Brown Bear Honey Madnesses              

                                

                                  poem for Alaskan convicts 
                                  at the Lemon Creek Prison 
                                  in ze state of Alaska, poem 
                                  written while at the
                                    fundraiser held 
                                  at THE JUNEAU YACHT CLUB, 
                                  entre corbatas
                                    de jaycee Penny,
                                  a fleur de lis tie
                                     a la mode
                                          d'yves St.
                                  l'Orient Expressed hopes
                                    for a meaning beyond
                                  this turgid rurality
                                    of ze mindsoul ...
                                  Juneau, Alaska
                                     26û june l979

    -Tinieblas y Prisiones::Voyage to Lemon Creek-

     voyage to lemon creek,
         prison of coffee breaks
           breaking through
     the bleakness of prison life,
     each convict
     hidden
     within the miasma
     of countless years
           of hysteria,
     pandemonium
            rears its head
     to lurch/lunch
     of/on
            chaotic thoughts,
                feelings
          reside
     only
     on the parchment
           of remembered frenzies,

     Alaskan panoramas
          and phantasmagoria
     in glaciered emporium
             tres emporia, 
     ay, consecrated/celebrated emporia 
             de la historia 
     deshumanizante yet humanizing 
     of all gente sin gloria, 
     and temporary euphoria
             floods the place
         sylvanly we chant,
              create a place 
     elongate space where poetry
              makes it all
              almost real ...

                 we sing
                    soft sounding words
                into the harshness
            of time
         spent
              in the sameness
     of day after day restlessness,
         yearn/crunch hopes
        in this wilderness of the soulmind,
               hunger & confusion
            reign
            while
        steel-cement-iron enclosures
     are
        keyed on
     to hope
        in college courses
           collaged/montaged
               onto native minds
          seeking a
             don juan
          of yaqui nuances,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
                           twilights & prisons merge
                      into bittersweet
                   lemon creek waters,
              alaskan fantasies dance
          amidst
     polarization/bear like felons,
          sentimentally recollected
                  childhooded visions
                        prance,
                  coffee breaks break
               through sereneless vigils,
             chilled imagery agglutinates
          onto the filament of memory,
                    each eye averts the other,
           each word tumbles
               onto anthilled words
                  which careen
            onto/over ideas,
                 and damn hurt
               hurls itself
                 through windows-
           wishing it could soar
     on eagle wings-talismanically,
         ay, frenetically
     needing
     to indite
                indictments
     which can resolutely say
     that it is
              saddening
             in the midst
     of human interaction
          sanguinely shared
     twixt shards of prison fears/hopes
           in all this alaskan greenery
     to view human kind
           rampaging
                    against
                           itself,

     that wildlife here
     is a prison world
                          devoid
        of books, art, & human meaning,
     lemon creek,
           needed lemon creek,
             much heeded lemon creek,
           very much hated lemon creek,
     humanity rides
     your ridges,
                  tier
                      by
                        tier
                            by
                              tearful
                                     tier,
                  pock-marked
                   by longings
                        languishing
                  in nightmarish
                   portuguese-eskimo hopes,
           lust and mania couple
                  & fornicate
                       furtively
           in the mindsoul's corridors
        elusively reaching out
          to ideas
     which flirt
           within convict chatter/banter
           o'er coffee & cigarette smoke,
           tiredness flits about
           the surface of 20 year old eyes,
           visages of searing voyages
           roam o'er the skeins
              of memory and will,

    convicts tired,
                     wanting a respite,
    making plans
    to someday-soon! with hope/faith-lurch out,

    meaning being acted out, ay,  
         making it back 
         to a society
          which can care & love, 
         so damn many cons unaware 
    that time, ay,
    it does change socially,
          sure does change, we change, 
    they change, the world will change, 
    life, everything
    a change, different growths,
         some are warts or cancers, 
    others but offshoots
          or blossoms,
    time does change, ay, cabron,
           and loss of time 
    is no loss at all, just a change 
           from one perception 
    to a deception, ay, loss 
    neither frowns nor smiles, 
    so that after
            prison class in writing/madness, 
    after many a quaint exchange,
           I would catch
    Mendenhall valley bus
    back to the university of alaska 
          where flitting people stare 
    and their stares fleet 
    hither
           thither,
         lunging
    through salmon story telling, 
    it becomes the way of this world, 
         quite possibly of all worlds, 
    such as it can be-somewhere else-
    the way of that world, 
    it's beyond a question
           of right/wrong or indifference, 
    it devolves
           into a superficial 

               existential elocution
    while we navigate
          through timespace, 
    humanity neither
        realizing more
           than moments 
    nor truly questing for more 
    than just survival, unaware mostly, 
    all penitent convicts
              serving
    bits & sketches of eternity:: Paying
               through the ass  

    gulping down chunks of asininity, 
    stressing liturgical phrases 
    and placating
         fear, courage, or just plain 
           simple     humdrum
                 passive
             state of artlessness 
    of being human, an ergo here or there 
         to merely say 
    that it's beautiful to be alive, 
    and some convicts buy it 
    as cheekily as most people
            eat of it,
    bills, pills, bars, cement,
    and a coterie of reckon 
    that be the way it just has to be, 
    all the while
          as a writer in residence 
    did I merely teach
         or preach
    about my sojourns, travels, & fantasies, 
    entertaining a convict audience, 
    helping them momentarily escape 
    the drudgery of encaged life 
    while I, too, was encaged 
    by the limitations of Juneau
           and my own perception of my mortality....