all the women was cryin’
and though they was moanin’
other men’s names
I just know they was cryin’
for me (poor critters)
and though I’d slept with all a them,
I’d forgotten
in all the big excitement
to tell ’em my name
and all the men looked angry
but I guess it was because the kids
was all being impolite
and a throwin’ tin cans at me,
but I told ’em not to worry
because their aim was bad anyhow
not a boy there looked like he’d turn
into a man—
90% homosexuals, the lot of them,
and some guy shouted
“let’s send him to hell!”
and with a jerk I was dancin’
my last dance,
but I swung out wide
and spit in the bartender’s eye
and stared down
into Nellie Adam’s breasts,
and my mouth watered again.
Scarlet
I’m glad when they arrive
and I’m glad when they leave
I’m glad when I hear their heels
approaching my door
and I’m glad when those heels
walk away
I’m glad to fuck
I’m glad to care
and I’m glad when it’s over
and
since it’s always either
starting or finishing
I’m glad
most of the time
and the cats walk up and down
and the earth spins around the sun
and the phone rings:
“this is Scarlet.”
“who?”
“Scarlet.”
“o.k., get it on over.”
and I hang up thinking
maybe this is it
go in
take a quick shit
shave
bathe
dress
dump the sacks
and cartons of empty
bottles
sit down to the sound of
heels approaching
more an army approaching than
victory
it’s Scarlet
and in my kitchen the faucet
keeps dripping
needs a washer.
I’ll take care of it
later.
like a flower in the rain
I cut the middle fingernail of the middle
finger
right hand
real short
and I began rubbing along her cunt
as she sat upright in bed
spreading lotion over her arms
face
and breasts
after bathing.
then she lit a cigarette:
“don’t let this put you off,”
and smoked and continued to rub the
lotion on.
I continued to rub the cunt.
“you want an apple?” I asked.
“sure,” she said, “you got one?”
but I got to her—
she began to twist
then she rolled on her side,
she was getting wet and open
like a flower in the rain.
then she rolled on her stomach
and her most beautiful ass
looked up at me
and I reached under and got the
cunt again.
she reached around and got my
cock, she rolled and twisted,
I mounted
my face falling into the mass
of red hair that overflowed
from her head
and my fattened cock entered
into the miracle.
later we joked about the lotion
and the cigarette and the apple.
then I went out and got some chicken
and shrimp and french fries and buns
and mashed potatoes and gravy and
cole slaw, and we ate. she told me
how good I felt and we ate
the chicken and the shrimp and the
french fries and the buns and the
mashed potatoes and the gravy and
the cole slaw too.
a killer
consistency is terrific:
shark-mouth
grubby interior with an
almost perfect body,
long blazing hair—
it confuses me
and others
she runs from man to man
offering endearments
she speaks of love
then breaks each man
to her will
shark-mouthed
grubby interior
we see it too late:
after the cock gets swallowed
the heart follows
her long blazing hair
her almost perfect body
walks down the street
as the same sun
falls upon flowers.
prayer in bad weather
by God, I don’t know what to
do.
they’re so nice to have around.
they have a way of playing with
the balls
and looking at the cock very
seriously
turning it
tweeking it
examining each part
as their long hair falls on
your belly.
it’s not the fucking and sucking
alone that reaches into a man
and softens him, it’s the extras,
it’s all the extras.
now it’s raining to night
and there’s nobody
they are elsewhere
examining things
in new bedrooms
in new moods
or maybe in old
bedrooms.
anyhow, it’s raining to night,
one hell of a dashing, pouring
rain….
very little to do.
I’ve read the newspaper
paid the gas bill
the electric co.
the phone bill.
it keeps raining.
they soften a man
and then let him swim
in his own juice.
I need an old-fashioned whore
at the door to night
closing her green umbrella,
drops of moonlit rain on her
purse, saying, “shit, man,
can’t you get better music
than that on your radio?
and turn up the heat…”
it’s always when a man’s swollen
with love and everything
else
that it keeps raining
splattering
flooding
rain
good for the trees and the
grass and the air…
good for things that
live alone.
I would give anything
for a female’s hand on me
tonight.
they soften a man and
then leave him
listening to the rain.
melancholia
the history of melancholia
includes all of us.
me, I writhe in dirty sheets
while staring at blue walls
and nothing.
I have gotten so used to melancholia
that
I greet it like an old
friend.
I will now do 15 minutes of grieving
for the lost redhead,
I tell the gods.
I do it and feel quite bad
quite sad,
then I rise
&n
bsp; CLEANSED
even though nothing is
solved.
that’s what I get for kicking
religion in the ass.
I should have kicked the redhead
in the ass
where her brains and her bread and
butter are
at…
but, no, I’ve felt sad
about everything:
the lost redhead was just another
smash in a lifelong
loss…
I listen to drums on the radio now
and grin.
there is something wrong with me
besides
melancholia.
eat your heart out
I’ve come by, she says, to tell you
that this is it. I’m not kidding, it’s
over. this is it.
I sit on the couch watching her arrange
her long red hair before my bedroom
mirror.
she pulls her hair up and
piles it on top of her head—
she lets her eyes look at
my eyes—
then she drops the hair and
lets it fall down in front of her face.
we go to bed and I hold her
speechlessly from the back
my arm around her neck
I touch her wrists and hands
feel up to
her elbows
no further.
she gets up.
this is it, she says,
eat your heart out. you
got any rubber bands?
I don’t know.
here’s one, she says,
this will do. well,
I’m going.
I get up and walk her
to the door
just as she leaves
she says,
I want you to buy me
some high-heeled shoes
with tall thin spikes,
black high-heeled shoes.
no, I want them
red.
I watch her walk down the cement walk
under the trees
she walks all right and
as the poinsettias drip in the sun
I close the door.
I made a mistake
I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue pan ties
and showed them to her and
asked “are these yours?”
and she looked and said,
“no, those belong to a dog.”
she left after that and I haven’t seen
her since. she’s not at her place.
I keep going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back and the notes
are still there. I take the Maltese cross
cut it down from my car mirror, tie it
to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave
a book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
is still there.
I keep searching the streets for that
blood-wine battleship she drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
hanging from broken hinges.
I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.
a confused old man driving in the rain
wondering where the good luck
went.
she comes from somewhere
probably from the belly button or from the shoe under the
bed, or maybe from the mouth of the shark or from
the car crash on the avenue that leaves blood and memories
scattered on the grass.
she comes from love gone wrong under an
asphalt moon.
she comes from screams stuffed with cotton.
she comes from hands without arms
and arms without bodies
and bodies without hearts.
she comes out of cannons and shotguns and old victrolas.
she comes from parasites with blue eyes and soft voices.
she comes out from under the organ like a roach.
she keeps coming.
she’s inside of sardine cans and letters.
she’s under your fingernails pressing blue and flat.
she’s the signpost on the barricade
smeared in brown.
she’s the toy soldiers inside your head
poking their lead bayonets.
she’s the first kiss and the last kiss and
the dog’s guts spilling like a river.
she comes from somewhere and she never stops
coming.
me, and that
old woman:
sorrow.
The High-Rise of the New World
it is an orange
animal
with
hand grenades
fire power
big teeth and
a horn of smoke
a colored man
with cigar
yanks at
gears and the damn thing never gets
tired
my neighbor
….n old man in blue
bathing trunks
….n old man
a fetid white obscene
thing—
the old man
lifts apart some purple flowers
and peeks through the fence at the
orange animal
and like a horror movie
I see the orange animal open its
mouth—
it belches it has teeth fastened onto a giraffe’s
neck—
and it reached over the fence and it gets the
old man in his blue
bathing trunks
neatly
it gets him
from behind the fence of purple flowers
and his whiteness is like
garbage in the air
and then
he’s dumped into a
shock of lumber
and then the orange animal
backs off
spins
turns
runs off into the Hollywood Hills
the palm trees the
boulevards as
the colored man
sucks red steam
from his
cigar
I’ll be glad when it’s all
over
the noise is
terrible and I’m afraid to go and
buy a
paper.
car wash
got out, fellow said, “hey!” walked toward
me, we shook hands, he slipped me 2 red
tickets for free car washes, “find you later,”
I told him, walked on through to waiting
area with wife, we sat on outside bench.
black fellow with a limp came up, said,
“hey, man, how’s it going?”
I answered, “fine, bro, you makin’ it?”
“no problem,” he said, then walked off to
dry down a Caddy.
“these people know you?” my wife asked.
“no.”
“how come they talk to you?”
“they like me, people have always liked me,
it’s my cross.”
then our car was finished, fellow flipped
his rag at me, we got up, got to the
car, I slipped him a buck, we got in, I
started the engine, the foreman walked
up, big guy with dark shades, huge guy,
he smiled a big one, “good to see you,
man!”
I smiled back, “thanks, but it’s your party,
man!”
I pulled out into traffic, “they know you,”
said my wife.
“sure,” I said, “I�
�ve been there.”
Van Gogh
vain vanilla ladies strutting
while van Gogh did it to
himself.
girls pulling on silk
hose
while van Gogh did it to
himself
in the field
unkissed, and
worse.
I pass him on the street:
“how’s it going, Van?”
“I dunno, man,” he says
and walks on.
there is a blast of color:
one more creature
dizzy with love.
he said,
then,
I want to leave.