Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
Page 11
and I saw her in front of me again.
I saw those tight pants, I knew that ass,
and there was the hair again,
and the way she walked,
I walked faster to catch her,
I got even with her and saw her face—
an Indian’s nose, blue eyes, a mouth like a frog—
nothing, nothing, nothing.
then there was a girl in a bar playing piano.
it wasn’t her but when the hair fell in a certain way,
for a moment, it was. and the hair was the same length
and the lips were similar but not the same, and
she saw me looking while she was singing, I was drunk,
of course, it helped the delusion, and she
said, is there anything special you want to hear?
Dolly, I said, and she sang—
Hey, Dolly…
just now I looked up and she was across the street.
she walked out of the apartment across the street
with a young blond man and she stood there in sun glasses,
and I thought, what’s she doing across the street in
sun glasses, and she smiled at me through the window
but she didn’t wave and then she got in the car with the
young man, it was a new car, small and red, expensive,
and they drove away toward the west. I’m sure it was
her, this time.
a poorly night
you came out, she said,
and then you kicked this guy’s car
and then you threw yourself into a bush
you crushed the whole
bush,
I don’t know what your agony is all
about
but don’t you think you should see a shrink?
I’ve got an awful good shrink, you’d
like him.
answer me, she said,
I get worried about the police when you
act like that, I’m very paranoid about the
police.
answer me, she said, why do you
act like that?
listen, she said, do you want me to
leave?
after she left I picked up a chair and
threw it out the window, there was much
glass and the screen was broken
too.
how many dead beasts float and walk from Wales to
Los Angeles?
looking for a job
it was Philly and the bartender said
what and I said, gimme a draft, Jim,
got to get the nerves straight, I’m
going to look for a job. you, he said,
a job?
yeah, Jim, I saw something in the paper,
no experience necessary.
and he said, hell, you don’t want a job,
and I said, hell no, but I need money,
and I finished the beer
and got on the bus and I watched the numbers
and soon the numbers got closer
and then I was right there
and I pulled the cord and the bus stopped and
I got off.
it was a large building made of tin
the sliding door was stuck in the dirt
I pulled it back and went in
and there wasn’t any floor, just more ground,
lumpy, wet, and it stank
and there were sounds like things being sawed in half
and things drilled and it was dark
and men walked on girders overhead
and men pushed trucks across the ground
and men sat at machines doing things
and there were shots of lightning and thunder
and suddenly a bucket full of flame came swinging at
my head, it roared and boiled with flame
it hung from a loose chain and it came right at me
and somebody hollered, HEY, LOOK OUT!
and I just ducked under the bucket
feeling the heat go over me,
and somebody asked,
WHAT DO YOU WANT?
and I said, WHERE IS YOUR NEAREST CRAPPER?
and I was told
and I went inside
then came out and saw silhouettes of men
moving through flame and sound and
I walked to the door, got outside, and
took the bus back to the bar and sat down
and ordered another draft, and Jim asked,
what happened? I said, they didn’t want me, Jim.
then this whore came in and sat down and everybody
looked at her, she looked fine, and I remember it
was the first time in my life I almost wished I had a
vagina and clit instead of what I had, but in 2 or 3 days
I got over that and I was reading the
want ads again.
the 8 count
this one
always arrives at the wrong time
a basically good sort
I suppose
an honest man
but he doesn’t take the 8 count
well
we’re all beaten
but somehow
it’s the manner in which he takes the count
after a visit from him
I am sickened for 3 or 4 days
I give him board and shelter and sometimes
money
but how he snarls and bitches
sucking at my cans of beer
if he expects deliverance in return for what he gives
he isn’t going to get deliverance
because he doesn’t give anything
no light
no love
no laughter no learning
nothing to
remember
the way of this one sickens me
he brings me sorrow when I have sorrow
he brings me madness when I have madness
I am a selfish man
over his last sweaty handshake
I told him I could carry him no longer
now when my soul has to puke
it will puke of its own
volition
and not from a
knock upon the
door.
dogfight
he’s a runt
he snarls and scratches
chases cars
groans in his sleep
and has a perfect star above each eyebrow
we hear it outside:
he’s ripping the shit out of something out there
5 times his
size
it’s the professor’s dog from across the street
that educated expensive bluebook dog
o, we’re all in trouble
I pull them apart
and we run inside with the runt
bolt the door
flick out the lights
and see them crossing the street
immaculate and concerned
it looks like 7 or 8 people
coming to get their
dog
that big bag of jelly with hair
he ought to know better than to cross
the railroad tracks.
letters
she sits on the floor
going through a cardboard box
reading me love letters I have written her
while her 4 year old daughter lies on the floor
wrapped in a pink blanket and
three-quarters asleep
we have gotten together after a split
I sit in her house on a
Sunday night
the cars go up and down the hill outside
when we sleep together tonight
we will hear the crickets
where are the fools who don’t live as
well as I?
I love her walls
I love her children
I love her
dog
we will listen to the crickets
my arm curled about her hip
my fingers against her belly
one night like this beats life,
the overflow takes care of death
I like my love letters
they are true
ah, she has such a beautiful ass!
ah, she has such a beautiful soul!
yes yes
when God created love He didn’t help most
when God created dogs He didn’t help dogs
when God created plants that was average
when God created hate we had a standard utility
when God created me He created me
when God created the monkey He was asleep
when He created the giraffe He was drunk
when He created narcotics He was high
and when He created suicide He was low
when He created you lying in bed
He knew what He was doing
He was drunk and He was high
and He created the mountains and the sea and fire
at the same time
He made some mistakes
but when He created you lying in bed
He came all over His Blessed Universe.
eddie and eve
you know
I sat on the same barstool in Philadelphia for
5 years
I drank canned heat and the cheapest wine
I was beaten in alleys by well-fed truck drivers
for the amusement of the
ladies and gentlemen of the night
I won’t tell you of my life as a child
it’s too sickening
unreal
but what I mean
I finally went to see my friend Eddie
after 30 years
he was still in the same house
with the same wife
you guessed it:
he looked worse than I did
he couldn’t get out of his chair
a cane
arthritis
what hair he had was
white
my god, Eddie, I said.
I know, he said, I’ve had it, I
can’t breathe.
then his wife came out. the once slim
Eve I used to flirt with.
210 pounds
squinting at me.
my god, Eve, I said.
I know, she said.
we got drunk together. it was several hours later
Eddie said to me,
take her to bed, do her some good,
I can’t do her any good any
more.
Eve giggled.
I can’t Eddie, I said, you’re my
buddy.
we drank some more.
endless quarts of
beer.
Eddie began to vomit.
Eve brought him a dishpan
and he vomited into the
dishpan
telling me between spasms
that we were men
real men
we knew what it was all about
by god
these young punks
didn’t have it.
we carried him to bed
undressed him
and he was soon out,
snoring.
I said goodbye to Eve.
I got out and got into my car
and sat there staring at the house.
then I drove off.
it was all I had left to do.
the fisherman
he comes out at 7:30 a.m. every day
with 3 peanut butter sandwiches, and
there’s one can of beer
which he floats in the baitbucket.
he fishes for hours with a small trout pole
three-quarters of the way down the pier.
he’s 75 years old and the sun doesn’t tan him,
and no matter how hot it gets
the brown and green lumberjack stays on.
he catches starfish, baby sharks, and mackerel;
he catches them by the dozen,
speaks to nobody.
sometime during the day
he drinks his can of beer.
at 6 p.m. he gathers his gear and his catch
walks down the pier
across several streets
where he enters a small Santa Monica apartment
goes to the bedroom and opens the evening paper
as his wife throws the starfish, the sharks, the mackerel
into the garbage
he lights his pipe
and waits for dinner.
warm asses
this Friday night
the Mexican girls at the Catholic carnival
look especially good
their husbands are in the bars
and the Mexican girls look young
hawk-nosed with cruel strong eyes,
asses warm in tight bluejeans
they have been taken somehow,
their husbands are tired of those warm asses
and the young Mexican girls walk with their children,
there is real sorrow in their cruel strong eyes,
as they remember nights when their handsome men—
not now any longer handsome—
said such beautiful things to them
beautiful things they will never hear again,
and under the moon and in the flashing of the
carnival lights
I see it all and I stand quietly and mourn for them.
they see me looking—
the old goat is looking at us
he’s looking at our eyes;
they smile at each other, talk, walk off together,
laugh, look at me over their shoulders.
I walk over to a booth
put a dime on number eleven and win a chocolate cake
with 13 colored suckers stuck in the
top.
that’s fair enough for an ex-Catholic
and an admirer of warm and young and
no-longer used
mournful Mexican asses.
what’s the use of a title?
they don’t make it
the beautiful die in flame—
suicide pills, rat poison, rope, what-
ever…
they rip their arms off,
throw themselves out of windows,
they pull their eyes from the sockets,
reject love
reject hate
reject, reject.
they don’t make it
the beautiful can’t endure,
they are the butterflies
they are the doves
they are the sparrows,
they don’t make it.
one tall shot of flame
while the old men play checkers in the park
one flame, one good flame
while the old men play checkers in the park
in the sun.
the beautiful are found at the edge of a room
crumpled into spiders and needles and silence
and we can never understand why they
left, they were so
beautiful.
they don’t make it,
the beautiful die young
and leave the ugly to their ugly lives.
lovely and brilliant: life and suicide and death
as the old men play checkers in the sun
in the park.
the tigress
terrible arguments.
and, at last, lying peacefully
on her large bed
which is
spread in red with cool patterns of flowers,
my head and belly down
head sideways
sprayed by shaded light
as she bathes quietly in the
other room,
it is all beyond me,
as most things are,
she bathes, I hear the splashing of water.
the catch
crud, he said,
hauling it out of the water,
what is it?
a Hollow-Back June Whale, I said.
no, said a guy standing by us on the pier,
it’s a Billow-Wind Sand-Groper.
a guy walking by said,
it’s a Fandango Escadrille without stripes.
we took the hook out and the thing stood up and
farted. it was grey and covered with hair
and fat and it stank like old socks.