POETRY BY FRED R. KANE

A doctor of English literature once accused Fred R. Kane of being a poet. Another accuser was a reporter from the local newspaper who asked Kane how long had he been a poet. Kane replied, “I’m not a poet. I’m a lyricist.” The reporter, not having that, wrote that Kane is a writer. 

To set the record straight, Kane will state that he isn’t driven enough to be a writer, and he’s not sensitive enough to be a poet, but the music that won’t leave his head forces him to be a lyricist. The highest praise a lyricist can receive, according to Kane, is to have his or her lyrics stand alone, and published as poetry. Five of Kane’s first seven poems are lyrics. So, there’s that. For the record, Kane will attempt a poem or two every once in a while. How you tell his poems from the lyrics is that the poems lack rhyme and rhythm, and his lyrics can sometimes lack reason.   

No one can accuse Kane of being prolific. Since 1990, Kane has had his verse published in the following publications: Walpurgis Night, CCTC Reflections 94, Necrotic Tissue, The Best of Necrotic Tissue, The Horror Zine, and Pedestal Magazine. His only short story appeared in Morpheus Tales, and reprinted in The Best of Morpheus Tales Vol. 2. He has written letters to Fangoria, Rue Morgue, and Guitar World. Five of his letters have been published. Yes, Kane counts these as part of his “literary accomplishments.”  

THE SITE AND SONG OF LOW-RES CHARIOTS

Dig those ancient desert graves:
the poem that hides beneath
some royal rock of ages.
Exquisite corpse!
Got speculation?
You say the hieroglyphs are more 
than just some epitaph;
and infer the gaze of the Sphinx
had seen the midnight glow
of  falling star chariots
bringing old gods to the temples.
Forcing rhyme where should be reason  
gives quick answer to the question:

“Are we alone?”
Ozymandias,

I dig the lyric to your perfect song,
but losing time had killed the jam.
Though the verse is one cool read,
It’s nowhere near the perfect poem.
So what I got: a stoner blunt tune 
for every dead civilization
that lost where it had been
to where it was going.

Dig! I’m told the new gods play
in their cryogenic dreams,
asleep behind a secret door
beneath Area 51
(or Disney World)!

SUNSET FRAMED IN A TEARDROP MIRROR

So, we’re crusin; Wyatt Fonda, Billy Hopper
(on those famous panhead choppers,)
and me, out of place, on my Triumph:
a 21st century Brit interpretation of Billy’s machine.
I’m feeling a scene from a late sixties biker film;
my back, warmed by the falling desert sun.
Riding east, road trance erases time.
Loses distance.
Adventures caught and released, run away to their own music.
Road noise lullabies like, Rolling Stones covered by
Paul Brady and the Forest Rangers:
“Gimme Shelter.”
A teardrop mirror frames Utah,
color drenched by the falling sun:
Monument Valley
(the place of Hollywood imaginary westerns).
“Check my Brain.”
Alice in Chains assures me:
California’s all right.

The road shape-shifts.
Signs change.
Wyatt lost face: another image in a rear-view dusk.
Billy, he faded to ghost; smilin’ like a dope dealing Cheshire cat:
Icon of the Hollywood rebel.
I’m Sunday-alone on a Bible belt interstate, heading south
looking right
at the dusk of my adolescence.

WIRE MOTHER

Byting the
Gorilla Glass tit,
we cling to wire mother.
While she feeds our mind, we need
nothing from the outside.
Programmatic nourishment,
we crave, and not some effigy
of the warmth and comforting
Harlow’s findings claimed we need.

We are hive-tied: mind to mind.
While gazing at the enclosed sky,
we feel our whole is greater than
the some of its components.
Are we more than human?
Homo-gestalt?
Or growing feral?
Singularity?
Post humanity?
Or do we lose by gaining Moore?