she’s eleven and had just
taken a bath and she was getting
dressed in the closet so I
wouldn’t see her, and her
mother said, “you know, you like
to make this thing about your
women into a great big drama;
you love it, you love them
fighting and screaming over
you, you think it’s humorous,
don’t you?”
“now, baby…” I said.
“some day a woman is going to
put a knife into your heart,
you’re going to be killed and
while you’re dying you’re going
to say, ‘you stuck that thing
into me too far!’”
my daughter came out, fully
clothed, and I told her mother
that I’d bring her back in
3 hours.
about 4 miles away we found
a place to eat.
my daughter had a hamburger
sandwich and milk.
I had fried shrimp with
soup, fries, plus coffee.
we ate, I tipped the waitress,
I paid the cashier, then
we went out and got into my
car. it was a dark day, low
clouds, you couldn’t see any
sun. “your mother,” I told her
as we drove off, “is nothing
but a wiseass.”
the final word
always in the poem
we fall short.
ah,
to say the final word
you must
kill the fish,
throw away the
head and tail
(especially the eyes)
and eat the rest.
there is this hunger
to drive down the road
looking for it
in a 1998 Cadillac,
trees along the road,
a dung-spotted moon,
and to run it down
and get out and
look at it,
hold it in your hand
and look at it,
examine it
(especially the eyes)
then throw it all away
and
Cadillac off.
fingernails; nostrils; shoelaces
the gas line is leaking, the bird is gone from the
cage, the skyline is dotted with vultures;
Benny finally got off the stuff and Betty now has a job
as a waitress; and
the chimney sweep was quite delicate as he
giggled up through the
soot.
I walked miles through the city and recognized
nothing as a giant claw ate at my
stomach while the inside of my head felt
airy as if I was about to go
mad.
it’s not so much that nothing means
anything but more that it keeps meaning
nothing,
there’s no release, just gurus and self-
appointed
gods and hucksters.
the more people say, the less there is
to say.
even the best books are dry sawdust.
I watch the boxing matches and take copious
notes on futility.
then the gate springs open again
and there are the beautiful silks
and powerful horses riding
against the sky.
such sadness: everything trying to
break through into
blossom.
every day should be a miracle instead
of a machination.
in my hand rests the last bluebird.
the shades roar like lions and the walls
rattle, dance around my
head.
then her eyes look at me, love breaks my
bones and I
laugh.
after receiving a contributor’s copy
carping little kettle-fish
griping over your wounds
found in these misprinted pages,
and still looking for sponsors
lovers
mothers
easy fame:
which one of you
did I see through a
frozen Denver restaurant window
eating apple pie?
which one of you
rode to East Hollywood on a bloodhound
hunting your wet nurse?
which one of you then knocked
on my door
wanting to talk about POETRY?
which one of you is vain enough
and miserable enough
and sick enough
to suck an editor’s ass?
which one of you goes
to all the lit parties
and reads his stuff to
tapeworms?
which one of you thinks
he’s Pound, or Shelley
on a blue butterfly?
which one of you
changed my poem to read
the way you THINK
a poem should read?
which one of you mewed in
sick, friendly sentiment
like larvae crawling the
body of my mind?
and this may seem strong
and unfair,
for I say let everyone live
and write
who wants to live and write,
but which one of you
lives with his mother or his aunt,
which one of you first
puts talcum on his butt
and then climbs up on
the cross?
which one of you
(one a university prof
I once chastised
for senseless abstraction)
which one of you now
writes about whores and drinking
and has never been to bed with a woman,
and has never drunk
more than a small brown beer?
and which one of you
writes with a dictionary against his belly
like buggering an unabridged cow?
which one of you grinds his soul
to Bach’s organ
like a monkey on a string?
which one of you
hates the wife that feeds you?
not because she’s human
but because
she doesn’t like your stuff.
which one of you
couldn’t hit a baseball?
which one of you
has never been in jail?
which one of you?
which one of you?
which one of
you?
poor night
I think I’m in the first
dry period of my life.
nearing 62
one fears senility and
an end
to the luck.
I slowly drink
two large glasses of wine
and stare
at the white page.
it has always come so
easily.
I have always laughed at
writers who claimed that
creation was
painful.
I change stations
on the radio, pour
another wine.
“papa,” she opens the
door, “do you have any
matches?”
“sure,” I say and
hand her a couple of
books.
she leaves.
Henry Miller is dead.
Saroyan. Jeffers.
Nelson Algren.
They’ve all been dead now
for some time.
“papa,” she returns,
“this pen I’m using is
terrible. do you have
another pen?”
“sure,” I say and
hand her a good
one.
“there is too much smoke
in this room!”
she opens a window.
“you should let some of
the smoke out!”
“you’re right,”
I say.
she leaves
and I like her
concern
but then I am alone
with my blank page
again.
a) so then
I wrote this down to
fill in the blank
space.
b) then came the decision
whether to tear it up or
save it.
c) have
I done
the right thing?
you write many poems about death
yes, and here’s another one
and later it might even end up in one of my
books.
and
the book will be sitting on a
shelf
waiting for you
long after I am
gone.
think of that:
in a sense I will be speaking again
just to you.
and remember this:
the page you are looking at
now,
I once typed the words
with care
with you in mind
under a yellow
light
with the radio
on.
if you think about death
long enough
I have found
it belongs
it makes sense
just like
this typewriter
this matchbook
this paper clip
and
the next page
and the next poem
after this
one.
dog
is much admired by Man
because he believes in
the hand which feeds
him. a
perfect
setup. for
13 cents a
day you’ve got
a hired killer
who thinks
you are
God. a
dog can’t tell a Nazi from a
Republican from a Commie from
a Democrat. and, many times,
neither can I.
the hatred for Hemingway
I gave Hemingway’s last book
Islands in the Stream
a bad review
while most others gave him
good reviews.
but the hatred for Hemingway
by the unsuccessful writer
especially the female writer
is incomprehensible to me.
this unsuccessful female writer was in a rage.
I had tried to explain why I thought
Hemingway wrote as
he did.
that life-through-death bit, she said,
is not at all unique with
Hemingway. what else is our
whole Western culture about? it’s the same story
over and over
again. no news
there!
that’s true, I thought, but…
shooting lions only meant shooting
himself? she asked. does it? does
it? not when those lions were unarmed and
he was coming at them with a rifle and
didn’t even have to
come close. really! poor little Hemingway.
it’s true, I thought, the lions don’t carry
rifles.
the Spanish tradition. I can see Goya because he comes
through as real and complete, she said. I can’t see
Hemingway as anything but an old Hollywood movie
acted out by…what’s his name? that Cooper who was a friend
of his—the High Noon guy. oh wow!
she doesn’t even like his friends,
I thought.
you learn about death by dying
not by looking at it,
she said.
that’s true, I thought, but then
how do you write about it?
you say Shakespeare bores you, she said—
the fact is
he knew far more than Hemingway—
journalist.
taught to write by Gertrude Stein, I thought.
he told you what he saw, she said, but he didn’t know
what it meant—how things really
relate…he never
explained.
that’s strange, I thought, that’s exactly what I
liked about
him.
you talk a lot of typical
crap, she said.
what a shame, I thought,
she has such long beautiful
legs. well, Goya was all right too,
but you can’t go to bed with
Goya.
well, all right, I thought, Hemingway pulled those big fish
out of the sea and endured a few wars
and watched bulls die and shot some
lions;
wrote some great short stories
and gave us 2 or 3
good early
novels;
on his last day
Hemingway waved to
some kids going to school,
they waved back, and he never touched the orange juice
sitting there in front of him;
then he stuck that gun into his mouth like a soda straw
and touched the trigger
and one of America’s few immortals
was blood and brain across the walls and
ceiling, and then they all smiled,
they smiled and said,
ah, a fag! ah, a coward!
yes, he took advantage of McAlmon
he took advantage of everybody
and he didn’t treat Fitzgerald right
and he typed standing up
and he was once in a mental
hospital,
and Gertie Stein, that friggin’
dyke,
maybe she did
teach him how to
write.
but who convinced him that it was time to die?
you did, you
dirty
fuckers.
four
the wisdom to quit
is all we have
left.
looking at the cat’s balls
sitting here by the window
sweating beer sweat
maule
d by the summer
I am looking at the cat’s balls.
it’s not my choice.
he sleeps in an old rocker
on the porch
and from there he looks at me
hung to his cat’s balls.
there’s his tail, damned thing,
hanging out of the
way so I can
view his furry storage tanks but
what can a man think about
while looking at a cat’s nuts?
certainly not about the sunken navy after a
great sea battle.
certainly not about a program to save the
poor.
certainly not about a flower market or a dozen
eggs.
certainly not about a broken light switch.
balls iz balls, that’s all,
and most certainly that’s true about
a cat’s balls.
my own are rather soft and mushy and
I’m told by my current lady
quite large:
“you’ve got big balls, Chinaski!”
but the cat’s balls:
I can’t figure whether he’s hung to them
or whether they’re hung to him.
you see, there is this almost nightly battle for
the female
and it doesn’t come easy for either of us.
look:
a piece is missing from his left ear.
once I thought one of his eyes had been
clawed out
but when the dried
blood peeled away
a week later
there was his pure
gold-green eye
looking at me.
his entire body is scarred from bites
and the other day,
attempting to pet his head
he yowled and almost bit me—
the skin on his skull
had been split to reveal the bone.
it certainly doesn’t come easy for any of us,
poor fellow.
he sleeps