dax roman godkin

dax roman godkin is a poet. lately, he's from from cleveland's west side.

A Torn American Flag Waving In A Strange Southern Breeze Being Ripped To Shreds By A Slippery Elm Tree

dedicated to d.a. levy

Pre-Lude

Remember, we always used to see
the yellow pants man creeping
around around the corner
of 58th and Detroit.

Haven't seen him in a while.

Think Anything

happened to him?

Me and my baby, were just Poor White Class,
living on the Provincial West Side,
just tryinta stay alive/get it done/enjoy life
Nobody bothers us. Nobody cares.
The neighbores, well, they got problems
of their own and the police know that
we are too white to cause any minor damage
and not white enough to destroy the planet.

The other night it was snowing
during a thunderstorm and
the road in front of
the Lantern Printery caved in completely.
The hole is about the size of a house
and is equidistant away from our house
and the Police Department's Union Hall.

Theres either a big sink hole there, or,
Satans minions were a little off
in their calculations,
one way or the other. Somehow,
I cant imagine they were after us, yet,
so get ready to squeal, boys!

There is a seventy-five foot prostitute
with no arms and no head
leaning seductively against the side
of the Federal Courthouse, saying
over and over with her no mouth,

'Come on in, Big Boy. The waters fine.'

'It is difficult to be proud to be a member of the only species
on the planet that would KNOWINGLY foul it's own drinking water'
-- dr. gee

In a world gone mad with 'power, corruption and lies'
It gets tougher every day to find a place
to lay back and watch the clouds do their thing.
Eye found one, over at Edgewater Park, just down
from the public beach. A quiet cove with a sense
of the wild about it, so close yet so far away
from the teeming bustle of machines and their men.
Then, one hot August afternoon, I went for a swim.
By the time I got home, my skin was aflame with
some sort of post-nuclear rash. I showered immediately,
but, still, the smell clung to me like bad skunk.
That night, in a sort of ritualistic full-moon
St. Vitus Dance, I burned my swimming trunks. Now
there is a spot in my back yard that wont grow
grass and the birdies dont fly over

Given any resemblance of 'Freedom of Choice'
I would rather be
in the middle of everywhere
beside a stream (of consciousness)
with nobody around
listening to the great savage sweep of nature
than I would be in the middle
of seventy-five thousand bleating
drunken lunatics with all their hopes bent
on one side KILLing the other side.
This fact makes me 'strange'
to my fellow human beings
as well as labeling me an outsider
to 'Television Fans Everywhere'

Montagologue*

A wreath of angels around the eye to OM
and my body fell between her thighs
Get Enlightened any way you can
like an outlaw
trying to become as soft as the trees
Dream Three; chaos of pictures
Cuyahoga disguised as the Ganges
smells like rotting abortions on bayonets
someone sez fucking leftists, always disrupting
sending all yr poets to the looney bin
just blame it on the Communists
while downstairs, the hillbilly dog
finishing off the last of the peyote
his tongue flickering cold flames

These city streets drive themselves (crazy!?)
tryinta roll allover me. But, see,
Im a country boy and we dont go down easy...

Yr gunna have to press HARD!!!

Then, even then, we stick to yr shoe like glue,
following you around like a lonely rabid hungry dog
waiting for you to let down yr guard (National?)

Then,
It's off with yr head on with the show

Eye got places to be
people to free

There's just so damned much to see

especially you, later

in Hell!

The harder you try to keep the outside in
the more determined well be to TAKE IT BACK

TAKE IT BACK - meaning put it back
TAKE IT BACK - meaning 'let it all hang out'
TAKE IT BACK - let 'it' play in the sunshine
just for a little while, then return
IT to it's rightfull owner

0 EARTH
                  MOTHER GODDESS
                                                        forgive us all for we are
                                                                   sinning and will
                                                                   continue to(O

I am in the back of the backwoods
sitting next to this Rocky River
tryinta figure out exactly wat
it was that put yr fire out;
Did you git hit by the fuzz?
Or snuffed by yr Cuz? Were you in
that big of a hurry?

Or just a good publicist?

Was it a stunt?
Or just another Way
to get the world (off
yr) back? Were you afraid
yr star wld fade? Or
just ready to git

ON WITH THE SHOW

knowing full well
it was going
to the midnight dogs
of a fugitive version
of a tragic play
that nobody wants
to see (much less live?)

Did you git what you found
up there? or, Are you still
'Sitting In Limbo' like the
rest of us? Down here

Its not much worse, but
it certainly never got
any damned better.

At least you guys THOUGHT
you could change society.
Now, we are afraid
to ever/n try!

The powers that gots gots even
more power than they know
what to do with; 'They'
are insane, brutally (dis)honest about...
Everything!!!
WE ARE THE NEW TERRORISTS!

And well do whatever
It takes to get wat
we seem to feel is ours
for the taking.

You knew

Exactly what it waz
you were getting out of Life.
And it killed you

Knowing just how low
'We' would eventually go
to rape what we sow.

Yeah! You knew back then
when the trigger pulled you
what waz gunna happen

Didnt you? Predict
the past while it was busy
happening so fast.

Just as you left it, Cleveland is a terrific
anal-ogy for the rest of the cuntree;
poisoned, clear-cut, murderous,
vicious, loud and proud

Cleveland is a cloudy Tuesday afternoon
with a head cold, a seemingly funny joke

that forgot it's own punch line, a single mother
waiting in line for Relief. Cleveland is a whole
lot more money than it knows what to do with.
Cleveland is green trees, brown hills, technicolor rivers.

Cleveland is the chapter in the book
that somebody spilled their drink on,
so, now, nobody knows
whether the Hero conquered the Dragon,
or which one is bedding down
with the Princess tonight?!?!

Cleveland is one persons version of Hell,
anothers reality of Heaven; depending
on their point of view, their point of departure.

Cleveland is a smorgasbord of inertia
surrounded by the smog of indifference.

Cleveland is the melting pot
taken in to be melted down for scrap metal
but not before the marrow has been extracted
from the bone, the essence exhumed
from the ashes.

Cleveland is still scar(r)ed
stupid, gang banged and brawled.
Cleveland is still drunk -
headed for the mall.

It wasnt gun-na git any
more interesting,
And it didnt. Cleave-
land is still a swampy piss-
water town up on stilts
waiting for the rocks
to grow beards long enough to
rise up and Git Theirs -

kicking the livng
shit outa us piddlyassed
mammal s ending us

packing for the hills,
where we belong, back to the
back of the bus. It

wont be long before
were begging the river for
our jobs back, and then,

finally, you will
git the justice you deserved
Before The Flood!

Until then, well be here,
keeping up the good fight,
wishing you were here

                  ...singing... bye,bye, Miss
                  American pie... drove my
                                          Chevy ta tha levy

                                          but the levy was dry...
Them good ole boys, drinking wish-
                                          key and rye, singing...

Coda

Sometimes, when you look down
the barrel of a .22 caliber rifle
you can see eternIty
spreading radiant vision-gifts over all
time and all ways.

other times, all you see is the end.

Click.

Dax Roman Godkin

Provincial West Side

March 7-28, 2004

* Part Five is compiled out of lines 'lifted' from levy.