Jim has four published memoirs, At the Lake, Cretin Boy, The Portland House, and Dirty Shirt. He also has five poetry collections, Thoughts from a Line at the DMV, Genetically Speaking, Written Life, Reciting From Memory, and On a Road. His nonfiction has been published in Main Street Rag, The Sun magazine and others. His poetry has been published in many different journals. Jim was the 2018-2019 poet laureate for the Village of Wales, Wisconsin and currently resides in Waukesha, Wisconsin. For more information, visit: https://sites.google.com/view/jimlandwehr/home
Jim Landwehr
Web:jimlandwehr.com
Brautigan’s Cubicle*
If Richard Brautigan had done all of his writing
from inside grey cubicle walls,
how different it might have been.
In Watermelon Sugar might have read
like a battery charger user manual,
or the back of a ketchup bottle.
Trout Fishing in America
like a home remedy for rickets,
or the possible side effects for Cialis.
Willard and His Bowling Trophies
might have been sketched out on Post-It Notes
and accidently tossed away by the cleaning staff.
Revenge of the Lawn
may have been about fertilizer application,
and its effect on water quality.
A Confederate General from Big Sur
might have died in a hard drive crash
and never hit the press.
Brautigan might have contracted carpal tunnel
at the age of forty four
and switched careers to become a pharmaceutical salesman.
He might never have written past the 4:30 quitting time
or drunk port wine on the job,
and his life, not his death, would have been the real tragedy.
*Previously published in Written Life
Rule Breakers*
It was the eccentric ones
those that wrote outside the lines
and broke most of the conventional rules.
They took literature, poetry and art
beat it out of submission with pens and brushes
gave it to their readers and critics
and told them to love-it-or-leave-it
proclaiming, It’s me. It’s who I am. It’s my ART!
So it is with reverence when I speak of
Brautigan, Kerouac and Dali
Hunter S. Thompson, Ginsberg and Picasso
the thinkers, the madmen and the drinkers
who created a new paradigm for me
a fledgling writer unafraid
to push the boundaries of
chapter, stanza and verse
to knock around the rules taught in school
and let them know that’s not who I am
they are not the boss of me
I’m the writer, the author, the poet
and they are just the words
awaiting rescue from the stifling
restrictions of rules made by
uptight men and women of yesterday.
*Previously published in Moss Piglet
Can’t Be Beat
HE worshipped their work
and all that they stood for
the Beats
the Burroughs,
the Kerouacs,
the Brautigans
of days past
How they changed the world
Or at least HE thought they did
HE wanted to go back
Go Trout Fishing with Rich
Hit the road with Jack
And Howl with Al
It grieved HIM that he’d missed it
That HE couldn’t drink port with
them
Listen to Jazz or go to New York
On a moment’s notice
To sleep in flophouses
And pickup floozies
But HE couldn’t now
Jack took himself out
Al and Willie passed long ago
Of course, Big Sur was still there
And so were New York and Mexico
But they weren’t the same
It was in wishing back these times
That HE realized
If HE wasn’t careful
HE would overlook the fact
That this was HIS
beat
Right now was
HIS shot at beatnicism
That through penning HIS words
And changing HIS outlook
And stretching HIS life
HE was putting his mark
On the future’s past
And HE’d almost missed it.
*Previously published in Torrid
Literature Journal
Fevers of the Mind 