I Saw The Best Minds Of My Generation
          (With No Apologies To Ginsberg)
 
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed
By success and greed
Smug fashionable poets turned businessmen
Who rode the National Endowment For the
Arts pimp train, ignoring Captain Cool and his magic airplane
I saw the best minds of my generation loitering
At closed down amusement parks
Disguised as hobo tramps standing in lone lines
In hope of becoming a Southern Pacific Railway detective
Self-proclaimed geniuses tossing restlessly in their sleep
Like a pair of naked dice on a worn Las Vegas craps table
Their ragged claws scraping at death’s window ledge
 
I saw the best minds of my generation lying lifeless
In glass coffins, hands folded in gratification
Their vacant eyes blinking like a pinball machine
 
I saw the best mind of my generation
Hanging out at Broadway topless bars
Searching for paradise
Fat and content, smoking Tijuana slims
Stone-faced magicians on their way to the graveyard
Three steps behind the screaming organ grinder
With the one-eyed monkey on his back
 
I saw the best minds of my generation
Looking like James Bond understudies
Cruising the casinos of Reno
Being chauffeured though the neon lit streets
Of Atlantic City
On the way to the David Letterman show
Looking for the Now, Wow vision of their
Personal Zen masters
Pretty faced aging celebrities
Hungry for the admiration connection
Who carried the star fuck media message
Inside their chemically induced minds
Who wealthy and overcome with ego
Wandered the streets butter cheeked
And Crisco greased in search of there
15 minutes of fame
 
 
I saw the best minds of my generation
Walking down Hollywood and Vine
Tossing and turning in exclusive spas while
Ignoring the long line of hungry eyes
Waiting to devour them
Who floated across congested Los Angeles
Freeways looking for the right off-ramp
Stopping to partake of the pleasures of
Heated swimming pools
And Roman orgy bath houses
All the time contemplating their navels
And recording contracts
 
I saw the best minds of my generation
Bare their not so tight assholes
To aging agents wrapped in silk sheets
Autographed by the King of the Beats
 
I saw the best mind of my generation
Gangbanging ageless groupies from
San Francisco to New York and back
While accumulating frequent mile allowances
Sad-eyed space cadets from the
Gregory Corso School of Bad Boys
 
I saw the best minds of my generation expelled
From luxury hotels for writing bad graffiti
In the men’s room
Who necked in the back alley of Gino
And Carlo’s Bar while hawking there
Poetry in between withdrawals at ATM’s
All the time dreaming of   HOWL
 
I saw the best minds of my generation cowering
In New York subways on their way
To literary parties
Lusting after host and hostess alike
 
I saw the best minds of my generation
Standing naked in fear
Burning out their counterfeit talent
At Sardi’s and Elaine’s
As the final hours came closing
In on them
 
 I saw the best minds of my generation
Listen in terror as the four walls came crashing
Down on them
Lady obscurity coming to claim them
Like a faceless hat-check girl let loose
In the morgues of America