think?”
I answered, “more afraid to die
than the rest of us.”
I haven’t seen either of them
since.
the sandwich
I walked down the street for a submarine
sandwich
and this guy pulled out of the driveway
of The Institute of Sexual Education
and almost ran over my toes
with his bike;
he had a black dirty beard
eyes like a Russian pianist
and the breath of an East Kansas City whore;
it irritated me to be almost murdered by a
fool in a sequin jacket;
I looked upstairs and the girls sat in their chairs
outside their doors
dreaming old Greta Garbo movies;
I put a half a buck into one of the paper racks
and got the latest sex paper;
then I went into the sandwich shop
and ordered the submarine
and a large coffee.
they were all sitting in there talking about
how to lose weight.
I asked for a sideorder of
french fries.
the girls in the sex paper ads
looked like girls in sex paper ads.
they told me not to be lonely
that they could fix me up:
I could beat them with chains or whips
or they could beat me
with chains or whips, whichever way
I wanted it.
I finished, paid up, left a tip,
left the sex paper on the seat.
then I walked back up Western Avenue
with my belly hanging out over
my belt.
the happy life of the tired
neatly in tune with
the song of a fish
I stand in the kitchen
halfway to madness
dreaming of Hemingway’s
Spain.
it’s muggy, like they say,
I can’t breathe,
have crapped and
read the sports pages,
opened the refrigerator
looked at a piece of purple
meat,
tossed it back
in.
the place to find the center
is at the edge
that pounding in the sky
is just a water pipe
vibrating.
terrible things inch in the
walls; cancer flowers grow
on the porch; my white cat has
one eye torn
away and there are only 7 days
of racing left in the
summer meet.
the dancer never arrived from the
Club Normandy
and Jimmy didn’t bring the
hooker,
but there’s a postcard from
Arkansas
and a throwaway from Food King:
10 free vacations to Hawaii,
all I got to do is
fill out the form.
but I don’t want to go to
Hawaii.
I want the hooker with the pelican eyes
brass belly-button
and
ivory heart.
I take out the piece of purple
meat
drop it into the
pan.
then the phone rings.
I fall to one knee and roll under the
table. I remain there
until it
stops.
then I get up and
turn on the
radio.
no wonder Hemingway was a
drunk, Spain be damned,
I can’t stand it
either.
it’s so
muggy.
the proud thin dying
I see old people on pensions in the
supermarkets and they are thin and they are
proud and they are dying
they are starving on their feet and saying
nothing. long ago, among other lies,
they were taught that silence was
bravery. now, having worked a lifetime,
inflation has trapped them. they look around
steal a grape
chew on it. finally they make a tiny
purchase, a day’s worth.
another lie they were taught:
thou shalt not steal.
they’d rather starve than steal
(one grape won’t save them)
and in tiny rooms
while reading the market ads
they’ll starve
they’ll die without a sound
pulled out of roominghouses
by young blond boys with long hair
who’ll slide them in
and pull away from the curb, these
boys
handsome of eye
thinking of Vegas and pussy and
victory.
it’s the order of things: each one
gets a taste of honey
then the knife.
under
I can’t pick anything up
off the floor—
old socks
shorts
shirts
newspapers
letters
spoons bottles beercaps
can’t make the bed
hang up the toilet paper
brush my teeth
comb my hair
dress
I stay on the bed
naked
on the soiled sheets
which are half on the
floor
the buttons on the mattress
press into my
back
when the phone rings
when somebody comes to the door
I anger
I’m like a bug under a rock
with that fear too
I stay in bed
notice the mirror on the dresser
it is a victory to scratch
myself.
hot month
got 3 women coming down in
July, maybe more
they want to suck my blood-
vibes
do I have enough
clean towels?
I told them that I was feeling
bad
(I didn’t expect all these
mothers
arriving with their tits
distended)
you see
I am too good
with the drunken letter
and the drunken phonecall
screaming for love
when I probably don’t
have it
I am going out to buy more
towels
bedsheets
Alka-Seltzer
washrags
mop handles
mops
swords
knives
bombs
vaseline flowers of yearning
the works of
De Sade.
maybe tomorrow
looked like
Bogart
sunken cheeks
chain smoker
pissed out of windows
ignored women
snarled at landlords
rode boxcars through the badlands
never missed a chance to duke it
full of roominghouse and skidrow stories
ribs showing
flat belly
walking in shoes with nails driving into his heels
looking out of windows
cigar in mouth
lips wet with beer
Bogart’s
got a beard now
he’s much older
but don’t believe the gossip:
Bogie’s not dead
yet.
junk
&nb
sp; sitting in a dark bedroom with 3 junkies,
female.
brown paper bags filled with trash are
everywhere.
it is one-thirty in the afternoon.
they talk about madhouses,
hospitals.
they are waiting for a fix.
none of them work.
it’s relief and foodstamps and
Medi-Cal.
men are usable objects
toward the fix.
it is one-thirty in the afternoon
and outside small plants grow.
their children are still in school.
the females smoke cigarettes
and suck listlessly on beer and
tequila
which I have purchased.
I sit with them.
I wait on my fix:
I am a poetry junkie.
they pulled Ezra through the streets
in a wooden cage.
Blake was sure of God.
Villon was a mugger.
Lorca sucked cock.
T. S. Eliot worked a teller’s cage.
most poets are swans,
egrets.
I sit with 3 junkies
at one-thirty in the afternoon.
the smoke pisses upward.
I wait.
death is a nothing jumbo.
one of the females says that she likes
my yellow shirt.
I believe in a simple violence.
this is
some of it.
8 rooms
my dentist is a drunk.
he rushes into the room while I’m
having my teeth cleaned:
“hey, you old fuck! you still
writing dirty stories?”
“yes.”
he looks at the nurse:
“me and this old fuck, we both used
to work for the post office down at
the terminal annex!”
the nurse doesn’t answer.
“look at us now! we got out of
there; we got out of that place,
didn’t we?”
“yes, yes…”
he runs off into another room.
he hires beautiful young girls,
they are everywhere.
they work a 4 day week and he drives
a yellow Caddy.
he has 8 rooms besides the waiting
room, all equipped.
the nurse presses her body against
mine, it’s unbelievable
her breasts, her thighs, her body
press against me. she picks at my teeth
and looks into my eyes:
“am I hurting you?”
“no no, go ahead!”
in 15 minutes the dentist is back:
“hey, don’t take too long!
what’s going on, anyhow?”
“Dr., this man hasn’t had his teeth
cleaned for 5 years. they’re filthy!”
“all right, finish him off! give him
another appointment!”
he runs out.
“would you like another appointment?”
she looks into my eyes.
“yes,” I tell her.
she lets her body fall full against mine
and gives me a few last scrapes.
the whole thing only costs me forty dollars
including x-rays.
but she never told me her
name.
I liked him
I liked D. H. Lawrence
he could get so indignant
he snapped and he ripped
with wonderfully energetic sentences
he could lay the word down
bright and writhing
there was the stink of blood and murder
and sacrifice about him
the only tenderness he allowed
was when he bedded down his large German
wife.
I liked D. H. Lawrence—
he could talk about Christ
like he was the man next door
and he could describe Australian taxi drivers
so well you hated them
I liked D. H. Lawrence
but I’m glad I never met him
in some bistro
him lifting his tiny hot cup of
tea
and looking at me
with his worm-hole eyes.
the killer smiles
the old girl friends still phone
some from last year
some from the year before
some from the years before that.
it’s good to have things done with
when they don’t work
it’s also good not to hate
or even forget
the person you’ve failed
with.
and I like it when they tell me
they are having luck with a man
luck with their life.
after surviving me
they have many joys due them.
I make their lives seem better
after me.
now I have given them
comparisons
new horizons
new cocks
more peace
a good future
without me.
I always hang up,
justified.
horse and fist
boxing matches and the racetracks
are where the guts are extracted and
rubbed into the cement
into the substance and stink of
being.
there is no peace either for the
flower or the tiger.
that’s obvious.
what is not obvious are the rules.
there are no rules.
some attempt to find rules in the teachings of
others
and adjust to that
sight.
for me
obedience to another is the decay
of self.
for though every being is similar
each being is different
and to herd our differences
under one law
degrades each
self.
the boxing matches and the racetracks are
temples of learning
as the same horse and the same man
do not always win or lose
for the same reason
so does learning
sometimes
stand still
pause or
reverse itself.
there are very very
few
guidelines.
no rules
but a hint:
watch for the lead right
and the last flash of the
tote.
close encounters of another kind
are we going to the movies or not?
she asked him.
all right, he said, let’s go.
I’m not going to put any panties on
so you can finger-fuck me in the
dark, she said.
should we get buttered popcorn?
he asked.
sure, she said.
leave your panties on,
he said.
what is it? she asked.
I just want to watch the movie,
he answered.
look, she said, I could go out on
the street, there are a hundred men
out there who’d be delighted to have
me.
all right, he said, go ahead out there.
I’ll stay home and read the National
Enquirer.
you son of a bitch, she said, I am
trying to build a meaningful
relationship.
you can’t build it with a hammer,
he said.
Play the Piano Page 6
