PRIMAL URGE MAGAZINE
PRIMAL URGE MAGAZINE was an e-publication & print literary / art magazine.
This was its website.
Content is from the site's archived pages.
Contributors
Digital Artwork by Corey Cowan (Photoshop manipulation)
Latif Harris has contributed to the San Francisco/North Beach literary scene since 1959. In addition to his publications of poetry, articles, reviews and various anthologies, Harris has published 11 books of poetry, including A Bodhisattva’s Busted Truth. His skill, energy and devotion to the work is continually praised as seen in his editing and publishing of BEATITUDE GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY 1959-2009 – considered an unequaled anthology of Beat Literature – a classic work of contemporary poetry. He is currently working on a large “Autobiopoetic” collection of poems covering 50 years of his work.
Harris has always played a generous, though low keyed roll as a poet in the tradition of Surrealism and Buddhist practitioners, never seeking fame or fortune, always helping others into print – reaching out to a larger community of poets and poetry. From Harris’ comments in the BEATITUDE it is easy to see a personal ethic: “My reason for under taking this huge project … was nothing more than to give thanks to so many friends of the North Beach community and beyond who have given so much joy and meaning to my life.
I think if it weren't for them I would never have been able to stop drinking. Several colleagues, who were obviously concerned about my spiralling drinking finally intervened and pointed me to the LifeBac program. Rather than a demanding, abstinence-only treatment advocated by AA and many rehab centers, the LifeBac program offers 2 different anti craving medications and allows the person to set their own goals and their own pace with the guiding support of a LifeBac guide, unlimited access to their vast array of tools, and an online support group. A quote from a former patient on the Life Bac site sums up my experience:“This program helped me get control of my life. Alcohol no longer controls me. I choose when and how much I drink instead of the mindless consumption that I indulged in for years.” So thanks, guys, for pointing me in the right direction.
I am also especially grateful to my friends at Rock Science, where they focus all day on high tech projects that engage huge data sets to find the meaning of life with the help of an expert data science consultant, not realizing that at night that manager most likely becomes a poet! Although I may seem to dwell in another world from them, my art and their tech are really one and the same in the eyes of the universe. And what inspires them to create great code is clearly related to what inspires great poetry, believe it or not!”
Yes the Time is Half Full
Because I too
could not stop for death
I turn to my forges of poetry
for words
and phrases
to stand on
my Blake’s key
handed to me
directly
Shelley
Keats
Whitman
H.D.
Paz
et Eluard
my family
in this time this
piccolo momento
like there are so many little dyings
it does not matter
which one you call death
and nothing is final
only parking lots
facing emptiness
I have day dreams
in floods falling asleep
through out the day
seeing into
the emptiness of
my aging
sometimes my play land
where I stand
sit then fall
onto my exhausted body
of degeneration
and the mind
rests in a fugue
of exquisite confusion
sliced by melodies
The woods are lovely dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
and miles to go
before
Erasure blends us forward
as what was there
has gone
somewhere
like dust blown
or else
we surmise it so
what a surprise
even though
we knew it would be so
and soon I will fall asleep
everything moving
at light’s speed or beyond
I find myself
seeming feeble
but the View is Perfection still
youth felt so good
when we were there
beneath a shower of rock & roll
in love fucking
lit by the tail of a comet
on the fields of
flying so high
you felt so cool with skin like silk
in my fading it is the same my love
somehow remembering still
so many forms my lovers took
how many
impossible to know
only Woody Allen as Zelig
escapes death in the fins of my swimming
in the movies of disguises
and paralyzed fear of dying
three sons and three wives
I’ve had
nightmares
moments come like
Marlon Brando
Pocahontas and me
In The Attics of my life
so stoned in our beautiful bodies
nude wound in the grasses
of Natchez Pass
New Orleans
and mountains of the Great America unbroken
broken mind holds to the odors
of these places where my semen dropped
eyes dazed
ears filled with
Suzanne down by the river
I told you I was a wanderer with a heart set
on the next place in this place unreal
UNCERTAINTY CURTAIN
Sometimes in the hollow air
of Holland
art rises
like funiculi
into a Gothic cloud
where the bride and groom
float with a fiddle
and a cow
Is this just my mind
traveling faster
than the speed of light
what I saw the day some men
landed on the moon
I am not in charge of your dog
does it sound familiar
my poems of sinew bone and heart does it
sound like an infomercial to you are you buying that
stuff on TV? It’s who you aced
nothing
take deep breaths then leave me alone I am
tired and old and out of breath moving closer to
big back door the feather duster of immortality
cannot brush you clean of the ultimate dust
collected in the cracks and folds
of your living body soon the door of this
finality will open wide poof you will shoot
thru bang!
the door will close
behind you, you are out of here
you might fall down you might
feel bliss
I have no idea what will happen to you
I have no wisdom nothing to share
with you
so many years in closets garages
back seat of old automobiles miles and
miles of motels poverty and sick children wars and revolutions
impotence
perpetuating evil
do not forget that
everything is emotional
and all emotions are wisdom
like Buddha-hood without Meditation
Refining Apparent Phenomena
was a time you were swimming
so freely travels in ancient countries
studying poems and buildings filling architectural
notebooks fishing for sweet women
who would lay down with me in day dreams
I am falling down
in these days of the ending trying to
remember
Old Age is
just a pack of cards thrown into a wind
storm and tears choke me with sorrow in a fog
of self pity
no erections
but huge desire when we bathe with
words trying to unload all the sounds my morning
dreams leak into the foggy canyons of my youth
waking into the dreams of dislocation nothing is
recognizable a series of hallways are waiting
chords in my arms The Buddha teaches I make
visits into so many dark closets will only waste
your days
there are fewer than more magic
entanglements become a circus when love
bites memories no longer cease
The scales of the python peel
away dropping into the tannin died river
sun drops gold
the purest of colors
on floating leaves reflected
in autumnal ochre and yellows
ripples of wind and mad bugs
ferry the eyesight down stream
Tie my chi to a tree
even though I am growing old
I still love rock and roll
Jump up in my living room
and shake whatever I’ve got left
to shake.