Jack Micheline: Poems from 1960 and 1982

Jack Micheline (born December 6, 1929 in The Bronx, New York; died February 27, 1998 in San Francisco, California) was a Bay Area painter and poet. His name is synonymous with street artists, underground writers, and "outlaw" poets. One of San Francisco's original Beat poets, he was an innovative artist who was active in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s. - Born Harold Martin Silver, he took his pen name from writer Jack London, and moved to Greenwich Village in the 1950s, where he became a street poet, drawing on Harlem blues and jazz rhythms and the cadence of word music. He lived on the fringe of poverty, writing about hookers, drug addicts, blue collar workers, and the dispossessed. In 1957, Troubadour Press published his first book River of Red Wine; Jack Kerouac wrote the introduction, and it was reviewed by Dorothy Parker in Esquire magazine. Micheline relocated to San Francisco in the early 1960s, where he spent the rest of his life. He published over twenty books, some of them mimeographs and chapbooks. - Micheline was married twice, to Pat Cherkin in the 1950s, and to Marian "Mimi" Redding in the early 1960s. His only child was born to a mistress during his second marriage. - Though a poet of the Beat generation, Micheline characterized the Beat movement as a product of media hustle, and hated being categorized as a Beat poet. He was also a painter, working primarily with gouache in a self-taught, primitive style he picked up in Mexico City. - Micheline died of a heart attack while riding a BART subway train from San Francisco to Orinda in 1998. The back room at San Francisco's Abandoned Planet Bookstore still showcases Micheline's wall mural paintings. - Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Micheline


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POEMS
By Jack Micheline, 1960/ 1982
Source: http://www.echonyc.com/~poets/poetry/michelin.htm
	I never wanted to be a poet. I just wanted to be a human being. Anyone who wants to be a poet is out of his mind. Either you are one or you are not. Most poets are not poets. To be a real artist is a unique and valuable asset to this planet." SAD FOR AN UNBRAVE WORLD
	POET OF THE STREETS
	January 31, 1960, East Bleecker This poem turned the tide of my death, written on First Avenue off the Bowery In an alley of great souls.
	I walk east of Bleecker the sky is blue on this Sunday evening there is something deeper than the earth there is something deeper than the stone cities there is something deeper than our existence than all the robes of power power and the night bleeding gutters with crutches power and the night and the neon vibrating the night and thirty moons and sharpies the night and the railroad yards gleaming the night and the sky the night and billboards and darkness across a nation skeletons and machinery jaundice, joints and lips of connivers burnt Christmass trees jazz horns and drummers above concrete above whimpering voices above calculators riders with tokens in their hands riders to the sea a nation of cowards cowards wrapped in academic cloth over all in darkness over all who live in deserts over all shells covering over all that are wasted burying all in nothingness burying all that is soul burying all with layers of armour burying herds with still voices burying all in the nowhere of silence herring and fish in cans turkey and chicken in cans humans in cells of unknowing there is more to life than the lights of savage civilizations there is more to life than all the words spoken there is more to life than the eye can see I see the sun of angels hemp and sugar and wheat blood and sinew within the flesh ticker tapes, grey hair, jowls on faces dollars and gods and people sold and traded people dying for nothing people selling their minds and bodies people without courage people with no teeth in drug stores death loaded with goods givers of death and more death cranes and deep hookers cutting shears for the young newspapers stunting the mind dollars the spoiler of ships of bananas I see your faces as I stroll through the cities the wind touching the faces of whores the vision of poets encompassing all song of children outside the brick houses there is nothing deeper than life and the livers of life mankind raped in the bank vaults of steel dead soldiers, battlefields surrounded by iron and ironies a million lost sunsets a poet unconquered with the legacy of Whitman and Lorca a poet unconquered by stone, by glass, by greed, by madness the lights blaze on in the night lights and the cold wind visions above all death cows milked dry, golden crosses the sky blazing with miracles a poet walks in the cold wind his head raised humble and unafraid death around him filled with waste and banners death all around him walking alone with birds above the canoe shaped moons sounds are heard and the sky glows in darkness.
	POEM FOR THE CHILDREN
	Amsterdam, Nov. 19, 1982
	A child walks in a dream her eyes dance in the night of stars someday when the moon is full the gypsies come home and they will dance forever and all the ships that never sailed will sail forever and all the flowers that have not bloomed will bloom forever A child walks in a dream and all the stars that have not shown will shine forever and all the children that could not dance will dance forever A child walks in a dream
Jack Micheline (born December 6, 1929 in The Bronx, New York; died February 27, 1998 in San Francisco, California) was a Bay Area painter and poet. His name is synonymous with street artists, underground writers, and "outlaw" poets. One of San Francisco's original Beat poets, he was an innovative artist who was active in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s. - Born Harold Martin Silver, he took his pen name from writer Jack London, and moved to Greenwich Village in the 1950s, where he became a street poet, drawing on Harlem blues and jazz rhythms and the cadence of word music. He lived on the fringe of poverty, writing about hookers, drug addicts, blue collar workers, and the dispossessed. In 1957, Troubadour Press published his first book River of Red Wine; Jack Kerouac wrote the introduction, and it was reviewed by Dorothy Parker in Esquire magazine. Micheline relocated to San Francisco in the early 1960s, where he spent the rest of his life. He published over twenty books, some of them mimeographs and chapbooks. - Micheline was married twice, to Pat Cherkin in the 1950s, and to Marian "Mimi" Redding in the early 1960s. His only child was born to a mistress during his second marriage. - Though a poet of the Beat generation, Micheline characterized the Beat movement as a product of media hustle, and hated being categorized as a Beat poet. He was also a painter, working primarily with gouache in a self-taught, primitive style he picked up in Mexico City. - Micheline died of a heart attack while riding a BART subway train from San Francisco to Orinda in 1998. The back room at San Francisco's Abandoned Planet Bookstore still showcases Micheline's wall mural paintings. - Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Micheline
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POEMS

By Jack Micheline, 1960/ 1982

POET OF THE STREETS

POEM FOR THE CHILDREN