Jack Burns Lives!

“You know, sometimes it takes a lot more courage to live than it does to die.”
(From the film “Two Road Together,” 1961)

Thoughts on Lew Welch

I thought of killing myself
But I looked at a flower
it opened its petals
wide
to the sun
it embraced the warmth
it embraced life
and then I thought
why shouldn’t I?

postscript: I’ve always been a huge fan of Lew Welch. He’s one of the great Beat poets and very inspirational to me as a writer and as a human being. He was a giant of his generation but a tragic story. On May 23, 1971, he walked out of poet Gary Snyder’s house in the mountains of California, leaving behind a suicide note. He had carried his rifle, and his body was never found.

the nation again raises its sword
cutting downward
extinguishing all light

the tentacles of empire stretch outward
wrapping ’round
strangling all life

beneath the rubble
children emerge
looking upward

frightened
ragged
hungry
burned

begging
for food, for quiet, for love

to escape this world
this world of men

“Wilderness is not a luxury, but a necessity of the human spirit.”-Edward Abbey

The Forest

Great ethereal, enduring arms
wrap around me
keeping me
safe
from the sickness of the city
from its
liars
rulers
opportunists, peddlers and despoilers

My gentle, unforgiving refuge
nary a ruler
no lies
nothing
simply all, all that we require
to live
well
beauty
soil, shelter and sustenance

Weary, I submit myself,
her soothing call
whispers to
me
the storm within me, my unquiet
hurried mind
amity
in a lover’s embrace……