A.D. Winans: California Poets Part 8, Five Poems

A.D. Winans

January 8th, 2025

California Poets: Part VIII

A.D. Winans

Five Poems

SAN FRANCISCO SKYLINE

San Francisco skyline

Blanketed in fog

Wears her history

Like a harlot dressed

In a tight-fitting dress.

Her breath fills your nostrils with longing

She’s a ballerina walking a high tension wire

Ghosts of her past dissolve into each other

Rooms of walls dare you to enter.

Fists clenched like a boxer

She plays your mind like a card shark

Doors of Nirvana open and close

Like trick mirrors at the fun house.

She’s like an aging jockey

Looking for one last ride

On a magnificent horse

That crosses the finish line

Barely breaking a sweat.

LOST SUMMER OF LOVE

We made love in this house

That long ago Summer of Love

The sun peaking through The tattered shades

Of the old Victorian structure

Where we jammed on the floor

All day and night

Posters of Janis Joplin

And Jimi Hendrix on the walls

An empty six-pack

A burned-out roach for company

Made music with our bodies

As the nine-to-five crowd prepared

Their death march to work.

Passing this house decades later

The months the years piled-up

Like liter

I watch a cat in the alley

Stake out its territory

Stare down a would-be intruder.

Visions of that lost Summer of Love

Flicker inside my head

Ignite a fire extinguished

Quick as a blink

Death crawls sideways

Up the banister carries away

My memories in an empty satchel.

WOMAN ON THE BALCONY

I see her two three times a week

sitting on the balcony

when weather permits

here in old Italy town

in what is left of North Beach.

her robe slightly parted

she thumbs through the pages

of a book she may or not be reading

takes no notice of the people coming

and going down below.

I watch her stand legs like sturdy pillars

that stretch to reach the sky

into the boundaries of my mind.

my eyes beg to read the pages

she turns with sensual fingers

want just one quick look

one intimate journey into the pages

into the space between

the parting of her robe.

a journey to forbidden places

a flight back in time

to another place another world

high on a balcony where I too

ignore the people coming and going

down below.

NEW YEAR'S DAY POEM

Some things stick in your mind

Like dental cement

Your first kiss

The Kennedy assassination

The wild years

A trip down Highway 101

Foot stuck to the petal

Hugging the middle lane

At a hundred miles an hour

A break dance destined

To turn into a two-step shuffle.

Restless cursed with insomnia

I take a 5 AM walk through

The streets of Noe Valley

The neighborhood a ghost town

A sleeping lion waiting on its prey.

Back home a poem takes shape

Nibbles at my brain cells

A beggar hungry for food

But the cupboard is empty.

I retreat into the amnesia of yesterday

The lost treasure of my youth

A pirate with a graying beard

Destined to board forever

A midnight ghost ship

Rocking aimlessly at sea.

MEXICO DREAM POEM

I see you in my dreams

you are wearing a silk scarf

your smile hovers over me

like a hummingbird.

You stand at  the public square

the women are selling pottery

the men playing cards.

A cat crosses the road

purrs against your slender legs

you an early century Madonna

with no need for church or man.

Sit cross-legged like Buddha

Words swirl inside my head

like helicopter blades

sweet fragrance of lilacs draws me in

sweet as a virgin spread across

a field of roses.

Interview

April 6th, 2025

California Poets Interview Series:

A.D. Winans, Poet, Writer, Publisher

interviewed by David Garyan 

DG: Let’s start with San Francisco—the city you’ve lived and worked in your entire life. What do you love most about it?

ADW: I love its cultural diversity. San Francisco is a rainbow of different social and ethnic backgrounds. It's a strong liberal and union town with strong support for the arts in all its many forms.

DG: San Francisco has seen many changes. People have come and gone. Establishments and businesses have closed. Who are the people and places you miss most?

ADW: I could spend an entire day trying to answer this question. I turned 89 this year so I miss a lot. I'll name just a few. As for people, I miss poets Bob Kaufman and Jack Micheline, dear friends, who stayed true to what the Beat movement was all about. As for places, I miss Playland at the Beach where as a teenager I hung out a lot. I miss the old Emporium Department Store and its annual Christmas season Celebration with a rooftop of rides including a Ferris Wheel and small train. One year they had Santa Claus arrive on a helicopter. I miss the old Co-existence Bagel Shop in North Beach where Bob Kaufman held Court. I miss The Place, up the street from the Bagel Shop, where Jack Spicer and others presided over the weekly "Blabber Mouth" Night. I miss a hell of a lot.

DG: You’ve had the privilege of meeting and corresponding with literary giants like Bukowski, Bob Kaufman, and Jack Micheline, but are there any unsung heroes you wish would’ve gotten more recognition?

ADW: Yes. Gene Ruggles who battled alcoholism. He had but one book published, The Lifeguard in the Snow, by the University of Pittsburg Press. He was a political activist and organized many anti-war readings. I also miss George Tsongas who was part of the New York Beat Moment before moving on to San Francisco. There are others, but they were both good friends of mine.

DG: You’ve listed music as the primary inspiration for your poetry. Have your tastes in music changed much over the years and what are you listening to these days?

ADW: My political poems were inspired by folk singers like Woody Gutherie, Bob Dylan, Billy Bragg, Phil Ochs, Buffet Saint Maire, Joan Baez, among others. I loved Jazz, in particular Miles Davis, who I saw perform at the old Black Hawk Club. I Liked the blues and was friends with John Lee Hooker and Charlie Musslewhite. I liked C&W, especially Hank Williams, Sr. George Jones, and Patsy Cline. I was and remain a fan of Van Morrison. I have a large number of LPs, cassette, and CDs by them.

DG: What is your favorite time to write and does your desk face a window or wall, and how cluttered is the space?

ADW: I don't really have a favorite time to write. I write when the mood hits me. It can be at any time of the day or night. Unfortunately, my desk faces the wall.

DG: You’ve written a great deal about social injustice, but also about topics like alcoholism, drug addiction, and homelessness because these are things you’ve witnessed. How much faith do you have in the future generation to bring about change?

ADW: I can only hope the future generation will take us out of this turmoil and self-destruction that has magnified under Trump and the MAGA Republicans. It saddens me we have such a large number of ignorant voters that would vote for a Felon, Fraud, Con Man, and adjudicated Rapist to be our President.

DG: Which Beat writer, in your view, would make the best president and why?

ADW: I don't have anyone in mind. Poets should stay true to the muse and not get down into the dirty mud of politics.

DG: People have asked you about Bukowski in basically every interview you’ve done. If you had to answer honestly, did it ever get tiring answering questions about him?

ADW: Only in the sense that most of those asking the question saw Bukowski as a poetic God. I saw him up close. I corresponded with Hank for 17 years (83 letters). I met him in person 4 times. Two of them when he was sober. With me, on those sober times, he was quieter and more reserved. He was a talented poet and writer, but like any of us had his weaknesses and flaws. I think he may have been amused to see the cult that followed his death. If you can get hold of a copy of my book (out of print), Charles Bukowski and the Second Coming Revolution, you will find a detailed account of our friendship. I, unlike other books, did not portray him as a saint, pointing out his warts as well as his virtues. The book also covers the small press history, the role COSMEP played in it, other poets key to Second Coming, and much, much more, including a center section of key players in the small presses.

DG: I’d like to ask a very similar question you posed to Jack Micheline in a 1998 interview published in the Chiron Review. Some authors are very prolific while others not so much. You fall into the former category. Looking back at your distinguished career, would you have done some things differently?

ADW: I would change very little. I am what I am, and my experiences made me who I am. 

DG: Both you and Gerald Locklin were prolific writers, though his work emphasized humor while yours emphasized the grit of modern life. What both of you had in common, however, was a direct treatment of the subject. Did you know Locklin on a personal level and to what extent do you enjoy his work?

ADW: I knew Locklin only through correspondence over many years. I did like his humor. 

DG: In Phaedrus, Plato made a very impassioned appeal about how writing would destroy our memories. I’d like to ask what A.D. Winans thinks about artificial intelligence, especially as it concerns writing. Is it doomsday or just another tool in the long line of inventions from paper and pen?

ADW: I am not a fan of Artificial Intelligence and even less so when it comes to writing. It could, if not handled properly cause a lot of harm. Why would I use AI as a writing tool? I don't need a machine to tell me what to write or revise my writing for me.

DG: What are you reading or working on these days?

ADW: I confess to lagging behind on my reading although I do read books and lit magazines from the small presses and the occasional book of poems sent to me from poet friends. I am working on what will be my final book, Beat Mania: Selected Poems and Prose: 1960-2025. A book of poems, short stories, prose, and interviews. So far it is 385 pages and growing.

Author Bio:

A.D. Winans is an award-winning native San Francisco poet, writer, and essayist.  His work has appeared in over 500 Literary magazines, anthologies, and newspapers.  He is the author of over seventy books and chapbooks of poetry and prose.  He has performed at countless venues including, the Keystone Corner Jazz Club, the famed Top of the Mark (Mark Hopkins Hotel), the Beat Museum, the Santa Cruz Poetry Festival, the 2012 U.C. Davis Jazz and Beat Festival, The Little Fox Theater, and at such legendary North Beach reading spots as The Coffee Gallery, Cafe Trieste, Vesuvio’s, The Intersection, and City Lights Bookstore.

He edited and published the acclaimed Second Coming magazine and press from 1972 to 1989.  The press archives are housed at Brown University.  He was friends with Charles Bukowski, Bob Kaufman, Jack Micheline, Harold Norse, Jack Hirschman, David Meltzer, Diane di Prima, Josephine Miles, Gregory Corso, Charles Plymell, and many other Beat and Post Beats.  He participated in the Folsom Prison Writers Workshop, publishing many of the inmates in Second Coming along with books by Pancho Aguila, Gene Fowler, Ed Lipman, and William Wantling.

He and Paul Fericano teamed up to teach poetry at two local Junior High Schools publishing a book of the students work under the imprint of Second Coming.

A Poem of his (Lady Death) was set to music by Pulitzer Prize winning composer William Bolcom and performed at New York's Alice Tully Hall.

Awards include a Pen National Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature, a PEN Oakland Lifetime Achievement Award, and a Kathy Acker award in poetry and publishing.

He appeared in the documentary film on Bob Kaufman, "When I Die, I Won't Stay Dead" that premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival.