better than I
do.
there were always words
I wanted to use
but I was too lazy to
check the
spelling.
so I used a simpler version
or just didn’t
bother.
now I toss the word
in,
then ask the computer if
I’ve got it spelled
right.
there’s an old theory
that if you put ten thousand
monkeys in a room for
Eternity
they would eventually
rewrite every great novel
ever written,
word for word.
with a computer
they’d do it
in half an
hour.
anyhow, I’m more or less
one of those
monkeys now
and my wife hardly ever
sees me anymore, as I said
before.
I hear her coughing in the
next room
so I know that she is
there.
but that’s enough
computer talk.
it’s time for another
poem.
this is where they come for what’s left of your soul
the books are selling, there are critical articles, more and
more critical articles that claim my work is, indeed,
at last, pretty damned good.
I am being taught alongside some of the masters.
a dangerous time, a most dangerous time
for me.
if I accept my new position, then I must work from that new
position.
I must then attempt to hold my ground, not
despoil it.
but I have watched too many others
soften, lose their natural force.
too much acceptance destroys.
so listen, my fine fellows and ladies, I am going to
ignore your late applause,
I intend to still play it loose, commit my errors,
enrage the entrenched and piss upon your
guardians, angels and / or devils.
I intend to do what I
have to do, what I have always done.
it’s been too much fun to falter now.
you will not escape my iron grip
and I will escape
yours.
hot night
like this, sitting in my shorts, listening to a tenor
all the way from Cleveland
garnering applause on the radio.
I’ve never been to Cleveland.
I sit here in my shorts on a humid night
now listening to Ravel with my gut hanging out
over my shorts.
my soft white gut.
I draw on this cigar, inhale, then blow
blue smoke as
Ravel waltzes.
I read a fan letter written to me from Japan.
then I rip it once, twice, three times, trash
it.
young girls send me photos of their naked
selves.
blank-faced, I set my lighter to the photos,
turn them to twisted black
ash.
it’s midnight and I’m too dumb to
sweat.
“oil and natural gas,” says the man on the radio,
“we need oil and natural gas
for the nation’s energy needs.”
“fuck you, buddy,” I say.
I scratch, yawn, rise, walk
to where my little refrigerator holds food
and drink.
it takes me 7 steps to get there.
one for each decade.
did you know that
to this very day
nobody can figure out how
they built the
pyramids?
the x-bum
it was a good training ground out there
(although there were times
of fear and madness)
and there were times when it wasn’t kind
and there were times when my comrades were
cowardly
treacherous
or
debased.
it taught me also
that there was no bottom to life
into a bestial groveling
and when you reached
that point
nobody cared or would ever
care.
and then, with no feelings left, that was the strangest
feeling of them
all.
so, today I got into my BMW, drove to my
bank and picked up my American Express
Gold Card. (I always promised myself that I’d
write about that when it
happened.)
I know what people will say: “Chinaski! writing about
his American Express Gold Card! who gives a damn
about that? or who cares that he’s now in
Who’s Who in America?”
I can’t think of another poet who makes people as
angry as I do.
I enjoy it
knowing that we are all brothers and sisters
in a very unkind extended
family
and I also never forget that
no matter
what the circumstances,
the park bench is never that far away
from any one of
us.
something cares
a reader writes from Germany
that a lady friend saw me interviewed
on tv and then
told him
that to kiss my face would be a
disgusting thing.
I wrote back that
she might be right, I didn’t know,
I’d never actually tried
it.
but really
I don’t write with my
face
I use my fingers
and this old Olympia
standard,
and with all the luck
I’ve had
I should kiss this
typer
but
I won’t.
well, there, I just
did.
it was a cold kiss
but a faithful
one.
and now the machine
answers back:
I love you too,
old boy.
my cats
I know. I know.
they are limited, have different
needs and
concerns.
but I watch and learn from them.
I like the little they know,
which is so
much.
they complain but never
worry.
they walk with a surprising dignity.
they sleep with a direct simplicity that
humans just can’t
understand.
their eyes are more
beautiful than our eyes.
and they can sleep 20 hours
a day
without
hesitation or
remorse.
when I am feeling
low
all I have to do is
watch my cats
and my
courage
returns.
I study these
creatures.
they are my
teachers.
6:30 a.m.
fondly embracing mad hopes in my dreams the first intrusion
of day begins when that young cat of mine starts knocking
over and attacking things at 6:30 in the
morning. I rise to lead that frisky rascal down the
stairway and open the door where he always pauses
introspectively until I give him a gentle boot in the ass
and then he is gone into the blissful glory of the day while I then
climb back up the stairway to bed down again with wife who
has heard nothing who sleeps so still I must check
her breathing to make certain she’s alive and finding that
she’s o.k. I pull the covers up. I have the best hours of
sleep then before the long drive to the racetrack
one more time one more time and one more time again
until I get so old that the DMV will take away my driver’s
license and I will have to ride the bus out there
with the damned ghost people son-of-a-bitch what an
awful goddamned thought better to stay home with wife and
cats putter with paints a la Henry Miller and also
help with the weeding and the shopping while the last of
the sun slants in like a golden sword.
what I need
I need a light pine kitchen, a new freezer, a picture window,
a first-alert ready-light, a pair of jogging shoes, some real
excitement, a yellow banjo, hot chips, a spark, two love birds,
sheer stockings, a touch of miracle, a March star, a true woman, a
new fantasy, a spicy sky, a charmed quark, some luck, a
VISA card, a walrus, a sunset at the beach, a well-
seasoned cigar, an antelope, a racy subject, an ideal to fight for, a
rainbow, a halcyon holiday and
a winner in the first, a winner in the second, a winner in the
third, a winner in the fourth, a winner in the
fifth.
hell, that’s what I got just now: a winner in the
fifth!
couldn’t you
guess?
gender benders
I’m only guessing, of course, as
usual but here goes:
when the ladies gather over
cocktails they talk about
how their husbands tend to
stifle them, smother their creative
instinct, their natural joy,
their ultimate female
selves.
without their husbands they
would float free
and thrive and grow
without limit
as they were meant to do.
but ladies, I will tell you
this:
when men gather they
never talk about their
wives.
we discuss the
Dallas Cowboys
or the new barmaid at
The Bat Cove Tavern
or about how Tyson would
kick Holyfield’s ass …
unconcerned with
petty argument
we have floated free …
giant macho soaring
balloons!
WHEE!
after many nights
the last hour at the typewriter is only
good
if you’ve had a lucky and
productive
night,
otherwise
your time and effort have been
wasted.
this night
I feel good about the poems scattered
on the floor.
the door of this room is
open
and I can see out into the
night,
see part of the city to
my left;
see many lights—yellow, white
red, blue;
see also the moving lights
of the cars
traveling south on the
Harbor Freeway.
the lights of this city
are not at rest,
they shimmer in the
dark.
a blue tree outside the
window
looms powerful and at
peace.
my death,
after so many nights
like this,
will seem
logical,
sane
and
(like a few of my poems)
well-
written.
good morning, how are you?
$650,000 home, swimming pool, tennis court,
sauna, 4 late-model cars, a starlet wife;
he was blond, young, broad-shouldered, great
smile, great sense of humor.
he was an investor, said his starlet wife.
but he always seemed to be at home.
one afternoon
while he was playing tennis with his friends
two plainclothes cops
walked up
handcuffed him
took him
off.
it was in the papers the next day: he was a
hit man wanted for killing over fifty
men.
what bothered the neighbors most was
not who would move in next
but
when
had he found time to do it?
a reader of my work
what will you write about? he asks.
you no longer live with whores, you no
longer engage in barroom brawls, what
will you write about?
he seems to think that I’ve manufactured
a life to suit my typewriter
and if my life gets good
my writing will get bad.
I tell him that trouble will always
arrive, never worry about
that.
he doesn’t seem to understand.
he asks,
what will your readers
think?
Norman Mailer still has
his readers,
I say.
but you’re different,
he says.
not at all, I say,
we’re both about
25 pounds
overweight.
he stares at me
unblinking
through dull
gray
eyes.
Sumatra Cum Laude
sitting across from my lawyer, I
decide, at this time, one needs a good
lawyer, a tax accountant, a decent
auto mechanic, a sympathetic doctor and
a faithful wife, in order to
survive.
also, one needs some talent of one’s own,
very few friends, a good home security
system and the ability to sleep peacefully at
night.
you need at least this much in order to
get by and naturally you also must
hope to evade a long illness and / or
senility; finally, you can only
pray for a quick clean finish with
very little subsequent mourning by everybody
closely connected.
sitting across from my lawyer, I
have these thoughts.
we are on the 16th floor of a downtown office
building
and I like my lawyer, he has fine eyes,
great manners.
also, he has gotten my ass out of
several jams.
(meanwhile, among other things, you also need
; a plumber who doesn’t overbill and
an honest jockey who knows where the
finish line is.)
you need all the above (and more) before
you can go home with a clear mind, open a
wooden box labeled Sumatra Cum
Laude, take one out, light it
and take a quick puff or two
before the bluebird leaves
your shoulder,
before the snow melts,
and before the rain and the traffic
and our hurly-burly life
churn everything into
black
slush.
the disease of existence
dark, dark, dark.
humanity’s shadow
shrouds the moon.
the process is
eternal.
once, I imagined that
in my old age
there would be
peace,
but not this:
dark humanity’s
insufferable
relentless
presence.
humanity claws
at me
as persistently
now
as in the
beginning.
I was not born to be
one with them
yet here I am
with only
the thought
of death
and that final
separation
to comfort me.
so there’s no chance,
no
hope,
just this waiting,
sitting here
tonight
surrounded
unsure