been
doing?”
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.
pulled down shade
what I like about you
she told me
is that you’re crude—
look at you sitting there
a beercan in your hand
and a cigar in your mouth
and look at
your dirty hairy belly
sticking out from
under your shirt.
you’ve got your shoes off
and you’ve got a hole
in your right stocking
with the big toe
sticking out.
you haven’t shaved in
4 or 5 days.
your teeth are yellow
and your eyebrows
hang down
all twisted
and you’ve got enough
scars
to scare the shit
out of anybody.
there’s always
a ring
in your bathtub
your telephone
is covered with
grease
and
half the crap in
your refrigerator is
rotten.
you never
wash your car.
you’ve got newspapers
a week old
on the floor.
you read dirty
magazines
and you don’t have
a tv
but you order
deliveries from the
liquor store
and you tip
good.
and best of all
you don’t push
a woman to
go to bed
with you.
you seem hardly
interested
and when I talk to you
you don’t
say anything
you just
look around
the room or
scratch your
neck
like you don’t
hear me.
you’ve got an old
wet towel in
the sink
and a photo of
Mussolini
on the wall
and you never
complain
about anything
and you never
ask questions
and I’ve
known you for
6 months
but I have
no idea
who you are.
you’re like
some
pulled down shade
but that’s what
I like about
you:
your crudeness:
a woman can
drop
out of your
life and
forget you
real fast.
a woman
can’t go anywhere
but UP
after
leaving you,
honey.
you’ve got to
be
the best thing
that ever
happened
to
a girl
who’s between
one guy
and the next
and has nothing
to do
at the moment.
this fucking
Scotch is
great.
let’s play
Scrabble.
Trollius and trellises
of course, I may die in the next ten minutes
and I’m ready for that
but what I’m really worried about is
that my editor-publisher might retire
even though he is ten years younger than
I.
it was just 25 years ago (I was at that ripe
old age of 45)
when we began our unholy alliance to
test the literary waters,
neither of us being much
known.
I think we had some luck and still have some
of same
yet
the odds are pretty fair
that he will opt for warm and pleasant
afternoons
in the garden
long before I.
writing is its own intoxication
while publishing and editing,
attempting to collect bills
carries its own
attrition
which also includes dealing with the
petty bitchings and demands
of many
so-called genius darlings who are
not.
I won’t blame him for getting
out
and hope he sends me photos of his
Rose Lane, his
Gardenia Avenue.
will I have to seek other
promulgators?
that fellow in the Russian
fur hat?
or that beast in the East
with all that hair
in his ears, with those wet and
greasy lips?
or will my editor-publisher
upon exiting for that world of Trollius and
trellis
hand over the
machinery
of his former trade to a
cousin, a
daughter or
some Poundian from Big
Sur?
or will he just pass the legacy on
to the
Shipping Clerk
who will rise like
Lazarus,
fingering new-found
importance?
one can imagine terrible
things:
“Mr. Chinaski, all your work
must now be submitted in
Rondo form
and
typed
triple-spaced on rice
paper.”
power corrupts,
life aborts
and all you
have left
is a
bunch of
warts.
“no, no, Mr. Chinaski:
Rondo form!”
“hey, man,” I’ll ask,
“haven’t you heard of
the thirties?”
“the thirties? what’s
that?”
my present editor-publisher
and I
at times
did discuss the thirties,
the Depression
and
some of the little tricks it
taught us—
like how to endure on almost
nothing
and move forward
anyhow.
well, John, if it happens enjoy your
divertissement to
plant husbandry,
cultivate and aerate
between
bushes, water only in the
early morning, spread
shredding to discourage
weed growth
and
as I do in my writing:
use plenty of
manure.
and thank you
for locating me there at
5124 DeLongpre Avenue
somewhere between
alcoholism and
madness.
together we
laid down the gauntlet
and there are takers
even at this late date
still to be
found
as the fire sings
through the
trees.
turn
I learned recently
that my first wife
died in
India.
she belonged to some
cult and died of a
mysterious
disease.
the family didn’t
ask
to have the body
shipped
back.
poor Barbara,
she was born with a
neck
that couldn’t
turn.
a beautiful woman
otherwise.
my dear, high in the
sun, I hope that your
neck
turns
at last
and that the stares
and the ridicule
and the unwanted
pity
find home
elsewhere.
oh, I was a ladies’ man!
you
wonder about
when
you ran through women
like an open-field
maniac
with this total
disregard for
panties, dishtowels,
photos
and all the other
accoutrements—
like
the tangling of
souls.
what
were you
trying to
do
trying to
catch up
with?
it was like a
hunt.
how many
could you
bag?
move
onto?
names
shoes
dresses
sheets, bathrooms,
bedrooms, kitchens
front
rooms,
cafes,
pets,
names of pets,
names of children;
middle names, last
names, made-up
names.
you proved it was
easy.
you proved it
could be done
again and
again,
those legs held
high
behind most of
you.
or
they were on top
or
you were
behind
or
both
sideways
plus
other
inventions.
songs on radios.
parked cars.
telephone voices.
the pouring of
drinks.
the senseless
conversations.
now you know
you were nothing but a
fucking
dog, or
a snail wrapped around
a snail—
sticky shells in the
sunlight, or in
the misty evenings,
or in the dark
dark.
you were
nature’s
idiot,
not proving but
being
proved.
not a man but a
plan
unfolding,
not thrusting but
being
thrust.
now
you know.
then
you thought you were
such a
clever devil
such a
cad
such a
man-bull
such a
bad boy
smiling over your
wine
planning your next
move
what a
waste of time
you were
you great
rider
you Attila of
the springs and
elsewhere
you could have
slept through it
all
and you would never
have been
missed
never would have
been
missed
at
all.
love poem
half-past nowhere
in the crumbling
tower
let the worms seize
glory
dark inside of
darkness
the last gamble
lost
reaching
for
bone
silence.
a dog
look at you, stockings and shorts, beer cans
on the floor, you don’t want to communicate,
to you a woman is nothing but something
for your convenience, you just sit there
slurping it up, why don’t you say something?
this is your place so you can’t leave, if I were
talking like this at my place you’d walk right
out the door.
why are you smiling?
is something funny?
all you do is slurp it up and go to the racetrack!
what’s a horse got that I haven’t got?
four legs?
aren’t you bright?
now aren’t you the thing?
you act like nothing matters!
well, let me tell you, asshole, I matter!
you think you’re the only man in this town?
well, let me tell you, there are plenty of men who
want me, my body, my mind, my spirit!
people have asked me, “What are you doing
with a person like that?”
what?
no, I don’t want a drink!
I want you to realize what’s happening before
it’s too late!
look at you still slurping it down!
you know what happens to you when you drink
too much!
I might as well be living with a eunuch!
my mother warned me!
everybody warned me!
look at you now!
why don’t you shave?
you’ve spilled wine all over your shirt!
and that cheap cigar!
you know what that thing smells
like?
horseshit!
hey, where you going?
some bar, some stinking bar!
you’ll sit there nursing your self-pity
with all those other losers!
if you go through that door I’m going
out dancing!
I’m going to have some fun!
if you go out that door, then that’s
it!
all right, go on then, you asshole!
asshole!
asshole!
ASSHOLE!
the strong man
I went to see him, there in that place in
Echo Park
after my shift at the
post office.
he was a huge bearded fellow
and he sat in his chair like a
Buddha
and he was my Buddha, my guru
my hero, my roar of
light.
sometimes he wasn’t kind
but he was always quite more than
interesting.
to come from the post office
slaves
to that explosion of light
confounded me,
but it was a remarkable and
delightful
confusion.
thousands of books upon
hundreds of subjects
lay rotting in his
cellar.
to play chess with him was
to be laughed off the
boards.
to challenge him
physically or
mentally was
useless.
but he had the ability to
listen to your
persiflage
patiently
and then the ability
to sum up its
weaknesses,
its delusions in
one sentence.
I often wondered how
he put up with my
railings; he was kind,
after all.
the nights lasted 7,
8 hours.
I had my libations.
he had himself,
and a beautiful woman
who quietly smiled as she
listened to
us.
she worked at a drawing
board,
designing things.
I never asked what and
she never
said.
the walls and the ceilings
were pasted over
with hundreds of odd
sayings—
like the last words of
a man in an electric
chair,
or gangsters on their
death beds,
of an old moll’s instructions
to her children;
photos of Hitler, Al Capone,
Chief Sitting Bull,
Lucky Luciano.
it was an endless honey-
comb of strange faces
and
utterances.
it was darkly refreshing.
and at odd rare times
even I got good.
then the Buddha would
nod.
he had everything on
tape.
sometimes on another
night he would play a
tape back for
me.
and then I would
realize how pitiful, how
cheap, how
inept I sounded.
he seldom missed.
at times I wondered why
the world had not
discovered
him.
he made no effort to be
discovered.
he had other
visitors,
always wild, original
refreshing
folk.
it was crazier than the
sun burning up the
sea,