strength.
can you buy a melon? she asked.
have you ever been chased across the Mojave and
raped?
no, she said.
I pulled out my last 20 and with an old man’s
virile abandon ordered
four drinks.
both girls smiled and pulled their dresses
higher, if that was possible.
who’s your friend? they asked.
this is Lord Chesterfield, I told them.
pleased ta meetcha, they
said.
hello, bitches, he answered.
we walked through the 3rd street tunnel
to a green hotel. the girls had a
key.
there was one bed and we all got
in. I don’t know who got
who.
the next morning my friend and
I were down at the Farm Labor Market
on San Pedro Street
holding up and waving our social
security cards.
they couldn’t see
his.
I was the last one on the truck out. a big woman stood
up against me. she smelled like
port wine.
honey, she asked, what ever happened to your
face?
fair grounds, a dancing bear who
didn’t.
bullshit, she said.
maybe so, I said, but get your hand out
from around my
balls. everybody’s looking.
when we got to the
fields the sun was
really up
and the world
looked
terrible.
about pain
my first and only wife
painted
and she talked to me
about it:
“it’s all so painful
for me, each stroke is
pain…
one mistake and
the whole painting is
ruined…
you will never understand the
pain…”
“look, baby,” I
said, “why doncha do something easy—
something ya like ta
do?”
she just looked at me
and I think it was her
first understanding of
the tragedy of our being
together.
such things usually
begin
somewhere.
hot
she was hot, she was so hot
I didn’t want anybody else to have her,
and if I didn’t get home on time
she’d be gone, and I couldn’t bear that—
I’d go mad…
it was foolish I know, childish,
but I was caught in it, I was caught.
I delivered all the mail
and then Henderson put me on the night pickup run
in an old army truck,
the damn thing began to heat halfway through the run
and the night went on
me thinking about my hot Miriam
and jumping in and out of the truck
filling mailsacks
the engine continuing to heat up
the temperature needle was at the top
HOT HOT
like Miriam.
I leaped in and out
3 more pickups and into the station
I’d be, my car
waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch
with scotch on the rocks
crossing her legs and swinging her ankles
like she did,
2 more stops…
the truck stalled at a traffic light, it was hell
kicking it over
again…
I had to be home by 8, 8 was the deadline for Miriam.
I made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal
1/2 block from the station…
it wouldn’t start, it couldn’t start…
I locked the doors, pulled the key and ran down to the
station…
I threw the keys down…. signed out…
your goddamned truck is stalled at the signal,
I shouted,
Pico and Western…
…I ran down the hall, put the key into the door,
opened it…. her drinking glass was there, and a note:
sun of a bitch:
I wated until 5 after ate
you don’t love me
you sun of a bitch
somebody will love me
I been wateing all day
Miriam
I poured a drink and let the water run into the tub
there were 5,000 bars in town
and I’d make 25 of them
looking for Miriam
her purple teddy bear held the note
as he leaned against a pillow
I gave the bear a drink, myself a drink
and got into the hot
water.
who in the hell is Tom Jones?
I was shacked with a
24-year-old girl from
New York City for
two weeks—about
the time of the garbage
strike out there, and
one night my 34-year-
old woman arrived and
she said, “I want to see
my rival.” she did
and then she said, “o,
you’re a cute little thing!”
next I knew there was a
screech of wildcats—
such screaming and scratching, wounded animal moans,
blood and piss…
I was drunk and in my
shorts. I tried to
separate them and fell,
wrenched my knee. then
they were through the screen
door and down the walk
and out in the street.
squad cars full of cops
arrived. a police helicopter circled overhead.
I stood in the bathroom
and grinned in the mirror.
it’s not often at the age
of 55 that such splendid
things occur.
better than the Watts
riots.
the 34-year-old
came back in. she had
pissed all over her-
self and her clothing
was torn and she was
followed by 2 cops who
wanted to know why.
pulling up my shorts
I tried to explain.
the price
drinking 15-dollar champagne—
Cordon Rouge—with the hookers.
one is named Georgia and she
doesn’t like pantyhose:
I keep helping her pull up
her long dark stockings.
the other is Pam—prettier
but not much soul, and
we smoke and talk and I
play with their legs and
stick my bare foot into
Georgia’s open purse.
it’s filled with
bottles of pills. I
take some of the pills.
“listen,” I say, “one of
you has soul, the other
looks. can’t I combine
the 2 of you? take the soul
and stick it into the looks?”
“you want me,” says Pam, “it
will cost you a hundred.”
we drink some more and Georgia
falls to the floor and can’t
get up.
I tell Pam that I like her
earrings very much. her
hair is long and a natural
red.
“I was only kidding about the
hundred,” she says.
“oh,” I say, “what will it cost
me?”
she lights her cigarette with
my lighter and looks at me
through the flame:
her eyes tell me.
“look,” I say, “I don’t think I
can ever pay that price again.”
she crosses her legs
inhales on her cigarette
as she exhales she smiles
and says, “sure you can.”
I’m in love
she’s young, she said,
but look at me, I have pretty ankles,
and look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
o my god,
I thought it was all working,
and now it’s her again,
every time she phones you go crazy,
you told me it was over
you told me it was finished,
listen, I’ve lived long enough to become a
good woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
you need to be tortured, don’t you?
you think life is rotten if somebody treats you
rotten it all fits,
doesn’t it?
tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
piece of shit?
and my son, my son was going to meet you.
I told my son
and I dropped all my lovers.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I’M IN LOVE,
and now you’ve made a fool of me…
I’m sorry, I said, I’m really sorry.
hold me, she said, will you please hold me?
I’ve never been in one of these things before, I said,
these triangles…
she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over. she paced up and down, wild and crazy. she had
a small body. her arms were thin, very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred,
centuries deep and true. I was wrong and graceless and
sick. all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no living creature as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.
the girls
I have been looking at
the same
lampshade
for
5 years
and it has gathered
a bachelor’s dust
and
the girls who enter here
are too
busy
to clean it
but I don’t mind
I have been too
busy
to notice
until now
that the light
shines
badly
through
5 years’
worth.
the ladies of summer
the ladies of summer will die like the rose
and the lie
the ladies of summer will love
so long as the price is not
forever
the ladies of summer
might love anybody;
they might even love you
as long as summer
lasts
yet winter will come to them
too
white snow and
a cold freezing
and faces so ugly
that even death
will turn away—
wince—
before taking them.
tonight
“your poems about the girls will still be around
50 years from now when the girls are gone,”
my editor phones me.
dear editor:
the girls appear to be gone
already.
I know what you mean
but give me one truly alive woman
to night
walking across the floor toward me
and you can have all the poems
the good ones
the bad ones
or any that I might write
after this one.
I know what you mean.
shoes
when you’re young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you’re old
it’s just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.
hug the dark
turmoil is the god
madness is the god
permanent living peace is
permanent living death.
agony can kill
or agony can sustain life
but peace is always horrifying
peace is the worst thing
walking
talking
smiling,
seeming to be.
don’t forget the sidewalks
the whores,
betrayal,
the worm in the apple,
the bars, the jails,
the suicides of lovers.
here in America
we have assassinated a president and his brother,
another president has quit office.
people who believe in politics
are like people who believe in god:
they are sucking wind through bent
straws.
there is no god
there are no politics
there is no peace
there is no love
there is no control
there is no plan
stay away from god
remain disturbed
slide.
face of a political candidate on a street billboard
there he is:
not too many hangovers
not too many fights with women
not too many flat tires
never a thought of suicide
not more than three toothaches
never missed a meal
never in jail
never in love
7 pairs of shoes
a son in college
a car one year old
insurance policies
a very green lawn
garbage cans with tight lids
he’ll be elected.
white dog
I went for a walk on Hollywood Boulevard.
I looked down and there was a large white dog
walking beside me.
his pace was exactly the same as mine.
we stopped at traffic signals together.
we crossed the side streets together.
a woman smiled at us.
he must have walked 8 blocks with me.
then I went into a grocery store and
when I came out he was gone.
or she was gone.
the wonderful white dog
with a trace of yellow in its fur.
the large blue eyes were gone.
the grinning mouth was gone.
the lolling tongue was gone.
things are so easily lost.
things just can’t be kept forever.
I got the blues.
I got the blues.
that dog loved and
trusted me and
I let it walk away.
on going out to get the mail
the droll noon
where squadrons of worms creep up like
stripteasers
to be raped by blackbirds.
I go outside
and all up and down the street
the green armies shoot color