Featured Writer: Doug Draime Day 3

Attending A Poetry Reading At The Local College


What good does poetry do? Can it stop the
wailing of the tormented? Can it end
the continual political slaughter of
millions from war, starvation,
abortion, capital punishment, racial
genocide, or territorial domination?

Poets still sit in the coffeehouses and
bars in America,
talking like badass street fighters,
though few
have ever thrown a punch
and probably wouldn’t know how to make a fist:
publishing in the
little mags only
they read, and,
to each other. They’re
content like everyone
to get drunk and
talk shit.

In other countries they lined poets up against the wall
and shot them down
like wooden ducks in a shooting gallery
or imprisoned them like wild animals

for speaking out against
the State,
for publishing poems of
protest
and dissension,
for standing up
for truth
and human
justice.

Poets in America suck on the tit of academic,
curdled lies, defending the “artistic freedom”
of submerging an image
of Christ in a bottle of urine.



*Reprinted from Doug's book: Transmissions From The Underground
Watch for it at deadbeatpress sometime in February 2009.

Featured Writer: Doug Draime Day 2

Burning The Complete Works of Sylvia Plath


The suicidal Muse ran up and
down my walls screaming for
Sylvia Plath. It wasn’t my
Muse; it came with her. She warned
me about something like this
happening if my writing
became too positive or
encouraging. So, I called her
up.
“Look,” I said, “it’s running up and
down my walls screaming for
Sylvia Plath.”

“Calm down,” she said, “just turn the typewriter
off and it’ll stop.”

“What?” I said.

“Turn the Corona off and it’ll stop.” she said

The Smith Corona was a gift from her when my ancient
Remington bit the dust. I told her to hold on a minute and
went over and turned off the machine. She was right, the
thing just disappeared with a puff of smoke. Back on the
phone, I told her it worked. She was silent for a moment.

“What are you going to do now,” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Well, I mean, you got the thing stirred up
somehow and now every time you turn
the typewriter on the Muse is going to get
out and cause havoc. Each time it gets worse.”


“No shit?” I said, shocked.

“No shit!” she replied.

I thought for a moment. “Will burning the
Complete Works Of Sylvia Plath work?”

She was thinking now. “Well, you could give that
a try, probably wouldn’t hurt to burn all the Ted
Hughes stuff while you’re at it.”

“Thanks I appreciate the help,” I said and hung up.

I didn’t have the Complete Works Of Sylvia Plath
and nothing by Hughes, so I went out and bought
them. When I got home I went outside, threw them
in an empty trash can and was about to torch them
when something like a spiritual revelation hit me.
I grabbed the Complete Works Of Sylvia
Plath out of the trash can and ran inside, turned on
my oven and baked her with the oven door open for
an hour. Then I gingerly took the smoldering books,
holding them with a pot holder, outside and threw them
in the trash can with her former old man, and torched
them good. I watched the books burn to ashes, then
emptied the ashes in my septic tank. I felt something
lifting from me and I knew it was over.

I went in and turned on the machine. It purred
like a kitten. I waited for a moment and then
typed my first line: The Suicidal Muse ran up
and down my walls screaming for Sylvia Plath.



*Reprinted from Doug's book: Transmissions From The Underground
Watch for it at deadbeatpress sometime in February 2009.

Featured Writer: Doug Draime Day 1

Someday I Will Write A Poem That Will Flood The World


And I will own all the
arks, boats, ships,
rafts, and canoes,
and tug boats, ferries,
all forms of water transportation.

People will have to come
to me for their means
of survival.

The stubborn and destitute ones
will drown in my poem
sinking to the bottom,
screeching like anchors on
rusty
chains.

The rest of humanity will plead
for cut-rate discounts. But fuck them,
I’ll make them pay out
the ass. No rainbows
this time.
________________________________________

4 a.m. Reflection

If I say it was
torrid, what of love?
As my mind tosses
in memory like a
violent sea,
settling for the
pretentious
compromise of
poetry;
touching the stars
climbing the ladder
of lust. Meaning?
Love? What aches
in the heart?
Familiar images of
erotic passion
and the comfort of
someone being there. Knowing
the emptiness
and sting of
ambivalence. Why do we betray
the intimacy?
Why do we betray
the giving?


Doug Draime emerged as part of the underground literary movement in Los Angeles in the late 1960's. Most recent books: "Bones" (Kendra Steiner Editions) and "Los Angeles Terminal" (Covert Press). Forthcoming, "Transmissions From The Underground" (d/e/a/d/b/e/a/t/ press) and "Farrago Soup" (Coatlism Press). He moved Oregon in 1981, where he stills resides.

Order Doug's book and support small press: d/e/a/d/b/e/a/t press