17 October 2005

Featuring - Ted Burke

When it comes to the fine arts, like poetry and literature, I have very little in the way of a formal education. But as a reader, I know what I like, and I like reading Ted Burke.

Lessons from the Seventies

It’s love that breaks
against the rocks

and not foam nor water of any kind,
it’s a baptism of irrigated contempt

that makes the horizon
burn in black static p1umes.

Stained cotton from
every beach front window.


We smoked joints
in the guts of the canyons,

the mired trails
to the sea kissed shale.

All the blues from
Chicago knife fights
and gunshot histories
are folklore all the kids destroy
with their breathing.


Even at dinner time,
forks are next to plates whose owners
wonder what’s eating their neighbors
with all the strange phone calls
about what’s going on the beach.


The armies of the night
couldn’t scare up a quarter
of something to decent for all
the beaches America has landed on
in search of someone to talk down to..

© Ted Burke

4 comments:

Unknown said...

That’s rather the way I remember the ‘70s—after I took my army uniform off, of course, and grew my beard.

Jacob said...

Ciao, Cat, di Roma!

Ted Burke is not a name I had heard prior to hearing it from you. But please accept my biggest and fattest thank yous. He is AWESOME. I loved how he wrote there. And will look for more.

From the monastery of Sant'Anselmo in the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, Roma----CIAO!

Catnapping said...

I now have a link to some more excellent poetry by Ted Burke.

POEMS / Ted Burke

Sheng Peng said...

Thank you for the comment, and thank you for introducing me to Ted Burke!