Two Poems from Doug Draime

Drinking Wine With A Beautiful, Raving Lunatic

She said my frame of

reference was obtuse,

though as I recall my

frame of reference was

Picasso and Matisse. And

after two bottles of wine

from her uncle’s vineyard,

I wasn’t sure who had read

more books about Paris

of the roaring 1920’s,

her or me. I gave her

the benefit of the doubt about

that obtuse remark, when at

two in the morning she

got naked, took my hand,

giggling and babbling,

and lead me down to the

wine cellar for a third bottle.

 

 

 

Waiting On A Poem

Is not like waiting for a plane, or a train,

or a malfunctioning old Greyhound bus at 4 A.M. Waiting for

a poem is not similar at all to biding

your time with a book on a shiny oak bench outside a women’s

clothing boutique, in a glitzy decadent American mall

for your wife, or your girl friend to hurry up

and finish her shopping. No, waiting for a poem is

life or death - with no stammering bullshit in the margins and no

compromise possible. Either it’s burning bamboo

shoots under your toes, or your toes in white sand,

moist and cool on a Caribbean night. Indeed, waiting on a poem

will rip your heart out by the arteries, or it will dance with

ecstatic joy on all the empty graves of earth.

 

 

 

 

Doug Draime has a full-length collection due out from Interior Noise Press in 2012. A presence in the underground literary movement for nearly five decades.  Most recent books in print include: Los Angeles Terminal:  Poems 1971-1980 (Covert Press) and Rock 'n Roll Jizz (Propaganda Press ). Awarded small PEN grants in 1987, 1991, and 1992. Nominated for several Pushcart Prizes in last few years. He lives in the foothills of Oregon.