I forgive the first woman who held my psyche
in her fingertips when
I was sold into captivity
long ago.
it’s a lonely world
of frightened people.
a note upon modern poesy
poetry has come a long way, though very slowly;
you aren’t as old as I am
and I can remember reading
magazines where at the end of a poem
it said:
Paris, 1928.
that seemed to make a
difference, and so, those who could afford to
(and some who couldn’t)
went to
PARIS
and wrote.
I am also old enough so that I remember when poems
made many references to the Greek and Roman
gods.
if you didn’t know your gods you weren’t a very good
writer.
also, if you couldn’t slip in a line of
Spanish, French or
Italian,
you certainly weren’t a very good
writer.
5 or 6 decades ago,
maybe 7,
some poets started using
“i” for “I”
or
“&” for “and.”
many still use a small
“i” and many more continue to use the
“&”
feeling that this is
poetically quite effective and
up-to-date.
also, the oldest notion still in vogue is
that if you can’t understand a poem then
it almost certainly is a
good one.
poetry is still moving slowly forward, I guess,
and when your average garage mechanics
start bringing books of poesy to read
on their lunch breaks
then we’ll know for sure we’re moving in
the right
direction.
&
of this
i
am sure.
the end of an era
he lived in the Village
in New York
in the old days
and only after he died
did he get a write-up
in a snob magazine,
a magazine which had
never printed his
poems.
he came from the days
when poets called
themselves
Bohemians.
he wore a beret and a
scarf
and hung around the
cafés,
bummed drinks,
sometimes got a
night’s lodging from the
rich
(just for
laughs)
but mostly
he slept in the alleys
at night.
the whores knew him
well
and gave him
little
hand-outs.
he was a communist
or a
socialist
depending upon what
he was
reading
at that
moment.
it was 1939
and he had a
burning hatred
in his heart
for the
Nazis.
when he
recited his poems
in the street
he always
ended up
frothing about the
Nazis.
he passed out
little stapled
pages
of his
poems
and
he wrote
with a
simple
intensity.
he was good
but not
great.
and even the good poems
were not
that
good.
anyhow
he was an
attraction;
the tourists always
asked for
him.
he was always
in love
with some
new whore.
he had a
real
soul
and the usual
real
needs.
he stank
and wore cast-off clothes
and he screamed
when he spoke
but
at least
he wasn’t anybody
but
himself.
the Village was
his
Paris.
but unlike
Henry Miller
who made
failure
glorious
and finally
lucrative
he didn’t know
quite how
to accomplish
that.
instead of being
a
genius-freak
he was just
a
freak-freak.
but most of
the writers and
painters
who also had failed
loved him
because he
symbolized
for them
the possibility
of being
recognized.
they too wore
scarves and
berets
and did more
complaining than
creating.
but then they
lost him.
he was found
one morning
in an
alley
wrapped around
his latest
whore.
both of them
had their
throats
cut
wide.
and
on the wall
above them
in their
blood
were scrawled
the words:
“COMMIE PIG!”
another freak
had found
him?
a
freak- Nazi?
or maybe
just a
freak-freak?
but his
murder
finally created
the fame
he had always
wanted,
though it was
to be but
temporary.
he was to
have a
final
fling
in this
his
crazy
life and
death.
he had left
an envelope
with a prominent
Matron of the
Arts,
marked:
TO BE OPENED
ONLY IN THE EVENT
OF
MY DEATH.
all during his
stay in the
Village
he had spoken
about a mysterious
WORK IN
PROGRESS.
he had claimed
he’d written a
GIGANTIC WORK,
more pages than
a couple of
telephone
books.
it would
dwarf Pound’s
Cantos
and put a
headlock
on the
Bible.
the instructions
were
the WORK was
in an iron
chest
&
nbsp; buried
in a graveyard
30 yards
south and west
of a certain tree
(indicated on a
hand-drawn
map)
the tree
where he claimed
Whitman once
rested
while he wrote
“I Celebrate Myself.”
the ground
all about was
soon
dug up and
searched.
nothing was
found.
some Romantics
claimed it was
still
there
somewhere.
Realists
claimed it never had
been there.
maybe the
Nazis
got there
first?
at any rate
it was
shortly after
that
that
almost all the
poets
in the
Village
and most poets
living
elsewhere
stopped
wearing
scarves and
berets
and reluctantly
went off to
war.
Paris in the spring
if death was staring you in the face,
he was asked, what would you say to your readers?
nothing, he told the interviewer, would you please
order another bottle of wine?
he was an old, tired writer from Los Angeles, hungover,
and his French publisher had pushed one more
interview on him.
the free dinners and drinks usually
were great
but now he was fed up.
the many recent interviews had become
frustrating and boring.
he figured either his books would sell on their own
or fail the same way.
he hadn’t written them for money anyhow but to keep
himself out of the madhouse.
he tried to tell the interviewers this but they just went on with
their usual
banal questions:
have you met Norman Mailer?
what do you think of Camus, Sartre, Céline?
do your books sell better here than in America?
did you really work in a slaughterhouse?
do you think Hemingway was homosexual?
do you take drugs?
do you drink when you write?
are you a misanthrope?
who is your favorite writer?
the interviewer ordered another bottle of wine.
it was 11:15 p.m. on the patio of a hotel.
there were little white tables and chairs scattered about.
theirs was the only one occupied.
there was the interviewer, a photographer,
the writer and his wife.
have you had sex with children? the interviewer
asked.
no, answered the writer.
in one of your stories a man has sex with a
child and you describe it very
graphically.
well? asked the writer.
it was as if you enjoyed it, the interviewer said.
I sometimes enjoy writing, the writer said.
you seemed to have experienced what you were describing,
said the interviewer.
I only photograph life, said the writer. I might write
about a murderer but this doesn’t mean that I am
one or would enjoy being one.
ah, here’s the wine, said the interviewer.
the waiter took out the cork, poured a bit for
him.
the interviewer took a taste, nodded to the
waiter
and the waiter poured all
around.
the wine goes fast when there’s four of us, said the
writer.
do you drink because you are afraid of life?
the interviewer asked.
disgusted with life is more like it, said the writer, and with
you.
we were up very early, said the writer’s wife.
he’s given at least a dozen interviews over the past
3 days and he’s tired.
I am from one of the city’s most important newspapers,
said the interviewer.
fuck you, said the writer.
what? said the interviewer. you can’t talk to me
like that!
I am, said the writer.
all you American writers think you’re God, said the
interviewer.
God is dead, said the writer, remember?
this interview is over! said the interviewer.
the photographer quickly drank his wine,
then he and the interviewer stood up
and walked out.
to the writer, you’re on television tomorrow
night.
I’ll tell them to kiss my ass, said the writer.
you can’t do that, said his wife.
baby, said the writer, lifting his
wineglass, watch me!
you’re just a drunk who writes, said his wife.
that’s better than a drunk who just drinks,
said the writer.
his wife sighed.
well, do you want to go back to the room or to another
café?
to another café, said the writer.
they rose and walked slowly out of the
restaurant, he looking through his pocket for
cigarettes, she looking back over her shoulder
as if something was following
them.
alone in this chair
hell, hell, in hell,
trapped like a fish to bake
here and burn.
hell, hell, inside my brain
inside my gut,
hell hanging
twisting
screaming
churning
then crouching still
both inside
and outside of
me.
hell,
hell in the trees,
on the ground,
crawling on the rug.
hell,
bouncing off
the
walls and
ceiling as
I sit in this chair here
as outside
through the window
I watch
6 or 7 telephone wires
taut against the
sky
as fresh hell slides
toward me
along the wires.
hell is where I
am.
and I am
here.
there isn’t any
place
else.
see me now
reaching for a
cigarette,
my hand pushing
through boiling space.
there is nothing more
I can do.
I light the
cigarette,
lean back here
alone
in
this
chair.
talking about the poets
“correctly so,” I told him,
“I would much rather they all
robbed banks or sold
drugs and if you please may
I have a vodka-7?”
“I agree,” said the
barkeep mi
xing the
drink, “I’d rather they
collected garbage
or ran for Congress
or taught
biology.”
“or,” I said, reaching
for the drink, “sold
flowers on the corner
or gave back rubs or
tried blowing glass.”
“absolutely right,” said
the barkeep
pouring himself a
drink, “I’d rather they
plowed the good
earth or
delivered the mail.”
“or,” I said, “mugged
old ladies or
pulled teeth.”
“or directed traffic or
worked the factories,”
said the barkeep, “or
caught the bus to
the nearest harvest.”
“that will be a great day,” I said,
“when it arrives.”
“beautiful,” said the
barkeep, “but isn’t it the
mediocrity of the masses
which diminishes the
wealth of its entertainers
and artists?”
“absolutely not,” I said, “and may I
have another vodka- 7?”
“if I was the policeman
of the world,” the barkeep
continued, moving the drink
toward me, “many a darling
poet would either be allowed to
starve or forced to get a
real job.”
“and correctly so,” I
said, raising my
drink.
“that will be a beautiful day,”
said the barkeep,
“when it arrives.”
“a hell of a beautiful
day,” I agreed.
was Li Po wrong?
you know what Li Po said when asked if he’d rather be an