APOLOGY BY ZIOHAT

    When we were partying and scribbling poems on the cave walls, I never thought about preserving them. I suppose that even though the walls now appear to be blank, there must still be some residue, chemical imprint, or subtle difference in the surface that was temporarily protected by the pigment of the writing. We could bring in some experts, but we really don’t want to reveal the location of the cave complex to any outsiders. However, I have found some old photo’s of a party where the walls are visible in the background and I’ve been able to read some of the old stuff.
    I’m sorry, but most of us were relatively young at the time, and although I put on a show as a Guru promoting poetry readings, the ostensible leader, I was really just excited about a rich older woman who took more than a casual interest in me. I guess, foolishly, I just thought of the poetry as a gimmick or excuse for an orgy. The older guys I guess must be dead by now. Looking back, it was really stupid not to publish in a book — after all, we were too drunk to memorize anything. Well, a few kept notebooks and did do some vanity press books. Doug has stuff out now, but not all of it is authentic to the movement — ah, well, I guess I shouldn’t be such a snob, especially as he’s been gracious enough to let me use this blog site…
    …And now that I think about it, Jack Chelka hasn’t always been that consistent either because he wanted to be published in the Mainstream press, but still wound up broke in the creek. Anyway, here’s a few different ones:

SEA SHACK
  by Jack Chelka

Below the tide line
a shack sits on my sorrow
on her grave in shallow soil
spotted ramshackle place
lair of the leopard who
could not but kill her nagging.

Wave crown like a lion’s mane,
erosion has left
an ocean opening for
pain’s swirling wash and drain

The beach shack of this leopard
shall not stand as
roaring sadness bites me there
where I will tell Guilt one thing:
eat me as prey,
pray me down soiled
blot the blood in spots
before I die awash

FRYING LAMENT
  by Jack Chelka

If feelings were enough
I could just be sad
like Swiss cheese
but there’s a hole
in that argument

You don’t know me at all
never asked to listen to me
’cause you say your tears
speak for themselves,
mine don’t
being too few, you say

If you’d let me speak
I might cry too
with an explanation that
I made the oceans

Let me fish in peace
and I might gut our problems
fry love in olive oil
stuff your poem in
a green pepper, sweet
and sour with a note from me
that doesn’t rhyme but’s
on rice paper that’s edible