ON WHY I WRITE POLITICAL POEMS

my friends keep chiding me
for writing political poems
while spending their own time
writing about booze women drunks and such
sort of like smoking marijuana
and not inhaling if you know
what I mean

I honestly don't know
I've thought of going
to the mountains where
it's legal to pack a gun
or moving to Vegas and becoming a legal gangster
either way it's a death warrant
and since I don't have
a wife and kids
I've adopted the dispossessed
that get fucked by the politicians
the most and maybe that's why
when I was severely depressed
I fought to save myself knowing
God wasn't going to do the job
so here I am approaching seventy
still fighting the system
still fighting myself
Nietzsche inside my head
Micheline in my blood
Wantling on my mind
visions of Neruda
riding my mind's third eye
and wasn't it Mao who said
after the revolution
the poets would have to be
the first to go?
but he couldn't have been
talking about American poets
no threat to anyone but themselves
when does the high road
become the low road?
no amount of words
will raise the dead
and death knows no remorse
better that I write these words
than write a grant request
better that I protest rather
than ride the poetry circuit pony
better that I be true to myself
than sell out for a lottery ticket
chance at fame


LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER

I went to a poetry reading
Not long ago as rare for me
As a politician who never lies
Wanting to see if things had changed
Over the many long year
And they hadn't
The first reader was a middle class
Female poet from upstate New York
Who teaches for a living
And knocks down forty grand a year
Who read about the homeless
And the dispossessed
And the latest terrorist bombing
And other things she knew little
If anything about
And the audience ate it up
And clapped like sealions
At a mating ritual
As she smiled and tugged
At her low cut blouse
Next up was a male poet
A holdover from the 60's
Dressed in army fatigues
With long hair flowing
Down his shoulders
Who spoke about the same things
Only in a slightly more indignant tone
Here at a coffee house
Just three blocks from the Mission
The home of prostitutes
Drug Addicts alcoholics
And a small army of  the homeless
And the crowd ate it up some more
And I kept thinking that
We're so full of ourselves
Using words as a preaching tool
While all around us people
Are starving and dying
And committing genocide while
We stand up on stage eager for applause
Or send out our work to the zines
For a penny worth of recognition
Playing to the audience
Telling our most intimate secrets
Pretending to be knowledgeable
When in reality we know so little
Trying to make it to the big time
Trying to crack the top ten
Unlike the music industry
Where there's room for the top forty
Like Kaufman said:
"Poet's don't sneak into zoos
and talk to tigers anymore."
Rams out fucking sheep
Poets playing trick or treat
Politicians beating their meat
Whores making it under the sheets
Homosexuals lined up with elbow grease
Landlords waiting to cancel your lease
It's gotten so bad that you can't tell the
Real ones from the elite
Everyone has become A carbon copy of themselves
Take a number step up on stage
Rattle the cage
Let loose your rage
Be sure to wear your page
The call you miss may be from God
Stand tall stand proud
Work the crowd
Like a skilled carnie hustler
Send your resume to Poets and Writers
Fax the all night celebrity show
It's the way to go Bro
And when the reading was over
All that was missing
Was the exchanging of high-fives
This never ending exercise in jive



copyright A.D. Winans. 2005.

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      A.D. Winans world is black and white, racy, and frank.  He has a new spoken word CD from Hemispherical Press. $6, or $8 with limited edition broadside. See www.hemisphericalpress.com for ordering information, or send check made out to

Justin Barrett at: Hemispherical Press
C/of Justin Barrett
274 Ramona Avenue
Salt Lake City, UT 84115-2115