Well, here I am, late Monday night, July 6, 2015, listening to southern Moroccan music,
alone with Cleo the cat. I never come to this site. Not even sure why I created it. So very like
me, you know. A poet once said of my work, "He throws himself around like Pollack throwing paint."
This was said of my publishing 1600 (yes, 1600) editions of Passaic Review Ezine over a period of 5 years, beginning immediately after the infamous 9/11 and ending sometime around America's hideous, tragic, despicable "shock and awe" invasion of Baghdad.  Yeah, I'd had it. Gave up on America's chance to save itself. So, I stopped publishing at least that particular incarnation of Passaic Review. Anyway, yeah, this poet was referring to how I gave you all one hundred and fifty percent of myself in those 1600 issues. I risked myself completely. I was afraid at some point the FBI would be knocking on my door for criticizing America. But then again, I thought in some innocent notion of continuing belief in at least the ideal of this nation, in free speech, in free thought, in free expression, that, no, no one would knock on my door, unless it was to announce maybe a Pulitzer or Nobel.
Ah, see?  How egotistical I am at times. Often, really. Full of myself. But no more than Whitman was or advised us to be, no more than America itself.

Because, readers, I AM THE ULTIMATE AMERICAN POET!  I am big, vast, full of contradictions, full of criticisms of this great nation, and full of love for it. Oh my god, did I actually say love?  Yes, I did.  The way, as I've said in a poem, the way a boy loves his errant father. A father is still a father.
So America is to me. My birth place. My home.

The Moroccan music soothes me tonight.

Poet on!
Rich Quatrone

NO APOLOGY!

let's get something straight.

i'm a full-fledged member of the

60s generation!

The Generation!

not generation x or double x

or even xxx.

No!

i graduated from high school in 1965

and graduated from college in 1969.

i am completely, unapologetically

a complete product of the crazy, wonderful,

mad, hopeful, imaginative, Imaginative,

love-crazed, liberating, generous, brave,

exciting, pure, unadulterated, unexpurgated,

committed, dreaming, dreamful 60s!

the generation that fought for african americans,

women, kids, foreigners, the generation that ended,

ENDED!!! the vietnam war, the generation that kicked

nixon out of office, the generation of martin luther king,

malcolm x, john kennedy, robert kennedy, medgar evers,

the black panters, the weather underground, angela davis,

william kuenstler, bob dylan, the beatles, joan baez,

you name it, you name them, any and all, revolutionaries,

dreamers, fighters.

and us, we, i? we inhaled it, ate it, were eaten by it,

entirely consumed by love and truth and justice

and the will to fight the motherfuckers who pushed

fear and hatred on us and the world.

did we lose? NO!! they killed us, murdered us,

lied about us, tricked us, all of it.

but they did not kill us!!

we are here, 60 years old, 65, 70 years old.

you think we're "senior citizens," that shitty,

terrible, bullshit, castrating, condescending term.

you think we're only good for endless commercials

about medicine, illness, hospitals, "senior citizen centers,"

and the rest of it, all of it denying our power, our wisdom,

our endless libidinous energy and courage.

but you're wrong, totally full of shit.

we are here alive and well.

waiting for some generation, ANY GENERATION

to try to match us! waiting for any generation

to join us!!!

rich quatrone July 18, 2012

NO APOLOGY!

let's get something straight.

i'm a full-fledged member of the

60s generation!

The Generation!

not generation x or double x

or even xxx.

No!

i graduated from high school in 1965

and graduated from college in 1969.

i am completely, unapologetically

a complete product of the crazy, wonderful,

mad, hopeful, imaginative, Imaginative,

love-crazed, liberating, generous, brave,

exciting, pure, unadulterated, unexpurgated,

committed, dreaming, dreamful 60s!

the generation that fought for african americans,

women, kids, foreigners, the generation that ended,

ENDED!!! the vietnam war, the generation that kicked

nixon out of office, the generation of martin luther king,

malcolm x, john kennedy, robert kennedy, medgar evers,

the black panters, the weather underground, angela davis,

william kuenstler, bob dylan, the beatles, joan baez,

you name it, you name them, any and all, revolutionaries,

dreamers, fighters.

and us, we, i? we inhaled it, ate it, were eaten by it,

entirely consumed by love and truth and justice

and the will to fight the motherfuckers who pushed

fear and hatred on us and the world.

did we lose? NO!! they killed us, murdered us,

lied about us, tricked us, all of it.

but they did not kill us!!

we are here, 60 years old, 65, 70 years old.

you think we're "senior citizens," that shitty,

terrible, bullshit, castrating, condescending term.

you think we're only good for endless commercials

about medicine, illness, hospitals, "senior citizen centers,"

and the rest of it, all of it denying our power, our wisdom,

our endless libidinous energy and courage.

but you're wrong, totally full of shit.

we are here alive and well.

waiting for some generation, ANY GENERATION

to try to match us! waiting for any generation

to join us!!!

rich quatrone July 18, 2012

NO APOLOGY!

let's get something straight.

i'm a full-fledged member of the

60s generation!

The Generation!

not generation x or double x

or even xxx.

No!

i graduated from high school in 1965

and graduated from college in 1969.

i am completely, unapologetically

a complete product of the crazy, wonderful,

mad, hopeful, imaginative, Imaginative,

love-crazed, liberating, generous, brave,

exciting, pure, unadulterated, unexpurgated,

committed, dreaming, dreamful 60s!

the generation that fought for african americans,

women, kids, foreigners, the generation that ended,

ENDED!!! the vietnam war, the generation that kicked

nixon out of office, the generation of martin luther king,

malcolm x, john kennedy, robert kennedy, medgar evers,

the black panters, the weather underground, angela davis,

william kuenstler, bob dylan, the beatles, joan baez,

you name it, you name them, any and all, revolutionaries,

dreamers, fighters.

and us, we, i? we inhaled it, ate it, were eaten by it,

entirely consumed by love and truth and justice

and the will to fight the motherfuckers who pushed

fear and hated on us and the world.

did we lose? NO!! they killed us, murdered us,

lied about us, tricked us, all of it.

but they did not kill us!!

we are here, 60 years old, 65, 70 years old.

you think we're "senior citizens," that shitty,

terrible, bullshit, castrating, condescending term.

you think we're only good for endless commercials

about medicine, illness, hospitals, "senior citizen centers,"

and the rest of it, all of it denying our power, our wisdom,

our endless libidinous energy and courage.

but you're wrong, totally full of shit.

we are here alive and well.

waiting for some generation, ANY GENERATION

to try to match us! waiting for any generation

to join us!!!

rich quatrone July 18, 2012

WHAT WE DO TO CHILDREN

WHAT WE DO TO CHILDREN

Sandusky and Paterno surprise everyone.
Then, tell me, why don't thy surprise me?
Shock me, yes. Surprise, no.
Read Criminal Schools, my play.
Look at Iraq and Afghanistan.
Too much of a stretch for you?
What, that we should have violently
barged into two poor nations for the sake
of oil and future markets and turned them
into chaos.
What of the children in those countries?
And what of the young people here, almost
all of them poor, who go to fight these wars,
if you can call them legitimately wars, which
implies equal armies in combat, and learn to
kill and destroy, who themselves are killed,
who are maimed both physically and emotionally,
only to return to America and receive poor medical
attention or none? And what of their families, these
existentially courageous young people whose courage
could and should have been put to much better
use and guided by elders in this country?
But, then, we do not have elders, do we?
We have "senior citizens," people not even afforded
the dignity of being old women and old men and,
yes, elders with wisdom we make a place for in
our society.
So, the abuse of children at Penn State?
A surprise?
When football rules that university, when the money
involved in the program and the advertising and all
the rest of it.
Protection of children?
In our schools, on our streets, in our homes?
Hardly.


Rich Quatrone July 12 2012 

A DOG'S LIFE

The sad call comes moments ago.
KC the dog will have to be put to sleep.

She's become incontinent.
Even she's embarrassed.

The human mother of KC the dog
tells me this and no doubt it is true.

This is the nature of things.
One day perhaps my mother

Will tell God Himself, "Look at my
son, Lord. He's not the boy anymore.

He's not even the young man anymore.
The one I told he would have many girlfriends.

He's not even the middle aged man anymore,
the one who made such a cruel act and hurt

His wife so badly, the woman I considered my
daughter.  I hope you have forgiven him. Because

He has not forgiven himself.  No, my God, he is
now becoming an old man.  He's got years left.

I won't pretend to know how many. But You know,
God, how many. You do, right?  But if you don't,

Please ask me and I will tell you when it's time
to have him put to sleep."


Rich Quatrone July 10 2012

BATS

the bats have flown out of my attic and into my bedroom
and livingroom and kitchen and bathroom and the boys'
old room and the hallway. the cat can't get to the bats
because she can't fly. i can't get to the bats because i
can't cry.  mozart plays on the cd player, given by
the bats to me when they were friendly and kind and
loyal. but they were bats and said i was the problem
with america and said i have an elevated sense of myself
and that i'm a phony and that i'm inauthentic as a poet
because i don't run around publishing my work or making
batbooks or whatever else you want to call the stuff that
flies around this batty country in the dark.

anyway, i'm here and alone and have no one to talk to.
not even my woman who probably thinks i'm bats if
not inauthentic and phony and possessed of an inflated
sense of my own worth and importance.

but, truly, really, without the bats, i used to be pretty
damn good and might still be.


rich quatrone
debattified
23apr12
1:13pm
sprung leak