Walls

Walls

It was an urge other than desire
that undid our walls
walls that go up from the day
we are told take not candy
from strangers walls that we 
slip into every morning guarding
us from the gaze from the touch
of others who must remain separate
no matter how polite and warm the
talk our daily intermingling never
can reach the essence we protect
or else
or else we scorn the taboos
ubiquitous iniquities that grow like
wild hair follicle by follicle
as we mature into our private lives
yet I reached over and touched
your beard letting the rubicund glow
into my fingers  as our first  breach
of the palisade became a beating 
at the gate until we found ourselves 
so close it hurt 
our hurting so different yours and mine 
enduring we removed impediments 
stone by stone until we  had what we both
needed 
to be in each other's life
whether touching each other there
beyond and through the walls
or seeing as only we could
the connections invisible to others
Your shock of vermilion and mine of bone


Jack 5/19/13

Irrational numbers and the end of time

Irrational Numbers and the End of Time

Is it not 1969 am I yet on the sunshine
acid trip  LSD with the touch of strychnine 
from the sacred tree am I yet your lover 
the boy you give a hand job  
never being one for subtleties 
am I not in my bath today still swishing 
on acid with all the blood and bath water 
intermingling as pulsing hairs on my arm 
sway in the waves of the effervescent water 
no noticeable difference until I gaze into the
looking glass at that wizened old wizard's face
that white beard wild hairs every which way
underneath it all the same smile of bliss beyond
hallucination as when we were peaking and
you were coming simultaneously with me
is it not now is it not right now
are this aging man's tears not the same as yours 
twenty-two a year older than I 
tripping as you hold my cock erect
not knowing what to do with it 
the way he caressed me my elder lover '69
for the past and the future are illusions
I knew it on acid and I know it on wine
there is only the present moment
love manifests itself timeless in our kiss
yours and mine your uneasiness my uneasiness
your joy my joy and all the quest for permanence
when permanence is what we've had all along 
as we let go of the delusion of time 
irrational numbers dissolving as we admit
an identity in you in me your hand in mine
eye to eye head to head song to song

Jack 5-11-13

Green

Everything in this morning's sunlight is green 
except the purple maple tree 
resplendent in its own unique color 
surrounded by a deep verdure penetrating 
my memory this morning for when last I 
gazed over this yard the azaleas had 
not bloomed but now what's left is as faded
as brown oak pollen swelling the gutters
and Japan is still the East as different
from us as the maple is from the oaks
not my Western mind 
which Japan has nonetheless changed 
just as this spring has changed everything

Jack 4/24/13

Three Squirrels

Three Squirrels

Ice cold rain washes in the Solstice
Winter wind waves through the
Tentacles of black leafless trees
Reaching toward the silver sky
As three squirrels dart up and down
The network of entangled limbs
Fucking
There is no better way to say it
Fucking in the rain all three
Falling over and over one another
Chasing and interchanging who leads the
Charge
Until they stop and swing
Over and over one another nose to ass
Then  doggy style no way of discerning
Gender in the wet pelts of their furry
Fucks
As I sip hot Earl Grey tea and eat tuna fish
Wondering if what they feel
Is true love

Jack 12-20-12

Easter '13

it comes 'round with cherry blossoms
a naked young man impaled on a cross
eros and thanatos like sweat glands
blood dripping from his punctured side
and all the absurdity of rabbits and eggs
birth and death and uncomprehending ears
poking up to hear the hymns of sorrow sin
and loss and regain as if it is all one mad
dream with you pinching my nipples at
last at last opening your mouth to me
I thanatos and you eros dripping sensuality
more fragrance and smell filling me with you
as Jesus dies and doesn't die and flies away 
to the make-believe world of two billion dollar
Popes and capitalism being spelled
c-h-r-i-s-t-i-a-n-i-t-y
until the winter fires and burning heretics
leave us alone and we make our own
sweet bitter equinox

Jack ---Easter 13

Haiku on first seeing a photo of the Kamogawa

winter turns to spring

Kamogawa's waters go

as goes my ego




Jack Jameson 3/31/13

infection haiku

bronchitis grabs hold
stabs every breath emitting
spring sonata coughs

Abandonment Haiku

absence of touch aches
spoken words of love broken  
bones of spring kisses

No Blame

no blame
just pain
three years in vain
to make a song
you got it wrong
you based your facts
on heroes gone
joys on the road
joys of making 

you thought
we thought
we were the 
Beats
And the silver ring 
you flung away
with the necklace 
and the peyote

we were lovers
we were lost 
our ideals morphed
to jokes and laughter
disturbing dreams
and still there
is no song
just pain
no blame

Jack Jameson 3/13

Let Go

Let Go

there are times when wisdom 
is no better than sagebrush
tumbleweed propelled by random winds
tossing over a lonely road of dust 
sand covered Tao to nowhere
times when all the lovers and promises
fantasies of everlasting embraces
become shimmer mirages
and solitude is the lasting truth
wisdom as the  philosophy of sages 
makes me laugh knowing like the
throbbing blood in my veins that
Dylan got it right
when you got nothing
you got nothing to lose
when you are ready to pull the trigger
ready to shoot the pain in your
broken heart it is the exact moment
to have your epiphany 
let go
let go of the illusion of love
let go of the demons 
wedded to yourself
go away into your life
go where you can dance again
sing be forgiven
forgive absolve everyone you think
caused you despair
let go
like the prince of India who let go
of his palace his wife his child
let go and found joy in a beggars bowl
that went upstream
let go and dance like Shiva
go to the Golden Pavilion
of yourself until you can
toss with the tumbleweed

Jack Jameson 2-20-13

Jake

This is the day I have to write to you
A day that like our lost love
Is gray and stark as ash
Not like the day thirty-seven
Years ago when we met
Knowing an adventure would unfold
Sensing from a word found in your
Unabridged dictionary
That we would head out together
For destinations recondite

What became of our enterprise of
Great pitch and moment as you named it
Hamlet's speech caught in your head
We let go of each other in stages
Like turning down the volume of a
Song decibel by decibel until
We could hear nothing
We made the slow descent from Parry Peak
Where we had touched each other's
Loneliness and yearning forever

You chose to leave Fat Tuesday
A wife son friends family
As once I was eager to do
Then when you did not come
That stark gray October day
There was no alternative but to betray
Our pacts and promises our unbound
Tie to let unravel rarely requited
Passion like smashing a fist
Into a Nineteenth Century brick wall

Now your spirit if there is such a
Thing slithers toward James our host
Who met and shaped us both the poet
Whose murder suffocated  us 
Whose grim Oklahoma Halloween
Burial took place on that exact same day
For me stark and gray of your wedding
I witnessed like a zombie among
Revelers knowing death so intimately
Realizing how death and love are twins

Where hang those lips that I have kissed
Whose final words you gave to me  
Mere months ago  " Love you, Jack" 
Lips to say goodbye as you take away
On this day stark gray
A broken stem of the wormwood 
Wild  in my mad heart


Jack Jameson, Ash Wednesday, 2/13/13

Fat Tuesday

Fat Tuesday

Lucky Dogs under the Red and Yellow

Umbrella stoned pirate standing still in the

Sea of multicolored beings coursing

Coarsely down Bourbon with beads swaying

Drinks in hand clandestine blunts and

Boners joker’s caps feather plumes

Screams of delight from bar to bar

Raising cups of joy into the sprinkled air

This time we are the music

The furry brown dog on the cell phone

Waving beside lovers in rainbow tutus

Stop action as she shows her tits

Togas crowns and bare buttocks

And despite smudged signs of warning

There is Jesus sandals and thorns smiling

The most stoned and blissed-out  grin of all

 Jack Jameson 2-12-13

Green Dragon

Green Dragon

Wasn't it here yesterday
The jade dragon green
There by the window
Who would have moved it
Where would he have put it
Another room the basement
Storage
No one else has been here
Where the jade dragon sits
All these years guarding
Our lovemaking our joys
Our yelling and breaking 
Things
Our trysts with all those
Others we embraced 
Together and separately
Only a rare few ever noticed
Her there by the window
Green and smoother than any skin
Supplanted now by a glass vase
Full of Sunflowers

Jameson 1-27-13

Ranch (for DHL)

Ranch (for DHL)

For a time we three slept up on
Wolf Mountain Bert Frieda and I
We took the trail past Susan the Cow
And the field of black-eyed susans
Waiting til the sun set over New Mexico
Til we could take off our clothes
Keep warm together with friction
Bert loved my alabaster buttocks
Or so I felt as his broad hand pressed
There when Frieda and I missionaried
On the hard bed til it was Bertie's turn
They swore me to secrecy hell it was
1923  the year my Mom was born
Menage wasn't even a word well
Not one to go in an English writer's bio
No way so we smoked weed and laughed
Instead until we drove to Lake Chapala
Which Bert said looked milky with sperm
All the way down in Mexico


A tribute to D. H. Lawrence
Jack, Xmas '12

Merry Xmas Dad

Merry Xmas Dad

You might have lived to be a century
Smiling at balloons sucking candy
Stroking your yellow cats
Filled with patriotism and not even
Missing the holidays of your past
Not even knowing Christmas Eve
From the Day of the Dead
You struggle up the stairs to your bed
Are you preparing for your eternity
Fetal position how many hours each
Day curled up in oblivion
Your wife hates you resents
Your long life and if you know
Anything through the haze that is it
She accuses you of making a Hell
Of her disappointing life
Do you recall in your dementia
That we are estranged that not since
We played chess half a century ago
Has there been anything but false pleasantry
Between us no understanding
No communication no rapport 
Instead silly jokes over fish
We sat in a swing on Tybee beach
And compared biceps whatever summer
You ambled over the sand as your wife
Let the sea breeze give her a shining
Moment in the sun
What has our life meant to you
The failed law practice
The failed first marriage of twenty years
What women still emerge in the mist 
Of your mind what joys recalling
My brother and me wrestling with you
On hardwood floors
Dad I remember your beard
Like sandpaper when you held me as a child
How proud I once was of you
Standing in your officer's uniform
Taking my mother out
Swiveling in your Colonial office chair
Under a gold clock ticking away
Your life of pretense
Why don't I love you old man
Was it your dishonesty your politics
Your doting on your second wife
Whose dreams never came to be
Who came to find emptiness and burden 
In your existence no matter your devotion
Who grew disillusioned as I did
With who you pretended to be
Your dying days bring me sadness
Though you jerk from childish joy
To belligerence over a simple word
You are alien to me though you
Conjure images from my youth
Confused like driving a car for the
First time unable to make the machine
Go where I want that is how my feelings
For you are off the path
For something of you must be mine
At best I forgive you for the alienation
Were you clear of mind I'd ask yours
For me for my inattention and lack
Of concern for you for you are now
A man without love from anyone
Unwashed unfed frail skeleton of a man
Loved only if at all by my kind brother
Ever friend to the downtrodden
Farewell Dad this Xmas Eve
We shall not meet again mind to mind
This Lifetime 

Almost Anger

Write about anger you said

You who are always 

Almost my lover

Almost aroused by an image

On your Laptop

Almost a singer in nightclubs

Of your dark moods

Almost a man almost

Almost wanting me

Almost wanting me to leave you

As my emotions overflow and ebb

Almost like the sea

Flowing unlike my desire

That night we bathed ourselves

Almost together in a baptism

Of holy Beat holiness

Almost Ginsberg and Cassady

Almost a monkey and a pig 

In a house that was almost yours

The best I can muster my love is 

Almost Anger because Anger is 

Only possible when it is possible

To give you unadulterated joy

Jack 12-17-12

Milkyway Haiku

Stars blaze winter sky
White Milky Way shimmering
Shines like holy jizz

Orion

Orion

Will you be old friend the last
Name I recall as I stare at the dark
Ascending night in the winter sky
You were with me when my child's
Eye first looked for constellations
You have seen me through all the
Constellations of my life my loves
My one night one year one decade
Lifetime loves a phantasmagoria
Of couplings and sexual surrender
Of hands held and legs spread 
Embraces with fingers through my hair
Mine through theirs your sword piercing 
Consciousness in a cluster of
Mindfulness
In the outback sky of Australia
Before the glaciers of Patagonia
In Copenhagen and the black sands
Of Hawaii in the little round park
Where I climbed trees and waited for
The Milky Way to appear glistening
Sperm of Heaven filling the sky
Flowing to be shared 
With all the dazzling planets of my
Arching firmament


--Jack,  on the eve of the 2012 Solstice 

Come Faithful

Come Faithful

What did it count in your
Existential equation that orgasm
Porn inspired mouth fucking
Shoving your penis with fury
Until the sperm spurted into
Her throat until your jizz
Flowed right out of her nose
Did you bend and kiss her
Come glistening on her lips
Tasting yourself there hold her
In your sweat glistening arms
Console her laugh with her
Laugh at her facefull of come
Tell her you loved her not
Just her mouth or body
Loved her as you loved me
When you held my body
Stroked me ever so gently
And for the first time in your life
Made someone else come

Jack Jameson 11/21/12

Holiday

A Half moon shines midnight
Unevenly through the grove of oaks
Not yet bare holding on to autumn
The way we hold on to expectations
Of holiday cheer at the approach of
Winter Solstice and of all those special
Days we've invented for the pretense
Of warmth and transcendence.

--Jameson 11/20/12