Promenade: Book of Poems, Song and Blues

By Inkblot Hurricane, Martin P. Abramson, David A. Smith and Richard Krech

PROMENADE. The Medicine
Show comes to town and
with it, Hurricane, a man
who weaves a tale painted in
the carnival colors of a
generation ago. In this book
of poem & song Hurricane
takes the reader on a hurdy
gurdy trip of disturbing and
tender whimsythrough
visions of experience which
once reflected off the waters
of the zany California coast.
His mnemonic verse rubs
down to a raw, surreal
starkness of emotions as our
own sentiments follow his
through this mystery of Beat
& Hip. The journey's reward:
a souvenir of time and place;
a space of mind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Sep 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781453556368

Inkblot Hurricane

THE DAY BEFORE PEARL HARBOR Martin Abramson’s family of Jewish immigrants arrives in the City of Angels from the Bronx. At fourteen, set on being a cowboy, he leaves home for Arizona & hires out as a wrangler, becoming the penultimate “Pachuco hipster Yiddish cowboy.” Four years later he’s a GI in a 7th Cavalry Recon unit patrolling the East German Border. Honorably Discharged & back in Venice, Abramson works a string of odd jobs: he boxes in the ring—setting a Lightweight Division record for the fastest KO, plays a noted lead role in Tennessee Williams’ Summer & Smoke at the Hollywood Playhouse & runs games as a carney on the Santa Monica Pier midway. He drives a taxi & becomes the chauffeur-body guard to one of his fares, an eccentric Palm Springs oil heiress. While in her employ Abramson uncovers & foils a plot hatched by local gangsters to steal the widow’s fortune; Mid-sixties finds him active in the poetry scenes in San Francisco & Berkeley. Friend and neighbor, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, films & tapes Abramson reciting & sells his chapbooks at his legendary City Lights Bookstore. Back in LA, he teaches himself to play the guitar, and begins singing & songwriting; he transforms his growing body of work into the Inkblot Hurricane Poetry Revue, adopts Hurricane as his nickname & takes the show on the road. Just as his work begins to see considerable publication, Abramson drops out & disappears from the scene to work in the world’s deepest silver mine. He then hits the road again, this time with his young son, David, busking on the street, performing in nightclubs, theaters & art galleries throughout North America & Europe. In the mid-eighties Hurricane Abramson returns for good to Jerusalem where, until the last months of his life, he continued to devote himself to his poetry, teaching guitar & performing on stage.

Book preview

Promenade

18768.png

Book of Poems

Song & Blues

by

Inkblot Hurricane

Martin P. Abramson

WITH a Foreword by

Richard Krech

Edited by

David A. Smith

Fig.%201)Hurricane%20Under%20the%20Pier%20with%20Journal-Front%20Matter.JPG

Author with journal under Santa Monica Patch City Pier, 1973. Page in journal: Yr Covered, 193. Photographer unknown.

C

opyright © 1959-2013, 2014 by Martin Abramson.

Book Design & Illustration by David A. Smith

[e-mail]

Library of Congress Control Number:   2010911755

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4535-5635-1

                Softcover        978-1-4535-5634-4

                eBook             978-1-4535-5636-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/16/2014

Xlibris

0-800-056-3182

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

517195

Contents

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

FOREWORD

POSTSCRIPT

INTRODUCTION

POSTSCRIPT

CHAPTER 1 PRIMEAN 1960-1963

CHAPTER 2 VEHICLES 1964

CHAPTER 3 SHERWOOD FOREST 1965

CHAPTER 4 BUNGALOW 1965

CHAPTER 5 LILY 1965

CHAPTER 6 AS RIPPLES BREAK AWAY 1966

CHAPTER 7 BROKEN GLASS MEADOW 1966

CHAPTER 8 TRISTAN ELECTRA CARDIOGRAPH HOEDOWN 1967

CHAPTER 9 FAIRWAY SALVAGE 1967

CHAPTER 10 HORSE RANCH CADILLAC 1968

CHAPTER 11 HAPPY JACK WINTER 1969

CHAPTER 12 HALAGONIA 1969

CHAPTER 13 DESERT NEON 1969-1970

CHAPTER 14 ELECTRIC HORSES 1971

CHAPTER 15 BROOM CITY 1972

CHAPTER 16 WOODEN NICKELS 1973

CHAPTER 17 BLUE NEON LOVE TORPEDO 1974

CHAPTER 18 TRUMP FISH UPSTREAM 1975

CHAPTER 19 FULL MOON OF CHINA 1976

CHAPTER 20 BLANKET VISA 1977

CHAPTER 21 MADAME FURY 1978

CHAPTER 22 FROZEN CLOWNS 1979-1980

CHAPTER 23 BRASS MONKEYS 1981

CHAPTER 24 TATTERED STREAMERS 1983-1985

CHAPTER 25 SHOTGUN METAPHOR 1986-1987

CHAPTER 26 ‘EIGHTY EIGHT 1988

CHAPTER 27 RUBICON FOREST: THE NINETIES

CHAPTER 28 UMBRIAGO! MILLENNIUM 2000

CHAPTER 29 GOTKES (LONG POEMS)

CHAPTER 30 SONG

CHAPTER 31 BLUES, BLOOZY, LYRICS & RIFFS

CHAPTER 32 THE SAGA OF HANG DOG BLUES

CHAPTER 33 CODA: PROMENADE 1963-2009

For my son, David Abramson Harpo

1960 - 1910

Erev Sukkot 14 Tishrei 5770

May his memory be for a blessing.

Image201918.PNG

Giggling together. Hurricane & son, David Harpo Abramson, 2004

Pour out your heart like water

Before The Presence of G-d

                  — Lamentations 2:19

List of Illustrations

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Author with journal under Santa Monica Patch City Pier, 1973. Page in journal: Yr Covered, 193. Photographer unknown.

Up through Santa Monica Pier. Photographer unknown.

On The Promenade! Author with wife, Molly & Sima & David in Venice Beach, California, circa 1968.

Publicity photo for lead roles in Hollywood Playhouse productions of Tennessee Williams’ Summer & Smoke and Sommerset Maugham’s Rain, circa 1958.

Jerusalem, circa 1990

Inkblot Hurricane Poster circa 1994

Sometimes The World — Burma Shave

An Eclipse of time — Stop

Rancho Grande Hotel, Nogales, Arizona, circa 1950’s. Photographer unknown.

Samuel Abramson & author, Los Angeles, circa 1949

The author in chapbook, Footprints, Berkeley, circa 1965. Original photograph by Harold Adler.

Author at The Place coffee house, Jerusalem, circa 1988

Taking a break from proofreading, c. 2010, Photograph by Yisrael Rosenberg.

Acknowledgements

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This is it. Above all, I offer my thanks and prayers to HaShem. I would not be writing these words if it were not for Him and my father.

Dad knew Al Jolson from when they came up in the same neighborhood and he also knew I could sing from the days when we’d sing along with Jolson on those old 78’s. So, back in the late ‘60s, when I took up the guitar at the relatively late age of thirty-three and began singing the blues and writing songs, my dad did nothing but encourage me to keep writing; not ever to give up my poetry, even when it seemed more like a burden. Thanks Dad.

My son, David, Harpo Abramson—may his memory be blessed—made it on his own as a well known musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist of Jewish music and as an actor. But, I like to think that I passed on to him the artistic support and inspiration my father gave me.

And, I want to thank the people who stuck with me through all these years of struggling to present my poetry to the world. First of all, I want to thank Professor Micah Perles, my long-time friend and advisor. His appreciation for my work and his great and true-hearted generosity have been a refuge.

My deepest, heartfelt gratitude to Cindy & Michael Levy and to Ephraim Silverberg and their families for their generosity and hospitality over the years and now for seeing to it that PROMENADE is in print!

David Smith, my editor and longtime friend, is no doubt one of the most talented people I’ve EVER met—and I’ve been around the block a few times. He khops it, man. From the very beginning David understood. He got into the words and syllables; the music and the voices I use in my poetry. And he doesn’t let me get away with very much, either. He makes contributions that I’m proud to call my own. Most of all, David, you stayed in my corner through this long, agonizing job of transforming my vision for PROMENADE into this book, Baruch Hashem! Thanks, brother.

To my daughter-in-law, Dr. Shira Abramson, for her deep faith, courage and enduring lovingkindness; to my ex-wife, Molly Jane who always supported my work; to my dearest friend for many years, Anat Agmon, who saw PROMENADE coming a long time ago; to my mentors in poetry, Stuart Z. Perkoff, z"l and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who went out of their ways to encourage me; to my friend, Richard Krech, whom I introduced to the world of poetry when he was a lad and who became a well-known and published poet, himself; to Meyer Schindler, friend and attorney. Thanks for watching my back on this one and to Eleanor for her selfless dedication and great soups!

Thank you my loyal friends, Daniel and Joani Abelman, for your perpetual hospitality, endless Shabbos and Being There! Thanks to Zerach Moshe Fedder, Yehudah and Michelle Katz, Avraham Moskowitz & to Abie, the young Tzaddik and his wife; thanks to Yisrael Rosenberg. And to Alan Duetsch, Hezzy & Shlomit Ben Michah; Danny & Naomi Loney for their special friendship and hospitality; to Raezelle and to Yael for your strategic assistance; to my long time friends, Richie & Mika Fox and David & Karen Boxenhorn; to Mario Mertz, zl and to the Texans of The Last Watering Hole in Amsterdam for giving me the stages and the opportunity to do my shtick"; to the memory of Tim Hardin, friend of yore—you were a musician’s musician and a mensch. Thanks to Victoria Gray [and, following Hurricane’s passing, I’m sure he’d want to thank Naomi Orleans, Emily Laurel, Jean Reeves, Carlo Yu, the Designers and all their colleagues at Xlibris, for their professionalism and perserverence. Ed.]

There are so many more friends and relatives who deserve to be included that, if I mentioned you all, these longhand acknowledgements would add up to more pages than are already in the book! So, to you, even though I do not name all of you here, I dedicate this book with gratitude. You believed in me, my poetry and contributed to PROMENADE’S existence. Thank you.

Hurricane,

Jerusalem, 2010

COMPASS READING

— for Martin P. Abramson

We sat on back porches of tenements

that now hang invisible

over empty parking lots

suspended in mid-air

contemplating infinity & the price

of some object or element

common to us all as we journey

through the back country

of our minds.

Our time frozen

in patterns no celluloid could trace.

The past — a joint shared on a porch

that no longer exists & the smoke

that you didn’t see

while you looked

the other way.

¹

Foreword

by

RICHARD KRECH

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PROMENADE, the name of this collection of Martin P. Abramson’s poetry, explicitly refers to The Promenade fronting the Pacific Ocean at Venice Beach in California. The word, promenade, derives from the Middle French of the 1500’s, meaning, to go for a leisurely walk, itself taken from the Late Latin to drive (cattle) onward and rooted in pro forth or for + minare - to drive animals with shouts; itself, perhaps, from minari, to threaten, or menace. In the mid-sixteen hundreds, a promenade became a place for walking and by the end of the eighteenth century came to mean a walkway by the sea.

The promenade that is the stylized grand march of guests at the ceremonious opening of a formal ball is not described in this book. Nor does it concern junior or senior dances at high schools or colleges in the United States or Canada. But every other meaning of the word promenade, verb and noun, is likely found within this book’s covers.

Abramson, who for the last two-score years went by his pen-name, Inkblot Hurricane, was born in 1935, a self-styled ducktail Dostoevsky, a pachuco hipster Yiddish cowboy from Los Angeles who left home at 14, punched cattle in the southwest, hustled as a carney at Ocean Park Pier in Venice Beach, joined and left the army, acted at the Hollywood Playhouse and boxed in the golden gloves championships, all before the age of 25. Hurricane was no academic poet in a tenured tower.

This book is not just Hurricane’s poetry of life, but his song and blues as well. He explored them with his own feet and the anguish we hear is his pondering —

what is inside me

is confusion is harmony confession

let me live without this

terrible surveillance over myself ²

— as he drives his demons before him back and forth across the world: from Berkeley, California to Israel and then back to Venice Beach in Southern California seeking:

a simple melody

in answer to the songs

of death in my ear³

And then back to Europe, to Paris and London and finally returning to Israel, where he lives in Jerusalem. Describing a pivotal moment in his understanding of what it means to be a poet, he recounted an event which occurred in Venice Beach around 1959 or 1960:

"

ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF MY LIFE

was when I was selling ‘Encyclopedia Britannica’s Great Books Of The Western World,’ door to door—this must have been around ’59 or ’60. After work I’d go hang out at a local spot, the Venice West Café. It was almost always interesting after a day of knocking on doors. I used to catch various performers and writers doing their thing— well known poets, like Stuart Z. Perkoff or Frank Rios.

Anyway, what they’d do to get everybody’s attention is go up and tug on this bell cord hanging down from the ceiling at the back of the café. One night Perkoff stood up — he didn’t need to ring ANY bell — and, as he always did, just began reciting poems from his journal. What amazed me was how Stuart, especially, would inject dramatic expression into each word. That’s what inspired me. He made words come alive!

I had written some things before, even as a kid but after that night’s reading I began to write down my own stuff in earnest. After awhile, I began giving weekly poetry readings at the Café and later on at On The Beach Bookshop, next door. It was around that time that Perkoff and others started coming to hear my readings! This was a major change for me.

So, anyway, one night we — a bunch of poets and writers — were standing around kibbitzing on the corner of the Promenade and Dudley Ave. It was right there, by the pagoda along the beachfront that I got ‘blessed’ as a poet! Stuart says to me, Martin, you are a poet… But remember, there’s a curse that comes with it.

Much later, while talking with [Charles] Bukowski, after one of his poetry readings, I came to understand what Perkoff had meant. You see, Bukowski said to me, the curse is that a poet has this constant self-consciousness — and you just learn to live with it.

But it was Stuart who encouraged me to always carry a journal — and use it! He was my mentor in poetry. Till this very day, I still carry a journal with me wherever I go." ⁴

I met Hurricane (whom I knew then as Martin) about five years after that moment, in the summer of 1965 when I was a barefoot eighteen year-old kid with a portable typewriter crashing in the back room of Dave Mandel’s pad on Regent Street in Berkeley. Somehow, that summer, without paying any rent, I became the resident of a one-room apartment on the second floor of a two-story house further down the