“Baby, you going to be here when I
get back?”
“sure, Hank, I love you…”
and you come back to find the bed cover
flipped back, they slipped out right after
you drove off,
didn’t even empty an
ashtray.
well, you’re a fool but you don’t give up
on women on account of
that.
the next one might be
better.
and this poem can’t replace the one
lost
but it’s a good shot in the dark
which beats
none at
all
maybe.
MY MADNESS
There are degrees of madness, and the madder you are the more obvious it will be to other people. Most of my life I have hidden my madness within myself but it is there. For instance, some person will be speaking to me of this or that and while this person is boring me with their stale generalities, I will imagine this person with his or her head resting on the block of the guillotine, or I will imagine them in a huge frying pan, frying away, as they look at me with their frightened eyes. In actual situations such as these, I would most probably attempt a rescue, but while they are speaking to me I can’t help imagining them thus. Or, in a milder mood, I might envision them on a bicycle riding swiftly away from me. I simply have problems with human beings. Animals, I love. They do not lie and seldom attempt to attack you. At times they may be crafty but this is allowable. Why?
Most of my young and middle-aged life was spent in tiny rooms, huddled there, staring at the walls, the torn shades, the knobs on dresser drawers. I was aware of the female and desired her but I didn’t want to jump through all the hoops to get to her. I was aware of money, but again, like with the female, I didn’t want to do the things needed to get it. All I wanted was enough for a room and for something to drink. I drank alone, usually on the bed, with all the shades pulled. At times I went to the bars to check out the species but the species remained the same—not much and often far less than that.
In all the cities, I checked out the libraries. Book after book. Few of the books said anything to me. They were mostly dust in my mouth, sand in my mind. None of it related to me or how I felt: where I was—nowhere—what I had—nothing—and what I wanted—nothing. The books of the centuries only compounded the mystery of having a name, a body, walking around, talking, doing things. Nobody seemed stuck with my particular madness.
In some of the bars I became violent, there were alley fights, many of which I lost. But I wasn’t fighting anybody in particular, I wasn’t angry, I just couldn’t understand people, what they were, what they did, how they looked. I was in and out of jail, I was evicted from my rooms. I slept on park benches, in graveyards. I was confused but I wasn’t unhappy. I wasn’t vicious. I just couldn’t make anything out of what there was. My violence was against the obvious trap, I was screaming and they didn’t understand. And even in the most violent fights I would look at my opponent and think, why is he angry? He wants to kill me. Then I’d have to throw punches to get the beast off me. People have no sense of humor, they are so fucking serious about themselves.
Somewhere along the way, and I have no idea where it came from, I got to thinking, maybe I should be a writer. Maybe I can put down the words that I haven’t read, maybe by doing that I can get this tiger off my back. And so I started and decades rolled by without much luck. Now I was a mad writer. More rooms, more cities. I sunk lower and lower. Freezing one time in Atlanta in a tar paper shack, living on one dollar and a quarter a week. No plumbing, no light, no heat. I sat freezing in my California shirt. One morning I found a small pencil stub and I began writing poems in the margins of old newspapers on the floor.
Finally, at the age of 40, my first book appeared, a small chapbook of poems, Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail. The package of books had arrived in the mail and I opened the package and here were the little chapbooks. They spilled on the sidewalk, all the little books and I knelt down among them, I was on my knees and I picked up a Flower Fist and I kissed it. That was 30 years ago.
I’m still writing. In the first four months this year I have written 250 poems. I still feel the madness rushing through me, but I still haven’t gotten the word down the way I want it, the tiger is still on my back. I will die with that son-of-a-bitch on my back but I’ve given him a fight. And if there is anybody out there who feels crazy enough to want to become a writer, I’d say go ahead, spit in the eye of the sun, hit those keys, it’s the best madness going, the centuries need help, the species cry for light and gamble and laughter. Give it to them. There are enough words for all of us.
pastoral
listening to a piano and a
trumpet
mix it up
on the radio,
the express purpose of
existence remains
unsolved.
all 6 cats are asleep
now,
12:30 a.m.,
my wife is across the
street visiting with a
neighbor lady.
good, they need
it.
the racetrack was
closed today
and I was a lost
fat
butterfly.
most days go
nowhere
but the avoidance
of pain and
dissolution are
lovely.
they will arrive
soon enough,
fecund,
recharged,
valiant,
evermost.
now there is a
chorus on the radio,
they sing to me
as I clean my
fingernails with a
toothpick.
no thunder
tonight.
no tiger roaring
in my brain.
I am resting.
I rub my face with
my fingers.
I am waiting for
war.
the centuries have
trained me
well.
I lean back in the
chair
and smile
to myself,
for myself,
for everything,
for nothing.
this is absolutely
great.
this is as good as
it is ever
going to
get.
finis
those times are gone now
but I remember the 50s
at the track, people crushed
around the bars, laughing,
wise cracking and there were
fist fights, there were crowds
of 50 and 60 thousand people
on the weekends, it seemed
everybody had money and
even the mutuel clerks were
happy; good-looking prostitutes
were everywhere and
Willie Shoemaker was young,
even Johnny Longden was
young and Ralph Neves
smoked cigarettes in the
walking ring, you saw George
Raft, and there were 8 races
instead of 9 and there was
the feeling that you were
going to make money and if
you didn’t, what the hell,
they were running the next
day.
and there was always a
woman with you and if there
wasn’t there would be
that night.
it was gamble and drink
and forget
tomorrow.
those were the 50s.
go out there now, it’s sparse
and drab, it’s like a home for
the mentally deficient.
nobody’s laughing,
the rent
money’s up
for grabs and
the ladies are old, white-
haired, they sit together,
bet two dollars to
show.
they are terrified of
everything.
they should be.
the bartenders have
nothing to do.
the track gives away
prizes, trinkets
trying to draw the
crowds.
the track offers
exotic betting.
the crowd does not
arrive
and what there is
begins leaving
after each race.
there are now 9 races,
it doesn’t matter—
there is no money to
bet,
the track is a funeral
parlor, it is the end
of life.
the sun can’t make it
through the filthy
air.
it gets dark soon.
the people move
slowly toward the
exits.
their faces are
unhappy, their faces
are
murdered.
it is a procession of
the dead.
it’s the 90s.
it’s 40 years back to the
50s,
it’s centuries back.
it’s the 90s.
nobody’s laughing.
tomorrow is all too
close.
the last race is here.
that rare good moment
when the gods relent
when the dogs back
off,
you are sitting in a
Sushi joint
working the chopsticks
between two tall bottles of
Kirin
and you are quietly thinking
about any number of Hells
you have
survived,
probably no more than
anybody else
but they’re yours to
remember.
survival is a very
funny thing,
and it’s weird,
passing safely through all the
wars,
the women,
the hospitals, the jails,
youth,
middle-age,
suicide dances,
decades of
nothingness.
now in a Sushi joint
on a side street
in a small town,
it all passes before
you
quickly
like a bad/good
movie.
there is this
strange feeling of
peace.
not a car passing
in the street,
not a sound.
you hold the chopsticks
as if you have used
them for
centuries,
note a tiny piece of
coleslaw at the
edge of your
plate.
there, you have it,
all that style,
grace,
god damn it’s so
strange
to feel good to
be alive,
doing nothing
exceptional
and feeling
the glory of
that,
like a full
choir behind
you,
like the
sidewalks,
like the
doorknobs.
grass grows in Greece
and even ducks
sleep.
doesn’t seem like much
my editor-publisher who is about
60
writes me,
“let’s go another ten years.
you up to it?”
I’m 70.
ten years?
that’s just a walk around the
block.
I feel almost
insulted.
how about 30
years?
a man can get a little
work done in that
time.
I don’t answer my editor-
publisher.
is he getting
tired?
what else would he do
if he wasn’t publishing
me?
work his garden?
play golf?
travel?
well, in a sense I do
answer him
by sitting down to the
keyboard
and typing out
poems
in different type faces,
on different
colored papers,
just to pep up the
show,
and the content is
good too—ripely
burning and also
laughing a
bit.
ten years?
this is 1991.
the year 2,000 will
come and go
in the blink of an
eye.
hey, editor-publisher,
how about the year
2020?
then we can putter in
our gardens and write
our goddamned auto-
biographies.
you up to it?
strange luck
slapped across the face with a
shit brick
he stopped at Biff’s Bar
for a quick one and stayed
five years.
he survived through and with
a half-witted
guile.
room.
within a four block area he
had lived in nine
rooms.
each was about the same:
dirty, small, gloomy.
he lived on loaves of bread
alone.
at rare times he added
bologna or peanut
butter.
in the bar it was beer,
beer, beer
and at rare times,
whiskey or vodka or
scotch or gin.
gin didn’t do much for
him but he
welcomed it.
nobody knew where he had
come from, what he wanted.
the others accepted him
as a fixture, an oddball
fixture.
the women, largely, ignored
him.
he was neither bitter, angry
or displeased
he was just there.
then, one day, after 5 years
he just walked out and was
never seen there
again.
now he owns a large home, a
late model car,
there is a spa, a swimming
pool, a vast garden, a
wife.
sometimes you will read of
him in the
metropolitan
dailies.
he still drinks,
but moderately.
beer, wine or an occasional
vodka.
he drinks alone
in an upstairs room.
he sits at the keyboard of an
expensive
computer.
those few who remember him
can’t believe the
transition.
he knows that is all
just game-playing by the
gods.
he feels no different than
he ever
did.
he is no less or no more
than he was
then.
he drinks at the computer
and waits for death
as he has always
done.
it’s hard but it’s
fair.
and strange and strange and
strange and
strange.
until it hurts
you have to wait until it
hurts, until it clangs in
your ears like the bells
of hell, until nothing
else counts but it, until
it is everything,
until you can’t do anything
else
but.
then sit down and write
or stand up and
write
but write
no matter what
the other people are
doing,
no matter what
they will do to
you.
lay the line down,
a party of one,
what a party,
swarmed by the
light,
the time of the
times,
out of the tips of
your
fingers.
DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON
We are in Musso’s Restaurant around 2 p.m., it’s the best time there, the tablecloths aren’t on the dinner tables yet and it’s quiet. The tourists are all at Disneyland. I’m having a turkey sandwich with a side order of fries. I don’t know what Blackwell is eating. It’s a large rectangle of meat very well done (almost black) but inside it’s a bright red. He slices very thin portions and chews each piece with great reverence. Outside, Hollywood Boulevard has disintegrated into skid row. Just Musso’s stands there as it has since 1919, the last bit of class in sight. It is a good place to be when you are feeling down and I am usually feeling down.