now you will have a
chance to re-evaluate
that opinion
and to choose another
victim.
first family
it’s unholy.
I appear to be
lost. I walk from room to room and
there aren’t many (2 or 3)
and she is in the dark room
snoring, I can’t see her but her
mouth is open and her hair is gray
poor thing
and she doesn’t mean me harm
least of all
does she mean me
harm,
and in the other room are
pink lips pink ears
on a head like a cabbage
and a child’s blocks on the floor like
leprosy
and she also doesn’t mean me any harm at
all,
but I cannot sleep and I sit in the kitchen
with a big black fly
that goes around and around and around
like a piece of snot grown a
heart,
and I am puzzled and not given to
cruelty (I’d like to think)
and I sit with the fly
under this yellow light
and we smoke a cigar and drink beer
and share the calendar with a frightened cat:
“ katzen-unsere hausfrende: 1965.”
I am a poor father because I want to stay alive as a
man but perhaps I never was a
man.
I suck on the cigar and suddenly the fly is gone
and there are just
the 3 of us
here.
a real thing, a good woman
I put the book down and ask:
why are they always writing about
the bulls, the bullfighters?
those who have never seen
them?
and as I break the web of the
spider reaching for my wine,
the hum of bombers
breaking the solace, I decide
I must write an impatient letter to my
priest about some 3rd St.
whore
who keeps calling me up at 3 in
the morning.
ass full of
splinters,
thinking of pocketbook poets
and the priest,
I go over to the typewriter
next to the window
to see to my letter
and look look
the sky’s black as ink
and my wife says Brock, for
Christ’s sake,
the typewriter all night,
how can I sleep? and I crawl quickly
into bed and
kiss her hair and say
sorry sorry sorry
sometimes I get excited
I don’t know why …
a friend of mine has
written a book about
Manolete …
who’s that? nobody, kid,
somebody dead
like Chopin or our old mailman
or a dog,
go to sleep, go to sleep,
and I kiss her and rub her
head,
a good woman,
and soon she sleeps as I wait
for morning.
a child’s bedtime story
unsaid, said the snail.
untold, said the tortoise.
doesn’t matter, said the tiger.
obey me, said the father.
be loyal, said the country.
watch me climb, said the vine.
doesn’t matter, said the tiger.
untold, said the tortoise,
unsaid, said the snail.
I’ll run, said the mouse.
I’ll hide, said the cat.
I’ll fly, said the sparrow.
I’ll swim, said the whale.
obey and be loyal, said the
father and
everybody shut up! roared the
Queen.
the night came and all
the lights went out
as the cities
burned.
now, go to
sleep.
working out in Hades
holy Christ, I was on fire then and
I’d tell that whore I lived with on Beacon Street
starving and drinking
I’d tell her that I had something great and mysterious
going for me,
dirty torn shorts and ripped undershirt and
say more in desperation than belief: “I’m a fucking
genius and nobody knows it but
me!”
I thought this was rather humorous but she’d say, “honey, you’re
full of shit, pour us another drink!”
she was crazy too and now and then an empty bottle would come
flying toward my head.
(she
missed most of the time)
but
when she bounced one off my skull I’d ignore it, and pour another
drink because
after all, when you’re immortal, nothing
matters.
and besides, she had one of the finest pair of legs I’d ever
seen
in those high-heeled shoes and with her slender
ankles and her great knees glimmering in the
smoky drunken light.
she helped me through some of the worst times and if she was
here now we’d both laugh our goddamned asses
off
knowing it was all so true and real, and yet that somehow it
wasn’t real at
all.
half-a-goldfish
we were out on the town
and we
went to this nice
house, lovely couple, etc.
anyhow, there were 7 or
8 of us and a jug of really
cheap wine
came out and then some
snacks, and then the man
got up and came back with
3 live goldfish and he said,
“watch this!”
and he put them in a large
fish tank
and the next thing I knew
there were 6 or 7 heads
down there glued to the fish tank
including my girlfriend’s
and the soft light from the tank
shone on all the faces
and in all the eyes,
and one of the men went,
“ah!” and one of the girls
went, “oooh!”
some terrible thing was eating the
goldfish.
then somebody said, “look,
there’s just half-a-goldfish
left and he’s still swimming
around!”
I said, “why don’t you fucking
party animals
get up off that rug
and help me finish this
cheap wine?”
12 or 14 eyes turned and looked at
me. then one at a time
the people moved away from
the fish tank and came back and sat
down at the table
again.
then they began a discussion about
the merits of
little literary
magazines.
lousy mail
the time comes when the tank runs
dry and you have to
refill
if you can.
the vulture swoops low over
you
as you open the manila envelope
from the ivy league university and
read:
“we have to pass on this bat
ch of poems
but we are reading again in the
Fall.”
“you were rejected?” asks my
wife.
“yes.”
“well, fuck them,” she says.
now, there’s loyalty!
the vulture pauses in mid-flight,
defecates,
and flies out of the dining room
window.
and I think, it’s nice that they’ll be
reading again in the
Fall.
from the Dept. of English
we are surprised:
you used to jab with the left
then throw a left hook to the body
followed by an
overhand right.
we liked that
but we like your new way too:
where you can’t tell where
the next punch
is coming
from.
to change your style like that when you’re
not exactly a kid
anymore,
I think that takes some
doing.
anyhow, enough chitchat.
we’re accepting your poems
for our departmental Literary Journal
and, by the way,
you are one of the poets selected for
class discussion
in our Contemporary Poetry Series.
no shit, baby?
well, suck my
titties.
and poems have too
don’t worry, Dostoevsky,
the fish and the hills and the harbor
and the girls and the horses and the
alleys and the nights and the dogs
and the knives and the poisons and
the wines and the midgets and the
gamblers and the lights and the guns
and the lies and the sacrifices
and the flies and the frogs and the
flags and the doors and the windows
and the stairways and the cigarettes
and the hotels and myself have been
around a long time.
just like you.
poets to the rescue
the night the poets dropped by to say
hello
was at the time
that terrible time when
the ladies on the telephone
were screaming their fury
at me.
the night the poets came by to say
hello
I offered them cigarettes
as they talked about the
poet
who traveled all the way to Paris
in order to be able
to select the contents
of his next book
and we smiled at that
the poets and I
as we remembered starvation
dark mornings
deadly noons
evenings of elephantine
misery.
the night the poets came by to say
hello
we also mused about whatever happened to
Barney Google with the googly
eyes: he probably died for the love of
a strumpet as many good men
have
or went to London and walked in the
fog
waiting for
what?
the night the poets came by to say
hello
the walls were stained mellow with
grief
and beakers of curdled wine
dusty with dead spiders
sat about like memories best
forgotten.
the poets insisted then that it was best
not to think too much about things
or remember too much
but best just to sit around
in the evenings
and smoke our cigarettes and
drink our
beer
and talk quietly about
simple
things.
the poets
left soon after that
but the phone kept ringing
and I stood there frozen
as the ladies screamed their fury
at me.
what they wanted I didn’t have
and what I had
they didn’t want.
red hot mail
I continue to receive many letters
from young ladies.
evidently they have read some of
my books
but
they hardly ever
mention this.
many of their letters are
on pink or red
stationery
and they inform me that
they want to
kiss my lips and
they want to
come and stay with me
and
they say they will do anything
and everything
for and to me for
as long as
I can keep up with
them.
also, the younger ones are quick
to mention their
age: 21, 22, 23.
these letters are
fascinating, of
course,
but I always trash
them
for I know that all things
have their price
especially when they
are advertised as being
free.
besides,
what does it all mean?
bugs fuck, birds
fuck, horses
fuck, maybe some day they’ll
find that
even wind, water and
rocks
fuck.
and
where were all these eager
girls
when I was starving,
broke, young and
alone?
they were
not born yet, of
course.
I can’t blame them now
for
that.
but I do blame the girls
of my youth
for ignoring me and
for bedding down with all the
other
milkfish souls.
those other lads, I suppose,
were grateful then to
sink their spike into
any willing thing that
moved.
I only wish now some lass had
chanced upon me then
when I so needed her hair blowing in my
face
and her eyes smiling into mine,
when I so needed
that wild music
and that wild female willingness
to be
undone.
but they left me to sit alone
in tiny rented rooms
with only the company
of elderly landladies
and the comings and goings
of unsympathetic
roaches, they
left me terribly alone with
suicide mornings and
park bench
nights.
and now that
they are old
and
I am old
I don’t want to know
them
now
or even to know
their
daughters
even though
the gods
in their infinite wisdom
still refuse to
let me
forget and
rest.
some personal thoughts
they’re right: maybe it’s been too easy just writing about myself and
horses and drinking, but then I’m not
trying to prove anything. taking
long walks lately has been pleasant and although my desire for the female
remains, I find that I needn’t always be on the lookout for new conquests.
riding the same mare need not be boring. let the wild young fillies be a
problem for other men. I am often satisfied just being alone. I now find
people more amusing than disgusting (am I weakening?) and although
I still have nights and days of depression the typewriter does not fail me.
readers expect continual growth from their poets but at this time just
holding (the fort, haha) seems miraculous. long walks, yes. and the ability
not to care—at times—as our society erupts and struggles does not mean
that I am the victim of artistic loss. solitary evenings behind drawn blinds,
being neither rich nor poor, can be satisfying. will madness arrive on
schedule? I don’t know and I don’t seek an answer—just a small quiet
space between not knowing, not wanting to know and finally finding out.
he’s a dog
who? Chinaski? he hates fags and women.
he’s a drunk. he beats his wife. he’s a Nazi.
he only writes about sex and drinking. who
cares about that?
and he’s a nasty drunk.
I don’t understand what people see in his
writing.
I am the real genius and now
Chinaski has asked his publishers not to
publish me!
I’ve known some of the greatest writers
of our time!
Chinaski has met nobody.
I got him his start!
I got him included in that prestigious
anthology!
how does he repay me?
he writes unflattering things about
me.
and he claims he’s lived with all
those beautiful women.
have you ever seen his face?
who would bed down a man
like that?
and he’s had no education, no formal
training.
he has no idea what a stanza
is.
or for that matter—a line
break.
he just begins at the top
of the page and runs on to the