new and improvedded

Beat bypass has been the home of poetry by Mike Klumpp. We will be expanding to offer more than poetry. Please keep an eye out for the coming changes.

left for dead

left for dead
upon your doorstep
(hearing the children howl)

how did i ever ride this wind
on kansas plain
through grey brown grass
under open skyuponsky

where are the howls now?

upon the wind
and the face of the moon

i am an old negro
who wants to go fishing
cane pole in hand

cock your revolver
and let me go-

great spirits - in answer to Einstein's prayer

they thought
Glass
was an ass
a monkey with an electric banjo

be
who you want to be

mediocrity
is no judge

-God
invented time
and death -

genius or folly?

dust

i have heard the music of my own death
sweet yet melancholy

dancing
at the end of some string
the Puppeteer
has chosen to lay the controls down
and bring cease to my performance

lifeless
on the stage floor
the curtains close
to an empty house
only the dust
dangles upon the air
in the absence of voices and laughter

it is the way of things

today i will breathe deep
and savor the sun

perhaps

i walk in half steps
on the dark side of the moon
searching for life

my sons are treading out a path in the sand
the wind covers their tracks

i am ashamed
and must return to the earth

there
perhaps
i will find life
for a moment

there
perhaps
the eagle will return
and nest in my heart

there
perhaps
i will find the sun.

on laughter in winter

do not pity yourself,
good man.
you too will die.
but not without some fever
some sweat
and some feint

some laughter

give pause to cherish the laughter

in childhood we give it away like rain
until seasons of age
steal into our room
frightening even the bad dreams and boogie men of youth

then

laughter
swells up in an occasional cloud
drifts in over parched land
teases
and moves on to sprinkle other fields.

these seasons
that sound
like the sound of the first bird of spring
are refreshing and hopeful

but

this winter has no end.

and

was never meant to.

so

hold onto to your laughter
remember your fears
and create smiles in every eye that sees you.

then
and only then
will there be warmth
amidst the snow.

Singing

singing
into a hole on a tree
the sound
beautiful
dissipating and unheard
it continues in waves of half lives
unnoticed and unending
a ripple in the pond
screaming - why