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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 3 of 3. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Atticus on September 25, 2004, at 16:03:50
Dedicated to Johnny Ramone, 1948-2004
Adrenaline Soup
Sweetly singing chainsaw slices to the eardrum
Carving luscious gushing gashes
As gorgeous as Gershwin on crystal meth,
A riotous and pious Rhapsody in Red
Composed from raw ragged dripping sweetmeats,
Soaring musical missile epistles
Etched in throbbing bebopping gristle
That send crimson tides of steaming notes
Running through cerebellum crenellation gutters
Until ruby teardrops
Of diamond-hard guitar riffs
Trickle down through rusty thirsty grates
To patter on the snouts
Of sewer alligators waiting below
Who lick their ravenous stiletto-studded chops
At the flavor of fleshy chords
Stripped from dreamily screaming bone
By the fleet and angry phantom fingers
Of freshly dead Johnny Ramone.Two-minute seething CBGB anthems
Launch debauched
Primal red blood-cell oceans
Teeming with harsh and pitiless
Predator’s emotions
As I slither, hissing,
Down the Bowery’s fractured sidewalk savannah,
Adorned in serpentine scales of reflected light
Seen in the midnight sheen
Of my leather motorcycle jacket,
Sporting a don’t-fu**-with-me
Cobra’s hood of spiked spines upon my scalp,
Listening internally to Joey’s wailing loco vocals
As he takes the spectral stage
With Johnny and Dee Dee to passionately demolish
Rock and roll ruffles of baroque and bland
Sonic polish,
Manic atomic Mozarts of mayhem
Plucking at the guts
Of Manhattan’s sinewy strings.Howling punk banshees eternally audible
In the steel-on-steel screech
Of rails and subway wheels,
In the clatter of T-rex rats
Tipping metal trash-can lids,
In the chanting ranting panting curses
Unleashed like staccato bursts
Ten thousand times every minute
Of every hour of every day,
In the guttural groans of dying junkies
And the gasping moans of sweat-slicked lovers,
In the restless wolfish stalking steps
Of steel-toe-booted brooding wandering poets,
In the outstretched hands of prone cold lost souls
I step absently over in the asphalt alleys,
Lost in the thunder and the wonder
Of pure unbridled rhythmic rapturous madness
And million-volt lightning-bolts cast
By four grimy Brooklyn-born basta*d sons of Zeus.
And only Marky’s left, still sucking air,
As the sizzling City boils and roils onward,
Playing their songs dusk to dawn,
A heavenly cacophony,
Adrenaline soup to nourish
All the teeming, screaming Roswell aliens
Who tread at society’s sharp sharp edges,
Listening for a tune, looking for a dance.
-- Atticus
Posted by Jai Narayan on September 25, 2004, at 20:30:50
In reply to poem ... Adrenaline Soup, posted by Atticus on September 25, 2004, at 16:03:50
My god....you genius! I totally, totally....loved this poem. your poem is so brilliant. I love everything about it, in it, around it...slithering through it....wow.
Okay I have calmed down and I still love it!
How, what, why, where....do you get this from...your sizzling brain full of stress, sound and meds?
No matter what happens in your life you are still able to put out these inspiring poems to stimulate and excite.
Have you always been brilliant?
is your life filled with these thoughts? is your brain pumping out these words all the time?
Okay...loved the poem.
thanks for mentioning my friends father...the hurrican is making land fall right now. We shall see with tomorrows dawn.
Jai
Posted by Atticus on September 26, 2004, at 4:41:20
In reply to Re: poem ... Adrenaline Soup, posted by Jai Narayan on September 25, 2004, at 20:30:50
Hi Jai,
In this case, I tried to bring a sense of the full-throttle buzzsaw energy and intensity of a typical two-minute-long Ramones song to the rhythm of the poem. I think that their songs and my poems probably get their driving beat from the fact that the composers all grew up in the environment of NYC. The pace here just sort of gets in your blood, and your brain tends to use the fast-forward feel of the streets as an internal metronome. Obviously, as someone who grew up a punker, the Ramones, the Ur-Punks whose music remains highly influential even today, have always meant a lot to me. It's hard to believe that three of the four are now dead, and all within the last few years (lymphoma, drug OD, prostate cancer). And as the concluding lines of the poem indicate, their ability to revel in their outsider status really connected with me when I was in high school; instead of feeling left out, I felt proud and defiant -- always ready to challenge the opinion of the majority and the social status quo. To me, their tunes are paens to fierce individuality. ;) Atticus
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