A Philomene Rhapsody

By Delores Hanney

They are already ghosts
John and Philomene
As they pass
Along the Boardwalk
Where ghosts and poets overlap…

Philomene Long

More than two years after her passing, the silence of her absence from the streets and the sand of her cherished Venice milieu still echoes like a great mournful wail.  Left in the vacuum created by the loss of her, even the pigeons remain grieved, I fancy.

By the age of eight Philomene Long was already drawn to the cloister, captured by the drama, the trappings, the whole mystical gestalt of it all. She slipped into a nun’s habit within the order of St. Joseph’s of Carondelet in Los Angeles, immediately following her stint as a high school wild child. Five years later, she would jump the convent wall to be spirited off  – in the dark of nite — in a get-away car driven by her sister Pegarty.

Leaving the convent did not represent an abandonment of spirituality, or even a rejection of Catholicism. Instead, under the tutoring of Maezumi Roshi she would surrender to an immersion in Zen Buddhism that blended into a customized theology and to self-identification as a Zen-Catholic. Her poetry, too, became like an element of her faith walk.

It was poetry that brought her to Venice in 1968, pulled by its reputation for harboring the poor and poetic, but too late for the Beat Generation’s halcyon days. Still, she stayed and she carried on its traditions.

Poetry became her, in the way a fiery sunset is becoming to the western sky. Her range was boundless and included dreamy odes to the California Missions, a disturbingly vivid testimony regarding self-flagellation, a hilarious retelling of the winning homerun in a vintage baseball game, a little whine about leaky ceilings. She wrote poems in praise of a politician, in praise of Venice itself as “holy ground/stained by the blood of poets,” a fragment of the latter carved into Venice’s Poetry Wall at Windward Plaza.

At readings she unleashed her words in a raspy, ravenesque voice wrapped in a dramatic cadence with just a wee Irish lilt on occasion: indeed, the ideal instrument for a howl of wrath or a purring caress and wielding the frank authority to proclaim the end of the world, should the situation arise. A master cobbler of poetic thought forms, Philomene was officially the Poet Laureate of Venice, so designated in an impressive commendation extolling her mind-enchanting, heart-inspiring, soul-uplifting talent and eloquence.

She was zany and mercurial. She was earthy and otherworldly. She was accustomed to the visibility that charisma endows, had been since the years of her youth.

A girl guru, gifted teacher, good friend; Philomene Long was all of these. At UCLA’s extension school, she was a popular faculty member in the writing program, inciting her students to passion for the pleasures of poetry and fervor for its well-crafted creation. She was an ardent promoter of the Beyond Baroque literary center, where she facilitated workshops and was an unfaltering supporter of its director, Fred Dewey. She romped through her sister’s film, The Irish Vampire Goes West, an eerie, fairy festooned tale about a poet snatched by a vampire and her sister’s dogged rescue efforts.

He wasn’t her first lover, but the others were eclipsed by the coming — in 1983 — of the poet John Thomas, whom Philomene referred to as “my only one.” Her twinship with Pegarty — of the monozygotic sort — was training for the concentrated relationship with Thomas, in which their two souls seemingly swirled into one.

Simmering in their commitment to one another and to their artistic exertions, they lived at the Ellison Apartments on Paloma Avenue. Although brazenly funky, it’s a venerable brick structure built in 1914 with a sea view and a nesting place for pigeons outside the kitchen window and a creaky green iron gate one door up from the boardwalk. From here they embraced voluntary poverty and sallied forth into the bohemian enclave: the high priestess of the realm, and her beloved consort.

But always, Pegarty — her twin sister, twin star — was there as the wind beneath her wings. Now Philomene comes to her in recurring dreams, their monozygotic bond undiminished.  b

Five years ago this month our beloved Poet Laureate, Philomene Long, slipped the surly bonds of earth, as they say, presumably to hook up once more with her “only one,” John Thomas, in order to resume their legend-worthy love affair in some distant cosmic realm where poetry is practiced and revered. This article, first appearing three years ago in the Journal of the Venice Historical Society, is reprinted here in remembrance of her dazzling earthly presence. 

June 2008 – The Venice Beat Poets – –The Great River Outside the Mainstream – John Haag

By Jim Smith

In many ways, John Haag was a typical member of the Beat Generation in that he forsook a career in Academia or Madison Avenue, for a life dedicated to poverty, poetry and his community. But he was different in one important respect – he was political. 

The Rochester, New York native studied Italian Literature at Harvard University. After graduation, he traveled to Rome where he met, and married, Anna Ricci. John soon became intrigued with rumors of something new coming out of Venice, California. He and his new wife moved here in 1959 and they soon became fixtures at the Venice West Cafe, which had been opened by poet Stuart Perkoff. When Perkoff got tired of running the dusk to dawn coffee house, he passed it on to John Kerivan, who in 1962, sold it to the Haags for a couple of hundred dollars.

Between John’s good humor and Anna’s Italian dinners, the place filled with poets, artists, and other rebels. 

Unfortunately, it attracted the attention of the right-wing Santa Monica Evening Outlook which railed against the “bums and hobos.” The city of Los Angeles and the LAPD also took a dim view of the poets and their poetry. The Venice West was closed by police in September, 1964, for allowing “performances” (people reading their poetry) without a cabaret license. 

At about the same time, Karl Rundberg, the L.A. City Councilmember for Venice, introduced an anti-bongo motion to prohibit drumming on the Ocean Front. It passed 11-2, with the notable opposition of Councilmember and future Mayor, Tom Bradley.

Haag recognized the assault on the Venice West, where poetry had been read for years, as part of a gentrification effort. A move was afoot to create an urban renewal zone which would wipe out Venice, just as much of neighboring Ocean Park had been bulldozed.

The fight to save poetry at the Venice West awoke John’s talent for organizing. He led a campaign for free speech that ultimately won the support of the courts. 

Next came an eviction notice from the landlord, Eugene del Genio. Haag again mobilized supporters and got the eviction withdrawn. By 1966, John and Anna decided the time had come to close the doors. 

Meanwhile, Haag in 1962, had published a newsletter, the Spectre, that combined arts and community involvement. He also formed a Venice chapter of the ACLU, participated in the Venice Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and long before it was popular, he was the co-chairman of the Los Angeles Committee to End the War in Vietnam.

John Haag went on to found a political party, the California Peace and Freedom Party, and a newspaper, the Free Venice Beachhead. He set the tone for a Venice variety of political radicals – soft spoken, poetry spouting, anarchistic and lovers of community.

He remained active in his beloved Venice through the 1980s, until ill health made him retire. For more than 25 years, there was scarcely an issue of concern to Venetians in which John Haag was not involved. He was a ceaseless organizer for progressive causes, running for lieutenant governor and state controller. He was instrumental in the 1972 third-party campaign for President by Dr. Benjamin Spock.

At all times, Haag considered himself a poet, and continued to write in the thick of struggle. He died on March 29, 2006.

Read more about John Haag in the Beachhead’s memorial issue, May 2006, at www.freevenice.org. See a 2002 talk by Haag at Google Video (search on “John Haag”). This concludes our series on Venice Beat poets.

June 2008 – Poems by John Haag

 

History Lesson

That little ape that came down from a tree

and used a stick on his enemy

and called aloud to his family

to show what a great brave ape was he

made followers out of you and me.

 

That little ape that got caught in the rain

and used some branches to cover his brain

and thought up gods for rain and for tree

to explain away the mystery

made worshippers out of you and me.

 

That little ape that had more than enough 

and didn’t know what to do with the stuff

and instead of handing it out for free

put others to work for a salary

made employees out of you and me.

 

That little ape that schemed and planned 

and put a fence around some land

and told his followers they’d be free

if they fought his next-door enemy

made soldiers out of you and me.

 

That ape whose stick is his bravery

whose ignorance makes theology

whose avarice makes wage-slavery

and makes a cause for nationality

makes monkeys out of you and me.

———–

Venice as Mecca

or Jerusalem

I sit here on the sand,

a holy place on sacred land,

remembering the tribes and clans

that gathered here, took counsel

and dispersed; foreseeing all

the ones that will arrive,

drink our blessed water and survive,

only to disperse in turn

to spread the word

amongst a disbelieving world.

 

Take heart, my heart,

for here is never lost

anything forever (but the soul

at times sent wandering

along some other plane).

 

It too returns home safely

found like a cache of nuts

the squirrel lays by against 

a cold day in hell, forgets,

then comes upon in time

of need.

Rejoice!

The promised land is here;

The time is near at hand.

———–

Dawn Over Venice

The sun, like henna,

bleaching the night away,

orange-gold glancing

off back windows

 

Making the chrome shine

on passing cars

then filling the sky 

with its golden copper

 

Fire-ball, the people

half-asleep, walking 

to Winchell’s for do-nuts

and coffee, starting

 

The good morning with

hesitant conversations.

May 2008 – The Venice Beat Poets – The Great River Outside The Mainstream – Lawrence Lipton

By Jim Smith

 

Lawrence Lipton was something of a father figure to the Beat poets of Venice. He was reviled by many of the poets for his manipulations and commercialism. Yet, they gravitated to his home at 20 Park Avenue, which became the center of the “scene” in Venice.

In contrast to the Beats in San Francisco and New York, many of those in Venice just wanted to be left alone to grasp the nature of reality, to paint and write poetry.

 

Lipton, on the other hand, wanted the whole world to know about this new way of living that was developing in Venice. Fifty years later, it is still a fair question to ask if Lipton invented the Venice Beat scene, or if the scene invented Lipton.

His book, The Holy Barbarians, told the world about Venice, and in the summer of 1959, much of it seemed to be descending on the community to gawk at the scruffy characters who inhabited the beachfront.

Lipton’s success meant the demise of the “slum by the sea,” as he called Venice. But it also meant that our poets achieved lasting recognition, something they didn’t care about, but ensured that their artistic gift would be a model for generations to come. Without Lipton, many great poems could have been tossed in the trash. As John Arthur Maynard observed in his book, Venice West: The Beat Generation In Southern California: “No one had done more than Lipton to turn an obscure and sincere doctrine of poverty and art into a recognized alternative to conventional life.”

Lipton was considered a charlatan and a huckster by some – and his friendship with Clifford Irving, who wrote a fake autobiography of Howard Hughes, didn’t help – but others, including poets Kenneth Rexroth and Allen Ginsburg accepted him as a peer. However, Stuart Perkoff reportedly commented that Lipton’s book would have been better named, Holy Horseshit. Irvine moved into 20 Park Avenue when Lipton, for financial reasons, in his declining years was forced to move to Burrell Street in the Oxford Triangle.

Even so, The Holy Barbarians, remains the definite book about Venice and about an artistic peak in the Beat Generation.

In addition, Lipton wrote a number of mystery novels in the 1930-40s, and later, wrote Brother the Laugh is Bitter, In Secret Battle, and The Erotic Revolution. His poetry books include, Rainbow at Midnight and Bruno In Venice West.

In his later years, Lipton became editor of an arts supplement in the Los Angeles Free Press and wrote a column, Radio Free America for the paper. He reported on the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for the Free Press. While attempting to join Allen Ginsburg at a demonstration, he was badly beaten by Chicago police. He never fully recovered from the injuries and they likely hastened his death a few years later.

Lipton was born in Poland, Oct. 10, 1898, and died in Venice on July 9, 1975. His third wife, Nettie Esther Brooks, shared his Venice years, and died in 1986. At the time of her death, Nettie Lipton was in the process of selling her husband’s writings to the University of Southern California. She wanted to establish an endowment for young poets in Venice. Unfortunately, she died before the fund could be established.

Lawrence Lipton is survived by his son, James Lipton, who since 1994 has been the host of Bravo TV’s Inside the Actors Studio.

More information about Lawrence Lipton can be found in Maynard’s history of the Beats, Venice West, and by visiting the two Lipton archives at UCLA and USC.

************

“What shall I say?
Between two worlds
we hang. Between the agony
of dying and the fear of birth…”
–Lawrence Lipton

************

From The Holy Barbarians:
The luxury hotels along the beach front promenade, too costly to tear down at present-day wrecking prices and not profitable enough to warrant proper upkeep and repair, stand like old derelicts, their plush and finery faded and patched. In their dim lobbies sit the pensioned-aged playing cards and waiting for the mailman to bring the next little brown envelope. Pension Row. Slum by the sea. Two, even three, one-story houses on a narrow lot, airless and lightless in a paradise of air and light. Night-blooming jasmine amidst the garbage cans.

–Lawrence Lipton

May 2008 – Bruno In Venice West

By Lawrence Lipton

For Giordano Bruno
burned by the Inquisition
in the year 1600

Velvet and warm sweat under the torches
the Procession entered the city, tall bronze men
on the bronze great horses and the boys
carrying banners, the fat prelates wheezing
under the icons, and the musicians

Up Main street, pausing to erect
the great crucifix in the Circle
before the U.S. Post Office, turning
into Windward avenue to St. Marks
Hotel, their flags and vestments, clowns

In motley, peddlers hawking live birds
and Turkish sweetmeats, drunks and tarts
lurching along under the colonnades
like any Saturday night, the P.A. horns
blasting rock ‘n’ roll, sob ballads

At the tavern doors, the winos
wandering in and out of the alleys,
blinking in the neon lights, and you
Giordano Bruno between the halberdiers
and the smoking torches wandering

In the wind off the Pacific, here
in this our Venice by the western sea
as when, hooded, under the marble
colonnades of old Venice once
you walked, curing the Doges; burning

Sapphire and crimson under his golden umbrella
the merchant prince, over the pigeon droppings
among the trash cans, Kinney’s dream
of gondolas and gondoliers, his
picture postcard Venice, chicken wire

And Pittsburgh Pipe and Iron, the columns
plaster, peeling now, the Grand Canal
fouled up with oil, the derricks taller
than windmills, we too, O merchant prince
live on to see the dreges and ravelings–

Tall steel and glass, high windows,
greed piled high on pride, the blessed
percentages; in vaticans of wealth
the popes and antipopes give audience
to the press, the old putridities,

And men go gibbering to themselves
aloud, hearing nothing, bereft
of all the simple certainties.
“When the first button’s wrong, all
are wrong,” you said. Bruno, Bruno,

When the iron key turned in the lock 
and the door clanged shut and the iron hand 
moved in the darkness, Bruno, was there 
sword play in the streets, the torches 
of the Night Watch lighting up

Cut purse and slit gullet, perfumes, 
pomades, the stinking armour, 
rapes, vomits, silk brocades? 
Here the century that began in plush 
and diamond stick-pin elegance

Explodes grotesquely beyond fire and ice 
orbiting in vacuums of space 
mathematics of disaster, madmen 
trapped in spidery black geometries. 
Do you remember Tintoretto’s

Mounting circles within circles? 
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus. 
The bible shouter on the corner 
speaks in tongues (I hear bullroarers 
drums of Africa!) The neo-Platonist
Newly dead, dumbfounded by his immortality, 
Newborn in worlds he never dreamed 
where life steams out of methane gas–
Bruno, Bruno, pinned to the center of 
the burning wheel, Adam Cadmon

In his mystic circle–”All is good 
and tends toward good,” you said. 
I walk beside you, unseen by
the halberdiers, up Ocean Front, 
wind whipped, slat-beaten, leaden-eyed

Past Dinty’s hot dog stand, a lush 
holds out a spastic hand, a junky 
hustling for a fix; the moon
is coming up a size too large, 
smog orange over the mountainous east.

Is it true the end is fire and ashes 
and no phoenix cries? Bruno, in 
the cold wet sea wind mountainous 
words tell out the last dark secrets, 
what is there to hide? I know

Four hundred years have not sufficed 
to cool those fires; the gentlemen 
of Florence, Genoa her ships at anchor, 
blood and incense rancid in the Roman Sun,
the poisonous wines of Florence, serpent

Women walk with hooded eyes–what 
was old Venice but a tourist trap, 
city of traders, merchants, speculators, 
middlemen, promoters, bankers–
jeweled slippers in the pigeon shit.

This, Bruno, is the Grand Canal, 
swamp scum, litter-. that’s old Michael 
toting a six-pack to his rented room, 
the window shades arc drawn on Teena 
and her lesbian lover, tears will flow–

0 Sappho of the golden eyes–this door 
conceals a love of three; those eyes 
in the window, broken mirrors in an empty 
room, rags and ashes, old newspapers, doors 
rot on their hinges, and the old go mad

Numbly contemplating death. hand 
reaches out to hand, a child 
dreams in a fever; old Cap in his
tiny shack reads by a ship’s lantern–
upturned faces under water, eyes

Like a stunned carp’s. This bridge 
has no approach no destination, 
hung between two hells. Was there 
thunder in your heart the night 
you pulled the crystal vault of heaven down!

And Tintoretto’s angel hosts lost 
endlessly in endless space 
with Thor and Adonai–they burned
you for it Bruno. This Venice 
of the West was born a bastard

Misshapen in tile womb out of 
some old world whore of Commerce 
by P. T. Barnum bred–when business 
and the arts are mated, 
money takes the Muse to bed

Bonds debentures title deeds wrapped up 
in flags and sermons, stamped 
with the Great Seal of the State; 
the Laws and Statutes are his alphabet his 
capital all upper case, cock o’ the walk

Three gilded balls his ensign out of 
Calvin Luther by the dark satanic 
mills now white supreme, on every 
dotted line his X has sealed 
your doom–and mine–

He’ll kill you for it again, Bruno, 
the Xian Gentleman, his 
AM FM TV movie image multiplied 
is stinking up a continent–
the commercial more and more becomes the show.

The wind has changed, the dry Santana 
hot breath of the desert: it’s the Hyperion 
sewer you smell: your Venice was no rose bed 
open sewers and tanners vats the fish wives 
haggling, sweat and fear, the smell that money makes

The windows darken, only the street lights 
and the torches now, our Venice sleeps; 
Your eyes burn, Bruno, scanning the heavens, 
vacant now; no angels hymn 
the heavenly court, we are rational men;

Those are landing lights, a Constellation 
blinking to a touchdown, that was not thunder 
but a sonic boom, our safety 
lies in speed, they tell us, death on wings 
the enemy is crafty, never sleeps

And godless, cobalt is his brain 
and poison gas, his heart burns liquid 
hydrogen, his breath is solar flame 
his fingers are a million secret spies 
we are his image–sanctified.

The latest satellite arcs across 
the sky, a star whose manger is 
a launching pad, the child a robot cradled 
in steel arms, his halo liquid fire 
his brain an electronic brain,

Our wise men bring no frankincense 
and myrrh, no visions wrung from love or pain
but only slide rules plots top secret 
plans, we do not stone our prophets, Bruno, 
we give them target dates.

Agnosco, ergo sum; we’ve come 
full cycle. Cohesion, color, sounds 
waves and radiations: res extensa. 
Giordano Bruno chemically 
changed by thermal action, Jesus

On the cross: a rearrangement 
of the particles. Our men 
of science will define the event: 
a thermodynamically stable 
configuration known as death.

Why has the music stopped? Look back, 
the Procession fades away, a slow 
dissolve, you stand alone; your 
lidless eyes are indrawn lost 
in contemplation like a foetal sleep

Where are the drums and trumpets? 
I had thought to hear the papal legate 
read out your doom in bastard latin 
hear a shout go up to heaven 
with your flames. I should have known;

A dead God needs no crucified 
to sanctify his name; no faith, 
ergo, no auto da fe;
we have a choice of trivial martyrdoms: 
if we must die for truth we die self-slain.

Your image fades and there is nothing now 
only the blind window panes 
of broken houses telephone poles 
that lean against the moon cracked 
pavements sinking into foul canals

I turn, retrace my steps to Windward 
and the Ocean Front, the pigeons 
of St. Marks Hotel are roosting in 
tile plaster niches, one lonely jukebox 
whimpers from an open tavern door

“I love you baby, why do you treat me 
so mean? “ A single wino staggers 
down the empty street, I cross 
the beach and look out to sea. “Sophocles 
long ago heard it on the Aegean”–here too

Many a truth-tormented Oedipus 
has reached land’s end, walked in 
for reasons Sophocles never dreamed 
and made his last incestuous marriage with 
the sea, as Bruno made his with the flame.

Homeward bound I stop for coffee at 
the Greek’s, scan the morning papers–
This night’s business may have meaning 
for our time-a poem or a play? I have 
work to do. I think (to paraphrase)

I shall not drown myself today.

April 2008 – Four Poems By James Ryan Morris

She Said 

there is a time
for us, & a place
for that – the poem.

such conflict, between
the lady & the poem
that separation is 

today, we look one
at the other, both
aware that in

the final love
there is no allowance
for tomorrow

———–

The Hope

softly, woman
softly,
your voice
my hand,

Our collaboration
of detail –

the way it is.

Quiet & softly
on the ledge
of night.

———–

Face To Face

In the cellar
I come
face to face
with a rat, brown
cornered

like myself…
if I move he moves,

and all I want is my stash
& to get 
back upstairs

to my ol lady.

Just which one
of us
knows
the rules
of survival & need

best?

———–

The Relief

Living with the poem
is very, very difficult.

It can’t cook, make a bed
or yield bread…

it does nothing for me.

But wait: my immense lies
are stabilized, & to be

relieved of that self
is accomplishment

outside of poetry.

April 2008 – The Venice Beat Poets – The Great River Outside The Mainstream – James Ryan Morris

By Shanna Moore 

Winter of 1959 and the boardwalk was bare, riding my bicycle along the boardwalk from Santa Monica down the coast. I’d stop at the Carousel, a gay bar on the Venice boardwalk where all the dudes and dudettes did a line dance…I loved joining in. One day this guy with the eyes of the ocean was sitting on a table watching me dance…our eyes met and never moved away, this poet taking me in as I was digging those eyes. Later we talked and walked, my bicycle between us, from Venice to Santa Monica. He just blew in from New York, this man of many words; I had a suitcase full of poetry I had written and never showed anyone and I wanted to show him.

This was only the beginning; we were constantly together and finally he hocked his typewriter and rented the whole basement of what is now the Morrison, just kitty corner from the Gas House where I worked as the art director. We lived in the basement, Tony Scibella, and Bruce Boyd Jimmy and myself. We rented four apartments, two were water-logged at high tide; 20 dollars a month, what a deal. 

the rhythm
of the beat poetry
wail of a soprano sax

Billie Holliday was Jimmy’s muse – he wrote for her, he wrote of her, he dried her tears and set them to paper; the lady, the inhumanity of the men in her life, man and the system and their wars, the blues . Jimmy blew bare fist to bone but softly, he cared. Tony was softer still and Stu bellowed it out. The Venice West, the other end of the tram ride, had more poetry… fingers snappin’ instead of applause…one hand clapping… so the establishment wouldn’t shut us down..The words a warning – would they listen?

the first drumming
echoes across
the sands of time

Jimmy wrote a story for Hollywood of Billie but they weren’t ready for such stark reality. Instead the story Diana Ross played was so far from what he knew and saw. He lived in her neighborhood, he new her blues, he felt her pain, he lived for Billie Holiday and it was her essence that traveled the cobblestone breezeway, her song. He wrote the blues, blowing ever so soft the fragrance of a white gardenia.
We were all destined to meet, the Lady brought us there, to cry out to each other, the poets with their ax’s honed, their words like acid rain, their humanity showing…break/straight.. ah yes ringside with the off the wall poets and the lady. Man and the system and their wars..the blues and reaching for the stars..touching the face of god..all part of the movement..these poets of Venice set out to change.. …Jimmy blew

Lawrence Lipton
sold us out
the tourists came

We exploded into the minds of many. They came wanting to see these bards of protest, huarache’s flappin’ on the cobblestone breezeway. Tourists who rode the tram pay a dime see the freaks. From the Gas House to the Venice West they rode, we laughed at them and walked, our dimes were for a cup of coffee and a table to sit and write.

bare self to bone
in search
of the answers

I’ve planted a Koa tree in your honor, oh Venice poets,
on the top of the mountain in Hawaii next to madam Pele
“The Poet Tree”
where sun and mist live
and the tradewinds blow.
I hang poetry on the limbs
and sometimes they blow away
words on the wind.

I always said the eyes have it, your eyes and the fetch of a wave. You said, “it’s the legs, baby, riding through my dreams”..what a winter of love and no one but us on the boardwalk, the poets waitin’ on the pome…a few locals and the surf and sand…

so many words
inspired by the lady
dance through the pages of time
the “Lady” walked with us…
held our hands
sang with us.
The Venice Beat Poets
–The Great River Outside the Mainstream –
JAMES RYAN MORRIS
By Shanna Moore
Winter of 1959 and the boardwalk was bare, riding my bicycle along the boardwalk from Santa Monica down the coast. I’d stop at the Carousel, a gay bar on the Venice boardwalk where all the dudes and dudettes did a line dance…I loved joining in. One day this guy with the eyes of the ocean was sitting on a table watching me dance…our eyes met and never moved away, this poet taking me in as I was digging those eyes. Later we talked and walked, my bicycle between us, from Venice to Santa Monica. He just blew in from New York, this man of many words; I had a suitcase full of poetry I had written and never showed anyone and I wanted to show him.
This was only the beginning; we were constantly together and finally he hocked his typewriter and rented the whole basement of what is now the Morrison, just kitty corner from the Gas House where I worked as the art director. We lived in the basement, Tony Scibella, and Bruce Boyd Jimmy and myself. We rented four apartments, two were water-logged at high tide; 20 dollars a month, what a deal.

the rhythm
of the beat poetry
wail of a soprano sax

Billie Holliday was Jimmy’s muse – he wrote for her, he wrote of her, he dried her tears and set them to paper; the lady, the inhumanity of the men in her life, man and the system and their wars, the blues . Jimmy blew bare fist to bone but softly, he cared. Tony was softer still and Stu bellowed it out. The Venice West, the other end of the tram ride, had more poetry… fingers snappin’ instead of applause…one hand clapping… so the establishment wouldn’t shut us down..The words a warning – would they listen?

the first drumming
echoes across
the sands of time

Jimmy wrote a story for Hollywood of Billie but they weren’t ready for such stark reality. Instead the story Diana Ross played was so far from what he knew and saw. He lived in her neighborhood, he new her blues, he felt her pain, he lived for Billie Holiday and it was her essence that traveled the cobblestone breezeway, her song. He wrote the blues, blowing ever so soft the fragrance of a white gardenia.
We were all destined to meet, the Lady brought us there, to cry out to each other, the poets with their ax’s honed, their words like acid rain, their humanity showing…break/straight.. ah yes ringside with the off the wall poets and the lady. Man and the system and their wars..the blues and reaching for the stars..touching the face of god..all part of the movement..these poets of Venice set out to change.. …Jimmy blew

Lawrence Lipton
sold us out
the tourists came

We exploded into the minds of many. They came wanting to see these bards of protest, huarache’s flappin’ on the cobblestone breezeway. Tourists who rode the tram pay a dime see the freaks. From the Gas House to the Venice West they rode, we laughed at them and walked, our dimes were for a cup of coffee and a table to sit and write.

bare self to bone
in search
of the answers

I’ve planted a Koa tree in your honor, oh Venice poets,
on the top of the mountain in Hawaii next to madam Pele
“The Poet Tree”
where sun and mist live
and the tradewinds blow.
I hang poetry on the limbs
and sometimes they blow away
words on the wind.

I always said the eyes have it, your eyes and the fetch of a wave. You said, “it’s the legs, baby, riding through my dreams”..what a winter of love and no one but us on the boardwalk, the poets waitin’ on the pome…a few locals and the surf and sand…

so many words
inspired by the lady
dance through the pages of time
the “Lady” walked with us…
held our hands
sang with us.

March 2008 – The Venice Beat Poets – The Great River Outside The Mainstream – Philomene Long

By Jim Smith

Philomene Long came late to the party, but she soon made up for lost time with her dynamic personality and soaring poetry. The Beat scene was a decade old when she arrived in Venice, but Long gave it new life and energy.

Readers of the Beachhead will know that her death last August resulted in an outpouring of articles and poems reflecting the great love and esteem in which she was held by our community.

She was born in another bohemian community, Greenwich Village, along with her identical twin Pegarty Long. After growing up in San Diego, she decided to become a Catholic nun and lived in a convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondolet for five years. 

After climbing over the convent wall one night, Long traveled extensively in Europe and had two children, Maureen and Patrick, before settling in Venice in 1968. Here she met Beat Poet Stuart Perkoff, and became his steady companion. When he died in 1974, she was at his bedside.

Long continued to write. Some of her books published over the years included The Queen of Bohemia, American Zen Bones, and with John Thomas, The Book of Sleep, The Ghosts of Venice West and Bukowski in the Bathtub. An excerpt from her unpublished novel, Memoirs of a Nun on Fire, appears in The Outlaw Bible of America Poetry. She also made films and acted, often collaborating with her sister, Filmmaker Pegarty Long. Her films include The Beats: An Existential Comedy, with Allen Ginsburg and The California Missions with Martin Sheen.

In 1974, Long began the study of Zen with Master Maezumi Roshi. She continued with him until his death in 1995. She later described herself as a Zen Catholic. Roshi gave Long her Zen name “Gyokuho” (fragrant jewel). He said, “Your fragrance will permeate the universe. But there is a reverse side to this as well – Don’t Be Stinky!” (American Zen Bones)

In 1983, she married Poet John Thomas (see February Beachhead, page 9). Long and Thomas were together until his death in 2002. They lived in the Ellison Apartments at Paloma Avenue and Speedway for many years. “Cold Ellison” became a theme of a number of Long’s poems.

In 2005, she was recognized as the Poet Laureate of Venice by the Los Angeles City Council. 

Long’s poetry combines a descriptive love of her community with a Zen sensibility that often takes her poems in directions that are both surprising and pleasurable to the reader. Jack Kerouac’s concept of beatitude also had a profound influence on Long. Kerouac said that “Beat” stemmed from beatitude, which he defined as “trying to love all life, trying to be utterly sincere with everyone, practicing endurance, kindness, cultivating joy of heart…”

Philomene Long is generally recognized as one of the major women poets of the Beat Generation. Even though the Beat milieu was dominated by men, many with inflated egos, she gave no quarter. It has been said that Long “filled up a room” when she entered, by virtue of the force of her personality. She was friends with Allan Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, Charles Bukowski, Wanda Coleman, and with Venice poets Tony Scibella, Frank Rios, and others. 

At an inauguration ceremony for Councilmember Bill Rosendahl at Windward Plaza in 2005, Long was invited to read the poem she had written for the occasion (see Beachhead, August 2005). Much of the poem was a paean to the glory of Venice. When she read it at L.A. City Hall, to the City Council, at Rosendahl’s invitation, its celebration of Venichismo caused shock and consternation among the Los Angeles officials. 

Their reaction must have pleased Philomene, who once wrote: There is no comfort/In the poem./Expect to be seared/But to have entry.

•••••

Venice
Holy Ground
Stained with the blood of poets
City which lies
Beneath the breasts of birds
Guarded by cats
Behind every corner
The Muse, Angel of Surprise
Poems out of pavement cracks

–Philomene Long
Her poem, reproduced on the Venice Poetry Wall in Windward Plaza

March 2008 – Philomene Long’s Cold Ellison I

 “Cold Ellison,” the apartment building on Paloma Avenue where she and John Thomas lived, became a theme of a number of Long’s poems.

 Cold Ellison I
By Philomene Long

“Cold cliffs more beautiful
The deeper you enter
Yet no one travels this road”
Cold Mountain – Han Shan

In this old cold building
The Ellison
In this small dark room
I sit cross-legged
Upon an old stale mattress
The feathers are finally 
Leaving my pillow
To rejoin the birds of the air
At least once a month
The upstairs neighbor’s toilet overflows
Our ceiling bulges
The walls turn black and green
in this dripping room
All my clothes are torn
Our only guests
The ghosts, the mice
Only dust
Over dog-eared books 
And drifts of paper
Like dirty snow
My daughter stays away, says
“You were never a model
For a nine to five job.”
My son visits occasionally
Long enough to smile
And ask for an aspirin
In this cold room
The window is bricked up
The pipes leak
Puddles always on the kitchen floor
Never any rice in the pot
Once there was a view
A eucalyptus tree, a ghost gum
It was cut down in June
I, who once was proud 
That they called me
“The Queen of Bohemia”
Now blush, ashamed
“John!” I call
“I’m trying to bring myself
Out of something –
To nothing…
I’m going to pray
To embrace this poverty!”
“Pray to embrace silence
We already have poverty!” he says
“Hey. We’re doing pretty well
For a tired old man
And a crazy lady…
Tomorrow I’ll get you
A crown of rhinestones.
Do I give you enough?”
“John, to have you
For my companion
Through the glass centuries
Your diamond body
Calm, enormous land
This is the only center
That I seek.”
At night
The cockroaches come out
They walk across my neck
To get to Masami Teraoka’s print
“Zen Monk On A Blue Whale”
Hakuin contemplates death
They take refuge in the Buddha
Little insect eyes. Sad. Sad.
But too many. A thousand at least
So they must die
We’ll use the money from
Selling our books of poems
To purchase roach poison
There are no roads
From this cold Ellison
Better sit still
And quiet the ills
Of the mind
I sit high in this old building
Higher yet the sky passes slowly
The birds swirl
incautious, completely free
I climb the road
To cold, cold Ellison
The road that never ends
“Who can break the snares of the world
And sit with me
Among the white clouds?”

–from The Queen of Bohemia, Philomene Long, Lummox Press

February 2008 – Interview with Venice Poet Frank T. Rios, Part 2

Part 2 (see January Beachhead for Part 1)

By Hillary Kaye

 

Beachhead: Is there anything else about Philomene Long you’d like to share?

Frankie: When she did The Beats, An Existentialist Comedy, I was involved in that. She was always a strange bird. She was outside the tip, even though she was with Stuart [Perkoff]. When he died she went to John [Thomas] …well I think that relationship was the best relationship she could have, they had this connection, she started to see that the poem, that thing where she came from having been a nun, like she was in revelation too. She had that experience. John was very knowledgeable and was dedicated like Stuart. And I think that’s where she got her voice. So that was really good. And we got very close because me and John were close, well John was like my poetry sponsor. I’d go down to Venice to their pad and we’d talk about poetry and I’d take my work. So it was important. And then when John died I got very tight with Philomene and we carried it on.  

Beachhead: So you stayed in contact.

Frankie: Oh yeah. We were supposed to do this reading & collage show at Sponto Gallery.

Beachhead: That never came about?

Frankie: Oh yeah it did. We were supposed to do it together, we were talking, you know Frankie there’s really no one that I’d like to read with but you. Yeah that’s a great idea. Me too, I’m reading with nobody. We could do a collage show too. I was working on these collages. I had some already because I previously did collage shows and readings. I had some left, but I did about forty others for this reading . That Tuesday we were supposed to meet for lunch and talk about what we were going to do and kind of finalize it and she died that day or that night. Too weird, too sad. I had called her the night before. Yeah, okay I’ll see you tomorrow.  So she must have died during that night or that morning.

Beachhead: Do you want to talk about your writing?

Frankie: Sure. How I go about writing a poem. It’s still the same way. Usually I have the line, the opening line. And I’m receiving it. If it don’t come all out, if I get stuck, it don’t work. I’m good enough where I could –

Beachhead: Fiddle with it.

Frankie: Yeah I could make it right, but it’s not satisfying, it’s not really the way it should be. Everything I write has to come out clean, as I receive it. If I follow it and it has to do with trust. But usually it’s the opening line, unless of course I’m on a blow then one poem follows the other, then I don’t have to think about the opening line, you know what I mean.

Beachhead: Yes I do. I saw that you were very moved at the memorial for Philomene the other night. Is that why you left?

Frankie: Yeah. I left for the other one too, for Tony. 

Beachhead: Yes I noticed 

Frankie: Can’t handle it.

Beachhead: I understand.

Frankie: Can’t handle it, there are too many of them, the next one I’m going to do is for me. Shit. Well you know how it is. You can’t really dictate that stuff.

Beachhead: Right. How is your health?

Frankie: Very good  Very good 

Beachhead : That’s great. 

Frankie: With this new kidney, very good.

Beachhead: How many books have you written?

Frankie: I’ve written eleven books.

Beachhead: Are these books available?

Frankie: Some, here’s how it goes. You write a book, you get the money to publish it. You publish your book and then you do the reading. And you sell a bunch of books and you get some of the money back. And the rest you just give them out or sell them here or there, and that’s the way we always did it

Beachhead: Right, right, the life of a poet.

Frankie: Yeah you know what I mean.

Beachhead: Do you think about your mortality?

Frankie: No

Beachhead: Do you think about your poetry being read?

Frankie: Well yeah my poetry is read. 

Beachhead: Yes I know. What I mean is do you think about it going on after you, and people still knowing who you are and wanting —

Frankie: Some will, some won’t. That’s the way it is. What did Tony say, “There won’t be no parade for us”. (Frankie laughs)  So it’s all about right now, it’s all about what you do now, every time the chance comes up I present it and usually I get a very good response whenever I do a reading.

Beachhead: I thought your reading was beautiful the other night.

Frankie: Yeah, and the one I did at Sponto Gallery, with the collage show reading was excellent. The place was packed. And the people just loved it. Man they just start taking the collages off the wall. Cause I sell them real cheap so people can buy them, you know $25.00, $50.00 for the big ones. So they just went nuts. It was really cool. Yeah good stuff. 

Beachhead: This is a funny question, if you don’t want to answer, please feel free not to. Were there things you liked better about yourself when you were on dope? And are there things not being on dope that you like better about yourself now ? I’m trying —

Frankie: Yeah I did everything right to get here. And I’ve done everything right to stay. I was good at it.

Beachhead: So you enjoyed your time being —

Frankie: Well it wasn’t about joy. That’s who you are, that’s it. I did the best I could.

Beachhead: Right, I see.

Frankie: When I look at my old notebooks, I see across the page, pain and black, all the images of my mind, leaked out, the angel, the death, the metamorphosis, pages and pages and then blop the poem falls out.

Beachhead: The poem falls out?

Frankie: Yeah a perfect poem on the page. 

Beachhead: Right, okay.

Frankie: Dig, cause that’s the way,  The Perfect Poem, but the insanity of the drugs you dig, the mind into the dark side, the drug- life, in truth, the Lady is pissed at me.

Beachhead: Because?

Frankie: Because I’m using drugs and I’m fogging the mirror, I’m fogging the window, I’ve forgotten the poem. I’m fogging the flow I’m trying to write the poem. See you don’t write the poem, you receive it. It’s like way different. So now when I look at my notebooks, every page is clean.

Beachhead: And that’s because why, because you’re clean now?

Frankie: Yeah, because I’m clean.

Beachhead: So it’s just coming out clean. 

Frankie: Yeah, I don’t have to change anything. Once in a while when you transfer it, type it,  you might see oh if I take this line out the leap would emphasize the next image really good. See with craft you make that choice because now I’m into craft, not the poem.

Beachhead: Now you’re into craft, not the poem? 

Frankie: Yeah.

Beachhead: How’s that possible when your into receiving it?

Frankie: Craft is after you receive the poem. 

Beachhead: I thought craft is like when you perfect something.

Frankie: That’s what I’m doing. That’s the craft. Exactly. So there’s little stuff, oh I want to break it here, or this is the form, I see that the form it was written in, and I didn’t complete that, it broke itself somehow, because it’s automatic, your hand goes and sometimes you break the poem where you shouldn’t, so you do that. Sometimes you take the word, oh I need to emphasize that one. So that kind of craft thing.

Beachhead: Are you sorry you don’t live in Venice?

Frankie: Yes, I wish I did. See when I was living in Venice on Cabrillo next to “The Temple of Man.” I loved it,  I was clean, and walking and writing. I love Venice.

Beachhead: Who started “The Temple of Man”?

Frankie: Bob Alexander.

Beachhead: And what was he like?

Frankie: He was a character, an original, an original cut. He was with all those guys, David Meltzer, George Herms, Altoon, Artie Richard, the San Francisco tip, the jazz clubs. Then he had this vision of the temple, Art is Love is God, which is Wally Berman’s sound. And for the sentient being, the free being, the one outside the society, because the whole concept of it fit me perfect cause I never worked, voted, paid taxes

or drove a car. Till only a few years ago, five years ago, something like that. Seven years ago. So that was the whole idea, not to be involved with the society, but only in the creative act.

Beachhead: So are you political now would you say?

Frankie: No I listen to it, but I only voted once for Bill Clinton because his brother was a recovering addict so I thought oh man maybe he’ll do something for us. I don’t think he ever did anything, but that’s why I voted, once so far. The whole thing about the political thing is it’s all big business. They control the whole thing. You know 5 % of the people own 95 % of the world, and 95% of the people own 5% of the world. And they got it controlled. And our government is selling everything to China and they’re selling America. Everything’s from China. You can’t find American products. So the middle class is out and there’s going to be rich and poor, and that’s how they want it, and they control the whole thing.

Beachhead: I know. It’s horrible.

Frankie: Terrible.

Beachhead: Fascism.

Frankie: Yeah, America is going to be gone.

Beachhead: America is gone.

Frankie: Almost. There’s still pockets.

Beachhead: Do you ever think of leaving the country?

Frankie: No.

Beachhead: You’re here for the ride.

Frankie: Oh yeah. I only got ten or fifteen left. Eighty seven I’m probably out, Think I’m going to become independent or free.

Beachhead: Is there anything you’d like to cover in this article that I haven’t asked about?

Frankie: Well just the importance of Stuart Perkoff, Tony Scibella, Jimmy Morris, John Thomas, Philomene Long who kind of carried the torch there. Just the idea that she was present. And I just hope that that’s part of history, stays part of the history.

Beachhead: I’d like to get the library in Venice to carry all of the Venice West poets’ books. You go to the Venice library and there’s nothing there. I think it’s a disgrace that they aren’t there. Maybe there could be some kind of grant to do this or have something done.

Frankie: Well I’d like the history to be remembered whenever anything is happening they would be able to come up. Like being put in a library and that kind of stuff. I think we have a lot of the art work we’ve done through the years at UCLA. I think so. It’s always been a problem. We always talked about it. Larry Lake —

Beachhead: That’s so funny, I knew Larry Lake so many years ago. In fact Larry Lake and I did a poetry reading together twenty five years ago. Maybe twenty eight years ago now that I think about it. Is he still alive?

Frankie: No

Beachhead: What happened to him? 

Frankie: He stepped out of the tub and died of a heart attack. 

Beachhead: Where was he living?

Frankie: Denver. Now his kid, I just talked to him yesterday, he was going back to Denver for the holidays, he’ll be back the beginning of the year. He has the trunkload full of original copies of our work.

Beachhead: Of art work?

Frankie: Of all the poetry we’ve done through the years. Of course Marsha Getzler has the stash and I have some of it. But he has the original copies, untouched.

Beachhead: So what’s going to be done with them?

Frankie: He’s a writer, he loves poetry. He read at Tony’s thing, he’s good. He’s with us.

Beachhead: What’s his name?

Frankie: Yama Lake

Beachhead: I notice you have a book of Diane Di Prima? Did you know her? 

Frankie: Yeah she’s a heavyweight,  She’s done some great stuff. I was never that tight with her. Tony was tight with her. She loved Tony, they all loved Tony. All the girls loved Tony. 

Beachhead: Did the girls love Stuart?

Frankie: Yeah, they all loved Stuart too. I mean they loved me too, but different. I was more reserved. I was always looking for love.

Beachhead: So Diane Di Prima was crazy about Tony?

Frankie: Oh I’m sure they did it together, but they weren’t lovers or anything like that. Called free love.

Beachhead: Yeah that was going on at the time.

Frankie: Yeah I was in prison all those years anyway. From 61 to 68. 

Beachhead: You were in prison that long?

Frankie: Yeah, probably did about —

Beachhead: Where were you in prison?

Frankie: Federal joint. Terminal Island.

Beachhead: How did you handle your time?

Frankie: Oh I did good time.

Beachhead: What does that mean?

Frankie: It means I knew how to do time. I probably did eleven years all together.

Beachhead: So when you said you did good time you mean you read….

Frankie: Yeah read, wrote. I had a good tip, a good job, I knew how to jail.

Beachhead: And what gave you that kind of —

Frankie: Experience.

Beachhead: To be able to handle it in that kind of way.

Frankie: Going to jail. I’m a guy, stand up and all that. I got all the history, I got the credentials.

Beachhead: Right. But somebody can do time and go insane, and somebody can do time and really use it as a period of real growth and learning. You can do time in a lot of different ways.

Frankie: That’s right. Like when Stuart came he didn’t know how to do time.

Beachhead: So he was really suffering.

Frankie: Yeah when I got there I just took him under my wing and brought him into the tip and everything changed.

Beachhead: So you guys were there together?

Frankie: Yeah we walked the yard together for a long time.

Beachhead: That’s incredible.

Frankie: Yeah it was great. We had conversations that were unbelievable about poetry and the Lady Muse, what to read and all that stuff.

Yeah we had a nice trip. That was a good time.

Beachhead: Because you could really focus.

Frankie: Yeah there are people that really dig each other, and we guard each other’s backs. When it’s a Federal joint it’s a lot easier than if it’s a State. There aren’t too many gunsels. Guys that are trying to make a reputation. Everybody in a Federal joint got a heavy beef. And you know they were older and they were there just to do their time.

Beachhead: Where can people get your poetry? 

Frankie: You want to take some things to Beyond Baroque?

Beachhead: I’d be happy to do that.