn grey eyes, watchful of her path seem to never notice my presence or my longing to attempt to know only a little about who she is Instead, she pauses to reposition her shawl and continues her determined walk but not before giving me a glimpseof her arm and the tattoo still visible there Fading, but not enough to let her forget not enough to keep her from coming to this place showing me both her strength and my frailty Although we never spoke, and our paths crossed for less than ten minutes her face will be carried with me for years To belooked at again and again like a creased photo taken from a worn wallet To be used as a source of strength and inspiration when I would rather take the easy way out and forget what I don’t know It’s easy to remain where we lead ourselves blindly and it is much more difficult to see where we are going without letting yesterday’s cobblestones pave today’s streets Bekif © 1998
My poetry { Page 2 } Contents Below Marijuana Poetry
Standing Wolf
an-Nayran
Arabian Fires
Knee Deep In Idiots
Pulling On Loose Threads
Haiku Attempts
My poetry { Page 3 } Contents BelowJust Another Day In The Apartment
Love Is Green
Venetian Street
The Virtues of Sin
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