Kill Your Darlings (How Beatniks Are Made)

East Bay Express ^ | October 30, 2013 | Kelly Vance

[9YearLurker]

Bad poetry can do in anyone.

[Mrs. Don-o]

He drugged and sodomized boys all his life. Somebody 'splain to me how he could be a "holy man."

Oh wait. He's creative. A genius. He's got the genius pass.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

I like the MAD Magazine parody of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, as a beatnik would do it.

Friends, Romans, hipsters,
Let me clue you in;
I come to put down Caesar, not to groove him.
The square kicks some cats are on stay with them;
The hip bits, like, go down under;
So let it lay with Caesar. The dude Brutus
Gave you the message Caesar had big eyes;
If that’s the sound, someone’s copping a plea,
And, like, old Caesar really set them straight.
Here, copacetic with Brutus and the studs,—
For Brutus is a real cool cat;
So are they all, all cool cats,—
Come I to make this gig at Caesar’s lay down.
He was my boy, the most and real gone to me;
But, like, Brutus pegs him as having big eyes;
And old Brutus is a real cool cat.
He copped a lot of swinging heads for home,
Which put us way out with that loot;
Does this give Caesar big eyes?
When the square cats bawled, Caesar flipped;
Big eyes should be made of more solid megillah;
Yet Brutus pegs him as having big eyes;
And Brutus is a real cool cat.
You all dug that bit at the Lupercal scene
Three times I bugged him with the King’s lid,
And three times he hung me up; was this big eyes?
Yet Brutus pegs him with big eyes;
And, sure, he is a real cool cat.
I don’t want to double-O what Brutus gummed,
But, like, I only dig what comes on straight
You all got a charge out of him once,
So how come you don’t cry the blues for him?
Man! You are real nowhere,
You don’t make it anymore. Don’t cut out on me;
My guts are in the pad there with Caesar,
And I gotta stop swinging till they round-trip.

[CrazyIvan]

“Allan Ginsberg said he saw the best minds of his generation destroyed by madness. I have seen the best minds of my generation go at a bottle of Anacin with a ball-peen hammer.” —P.J. O’Rourke

[Bobalu]

[real saxophonist]

I may or may not have responded to this, but that’s a great poem, and I’m going to save it.

[Jimmy Valentine]

“What we really need to do around here is to shoot a few more intellectuals” - Nikita Kruschev

[real saxophonist]

One of the greatest shows that’s ever been on television. So far ahead of its time.

[real saxophonist]

Saving that.

[real saxophonist]

I still think #3’s pretty good. And I wasn’t even trying.