One Flew Over The Poets Cellar Door

“it all looks more and more like the same old
movie.
the actors are different but the plot’s the same:
senseless.” – Charles Bukowski: something's knocking at the door

Cast & Characters
(all characters are actual poets in some way or another)

Patients:
Charles Bukowski (Hank)
Allen Ginsberg
William S. Burroughs
Steven Jesse Bernstein
Sammie Wabbit (Me)

Staff:
Nurse Milton
Saul Williams

Others:
Diane di Prima (Cherry)

Act I

Bukowski, Ginsberg,
Burroughs & Bernstein
sit round card table
within the confines
of Nurse Milton’s
nervous system
wire window ward.
She dreams of the
days when poets were
not synonymous with
counterculture madmen bum and angel
Turns up the Kenny G muzak

But back to the game…

Bukowski deals
(secretly running the table)
 Snide Steven,
“Allen, Give ‘em all your cigarettes
and your Yellow Star of David.”
“Not Yet Bernstein!”
buffers Burroughs,
staying his hand long enough to scribble on his pair of twos
while calling Bukowski’s
bluff.

Charles: Three ladies dance with Hank.
William: Fuckin’ Coxswain!
Steven: What a shit layout.
Nurse Milton: (over the intercom)
Keep it down Gentlemen.
Turns the muzak up
Steven: MORE NOISE PLEASE!!!!
William: What the Hell you talkin’
out of your ass for?
Allen pulls down his pants
Steven looks up there with a visionary eye
William: Oh I didn’t pay for this
Hairy Bobbin’ ManAss!

Nurse Milton comes out of her office
“It’s time for our poetry workshop.
Please take a seat in the middle.”
I grab my work and
find a seat in the back.
I lost all my cigarettes anyway
I’m Sammie, by the way
 

Act II

The assignment for
today’s class, as
selected by Nurse
Milton, is to write
a poem in the style
of T.S. Eliot. It’s
a running joke of
Bukowski’s that every-
body write a poem
like they were Jim
Morrison. So far I’ve
heard enough ‘Odes to
My Cock’ to last a
lifetime. They like my
stuff, though Hank’s
not sure if Jim would
have wrote it that way.
I keep trying to tell
them that he’s dead,
but they insist that
he lives on in their
words.
(chuckle)
Who am I to tell them differently?

That’s the thing about rock stars,
they never rely on the strength
of their poetry to get their name out
of this place. With a claim to fame,
they could make anything stick.
Now Wait A Tic!
Did I not tour the Campus of Texas State claiming to study the works of John Lennon?
For after all, was it not ‘In His Own Write’ that gave me the courage to become a writer?
Perhaps you’re right, though
I’m certainly no Rock Star,
nor do I want to be.
Just needed a place
to fit in, that’s all.

Burroughs’ got some fucked up shit
with his manuscript. Shows us an image
that haunts me for nyon 19 yrs;
forget the origin and believe that
that shit came from me. I blame Dr.
Benway and his Eddible Sleeping pills.
An evil understated in its doom for a
man with poor memory. With the close
of the session, we file into the next room
for the day’s scheduled meal. But before
we do, Hank and Will make a scene over
the contents of the latter’s manuscript.
Hank gets the final word with this chilling
prophesy: “The man who thinks he will never
kill is always the first to kill.”
 

Act III

This is it.
The night of Randall’s…
oops…I mean Charles’
escape. Nurse Milton
has just shut down
the beast, flicks the
lights to match
her macabre garb,
keys jingle bojangle,
and the door clicks
shut.
click.
Bukowski rises up
from his bed, like
‘an idea whose time
has come.’ Checks to
see who’s the night
clerk. Saul: this is
too easy, he thinks.
After quite a bit of
coaxing, he manages
to preoccupy him
in one of the back
rooms with some
Robeson record,
slips the keys,
and he’s off to the races.

The sound of a shit
car horn sputters
in the defiant night
outside the walls of
Red Wing and Charles
goes to the nearest
wired shut window
to make sure the girls
are there with the booze.
A couple of prostitutes
he picked up in Denver
once everybody’s in
Bukowski makes for
the intercom.
Charles: “Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
The first Track for the
night, ‘You Shook Me’
Led Zeppelin, BBC
Sessions [Disk 1]

After popping the tops
off a couple’a brewskies,
Bukowski introduces me
to a smokin’ red-head.
She claims her name is
Diane di Prima, but
he keeps calling her
Cherry. We slow dance
while the rest of the
place goes wild to
Track two of the
night, ‘Miles Runs The
Voodoo Down’ Miles Davis,
Bitches Brew [Disk 2]

Suddenly without
warning ,Bukowski
grabs the girls
and pulls them
to the window,
intending to end
the night on a high
note. “Well you old
dead farts, it’s time
to hit the road. I’d
kiss you goodnight,
but after a bender
like this I doubt
you’ll remember
it anyhow.” He’s
just about to turn
and go before he
sees me. I say my
good-byes like a
kissing cockroach
(hiss kiss)
One quick look
between me and
Cherry
and
he knows
what this is all about.
Without saying a
word he grabs me
and Cherry and whisks
us off to a padded
cell, the honeymoon
suite. Once the door
is closed I’ll tell you
what happened
(and this is not in the
Movie!)
click.

Cherry rips off
my pants like cigar
paper to get at the
snuff inside, packed
tight & fresh. Run my
hands through her hair
& embrace her taut
shoulder blades with
my elbows. She guides
it in, swaying back & forth
back & forth
We reach the climax
together & moan
triumphantly.
Cherry took my cherry.

Outside Charles
takes another swig from
the bottle in his hand &
dozes off to the final
Track of the night,
‘End Of The Night’ The
Doors, their debut album

The next morning, Nurse
Milton finds us just the
way we were last night.
Bunch of damn drunks
can’t go through with
anything they started!
Some orderlies pull me
out of the room and the
crowd goes wild. Nurse
Milton now knows she
has to make an example
if she’s ever going to win
back poetry for the sane
and uptight classic bitches
of yesteryears.

Nurse Milton: “Well Sammie
you ought to be ashamed of
yourself. Sex is no thing for a
loon like you. What would your
mother say?”
Me: “She’d say, ‘Can It you
out-dated shrew. Your
Paradise is Lost’ and I’m
not Billy Bibbit!”
with that, Hank
holds back the orderly
and I strangle Nurse
Milton until she is dead,
like this film was
suppose to end
damnit!

06-16-2019