Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
Page 12
it began to walk down the pier and we followed it.
it ate a hot dog and bun right out of the hands of
a little girl. then it leaped on the merry-go-round
and rode a pinto, it fell off near the end and
rolled in the sawdust.
we picked it up.
grop, it said, grop.
then it walked back out on the pier.
a large crowd followed us as we walked along.
it’s a publicity stunt, said somebody,
it’s a man in a rubber suit.
then as it was walking along it began to breathe
very heavily, it fell on its
back and began to thrash.
somebody poured a cup of beer over its head.
grop, it went, grop.
then it was dead.
we rolled it to the edge of the pier and pushed it
back into the water. we watched it sink and vanish.
it was a Hollow-Back June Whale, I said.
no, said the other guy, it was a Billow-Wind Sand-Groper.
no, said the other expert, it was a Fandango Escadrille
without stripes.
then we all went our way on a mid-afternoon in August.
wax job
man, he said, sitting on the steps
your car sure needs a wash and wax job
I can do it for you for 5 bucks,
I got the wax, I got the rags, I got everything
I need.
I gave him the 5 and went upstairs.
when I came down 4 hours later
he was sitting on the steps drunk
and offered me a can of beer.
he said he’d get the car the next
day.
the next day he got drunk again and
I loaned him a dollar for a bottle of
wine, his name was Mike
a world war II veteran.
his wife worked as a nurse.
the next day I came down and he was sitting
on the steps and he said,
you know, I been sitting here looking at your car,
wondering just how I was gonna do it,
I wanna do it real good.
the next day Mike said it looked like rain
and it sure as hell wouldn’t make any sense
to wash and wax a car when it was gonna rain.
the next day it looked like rain again.
and the next.
then I didn’t see him anymore.
a week later I saw his wife and she said,
they took Mike to the hospital,
he’s all swelled-up, they say it’s from the
drinking.
listen, I told her, he said he was going to wax my
car, I gave him 5 dollars to wax my
car.
he’s in the critical ward, she said,
he might die…
I was sitting in their kitchen
drinking with his wife
when the phone rang.
she handed the phone to me.
it was Mike. listen, he said, come on down and
get me, I can’t stand this
place.
I drove on down there, walked into the
hospital, walked up to his bed and
said, let’s go Mike.
they wouldn’t give him his clothes
so Mike walked to the elevator in his
gown.
we got on and there was a kid driving the
elevator and eating a popsicle.
nobody’s allowed to leave here in a gown,
he said.
you just drive this thing, kid, I said,
we’ll worry about the gown.
Mike was all puffed-up, triple size
but I got him into the car somehow
and gave him a cigarette.
I stopped at the liquor store for 2 six packs
then went on in. I drank with Mike and his wife until
11 p.m.
then went upstairs…
where’s Mike? I asked his wife 3 days later,
you know he said he was going to wax my car.
Mike died, she said, he’s gone.
you mean he died? I asked.
yes, he died, she said.
I’m sorry, I said, I’m very sorry
it rained for a week after that and I figured the only
way I’d get the 5 back was to go to bed with his wife
but you know
she moved out 2 weeks later
an old guy with white hair moved in there
and he had one blind eye and played the French Horn.
there was no way I could make it with
him.
some people
some people never go crazy.
me, sometimes I’ll lie down behind the couch
for 3 or 4 days.
they’ll find me there.
it’s Cherub, they’ll say, and
they pour wine down my throat
rub my chest
sprinkle me with oils.
then, I’ll rise with a roar,
rant, rage—
curse them and the universe
as I send them scattering over the
lawn.
I’ll feel much better,
sit down to toast and eggs,
hum a little tune,
suddenly become as lovable as a
pink
overfed whale.
some people never go crazy.
what truly horrible lives
they must lead.
father, who art in heaven—
my father was a practical man.
he had an idea.
you see, my son, he said,
I can pay for this house in my lifetime,
then it’s mine.
when I die I pass it on to you.
now in your lifetime you can acquire a house
and then you’ll have two houses
and you’ll pass those two houses on to your
son, and in his lifetime he acquires a house,
then when he dies, his son—
I get it, I said.
my father died while trying to drink a
glass of water. I buried him.
solid mahogany casket. after the funeral
I went to the racetrack, met a high yellow.
after the races we went to her apartment
for dinner and goodies.
I sold his house after about a month.
I sold his car and his furniture
and gave away all his paintings except one
and all his fruit jars
(filled with fruit boiled in the heat of summer)
and put his dog in the pound.
I dated his girlfriend twice
but getting nowhere
I gave it up.
I gambled and drank away the money.
now I live in a cheap front court in Hollywood
and take out the garbage to
hold down the rent.
my father was a practical man.
he choked on that glass of water
and saved on hospital
bills.
nerves
twitching in the sheets—
to face the sunlight again,
that’s clearly
trouble.
I like the city better when the
neon lights are going and
the nudies dance on top of the
bar
to the mauling music.
I’m under this sheet
thinking.
my nerves are hampered by
history—
the most memorable concern of mankind
is the guts it takes to
face the sunlight again.
love begins at the meeting of two
strangers. love for the world is
impossible. I’d rather stay in bed
and sleep.
I pull the sheets to my neck.
I turn my ass to the wall.
I hate the mornings more than
any man.
the rent’s high too
there are beasts in the salt shaker
and airdromes in the coffeepot.
my mother’s hand is in the bag drawer
and from the backs of spoons come
the cries of tiny tortured animals.
in the closet stands a murdered man
wearing a new green necktie
and under the floor,
there’s a suffocating angel with flaring nostrils.
it’s hard to live here.
it’s very hard to live here.
at night the shadows are unborn creatures.
beneath the bed
spiders kill tiny white ideas.
the nights are bad
the nights are very bad
I drink myself to sleep
I have to drink myself to sleep.
in the morning
over breakfast
I see them roll the dead down the street
(I never read about this in the newspapers).
and there are eagles everywhere
sitting on the roof, on the lawn, inside my car.
the eagles are eyeless and smell of sulphur.
it is very discouraging.
people visit me
sit in chairs across from me
and I see them crawling with vermin—
green and gold and yellow bugs
they do not brush away.
I have been living here too long.
soon I must go to Omaha.
they say that everything is jade there
and does not move.
they say you can stitch designs in the water
and sleep high in olive trees.
I wonder if this is
true?
I can’t live here much longer.
laugh literary
listen, man, don’t tell me about the poems you
sent, we didn’t receive them,
we are very careful with manuscripts
we bake them
burn them
laugh at them
vomit on them
pour beer over them
but generally we return
them
they are
so
inane.
ah, we believe in Art,
we need it
surely,
but, you know, there are many people
(most people)
playing and fornicating with the
Arts
who only crowd the stage
with their generous unforgiving
vigorous
mediocrity.
our subscription rates are $4 a year.
please read our magazine before
submitting.
deathbed blues
if you can’t stand the heat, he says, get out of the
kitchen. you know who said that?
Harry Truman.
I’m not in the kitchen, I say, I’m in the
oven.
my editor is a difficult man.
I sometimes phone him in moments of doubt.
look, he answers, you’ll be lighting cigars with ten dollar
bills, you’ll have a redhead on one arm and a blonde
on the other.
other times he’ll say, look, I think I’m going to hire
V.K. as my associate editor. we’ve got to prune off
5 poets here somewhere. I’m going to leave it up
to him. (V.K. is a very imaginative poet who believes I’ve
knifed him from N.Y.C. to the shores of Hawaii.)
look, kid, I phone my editor, can you speak German?
no, he says.
well, anyhow, I say, I need some good new tires, cheap.
so you know where I can get some good new tires, cheap?
I’ll phone you in 30 minutes, he says, will you be in
in 30 minutes?
I can’t afford to go anywhere, I say.
he says, they say you were drunk at that reading
in Oregon.
ugly gossips, I answer.
were you?
I don’t
remember.
one day he phones me:
you’re not hitting the ball anymore. you are hitting the
bottle and fighting with all these
women. you know we got a good kid on the bench,
he’s aching to get in there
he hits from both sides of the plate
he can catch anything that ain’t hit over the wall
he’s coached by Duncan, Creeley, Wakoski
and he can rhyme, he knows
images, similes, metaphors, figures, conceits,
assonance, alliteration, metrics, yes
metrics like, you know—
iambic, trochaic, anapestic, spondaic,
he knows caesura, denotation, connotation, personification,
diction, voice, paradox, rhetoric, tone and
coalescence…
holy shit, I say, hang up and take a good hit of
Old Grandad. Harry’s still alive
according to the papers. but I decide rather than
getting new tires to get
a set of retreads instead.
charles
92 years old
his tooth has been bothering him
had to get it filled
he lost his left eye 40 years
ago
—a butcher, he says, he just wanted to
operate to get the money. I found out
later it coulda been
saved.
—I take the eye out at night, he says,
it hurts. they never did get it right.
—which eye is it, Charles?
—this one here, he points,
then excuses himself. he has to get up and
go into the
kitchen, he’s baking cookies in the oven.
he comes out soon with a
plate.
—try some.
I do. they’re
good.
—want some coffee? he asks.
—no, thanks, Charles, I haven’t been sleeping
nights.
he got married at 70 to a woman
58. 22 years ago. she’s in a rest home now.
—she’s getting better, he says, she recognizes me.
they let her get up to go to the bathroom.
—that’s fine, Charles.
—I can’t stand her damned daughter, though, they think
I’m after her money.
—is there anything I can do for you, Charles? need
anything from the store, anything like
that?
—no, I just went shopping this morning.
his back is as straight as the wall and he has the
tiniest pot
belly. as he talks he
keeps his one eye on the tv set.
—I’m going now, Charles, you got my phone number?
—yeh.
—how are the girls treating you, Charles?
—my friend, I haven’t thought about girls for some
years now.
—goodnight, Charles.
—goodnight.
I go to the door
open it
close it
outside
the smell of freshly-baked cookies
follows me.
on the circuit
it was up in San Francisco
after my poetry reading.
it had been a nice crowd
I had gotten my money
I had this place upstairs
there was some drinking
and this guy started beating up on a fag
I tried to stop him
> and the guy broke a window