rain
that Saturday night in the
alley with
Harry Tabor.
his eyes were rolling in
that great dumb
head,
one more punch
and he was mine—
I missed.
or the beautiful woman
who visited me one
night,
who sat on my couch
and told me that she was
“yours, a gift…”
but I poured whiskey,
pranced about
bragged about
myself
and finally
after returning from the
kitchen
I found her
gone.
so many near misses.
so many other near misses.
oh, Bruckner, I know!
I am listening to Bruckner
now and
I ache for his dead
guts
and for my living
soul.
we all need
something we can do well,
you know.
like scuba diving or
opening the morning
mail.
this moment
it’s a farce, the great actors, the great poets, the great
statesmen, the great painters, the great composers, the
great loves,
it’s a farce, a farce, a farce,
history and the recording of it,
forget it, forget it.
you must begin all over again.
throw all that out.
all of them out
you are alone with now.
look at your fingernails.
touch your nose.
begin.
the day flings itself upon
you.
one more good one
to be writing poetry at the age of 50
like a schoolboy,
surely, I must be crazy;
racetracks and booze and arguments
with the landlord;
watercolor paintings under the bed
with dirty socks;
a bathtub full of trash
and a garbage can lined with
underground newspapers;
a record player that doesn’t work,
a radio that doesn’t work,
and I don’t work—
I sit between 2 lamps,
bottle on the floor
begging a 20-year-old typewriter
to say something, in a way and
well enough
so they won’t confuse me
with the more comfortable
practitioners;
this is certainly not a game for
flyweights or Ping-Pong players—
all arguments to the contrary.
—but once you get the taste, it’s good to get your
teeth into
words. I forgive those who
can’t quit.
I forgive myself.
this is where the action is,
this is the hot horse that
comes in.
there’s no grander fort
no better flag
no better woman
no better way; yet there’s much else to say—
there seems as much hell in it as
magic; death gets as close as any lover has,
closer,
you know it like your right hand
like a mark on the wall
like your daughter’s name,
you know it like the face on the corner
newsboy,
and you sit there with flowers and houses
with dogs and death and a boil on the neck,
you sit down and do it again and again
the machinegun chattering by the window
as the people walk by
as you sit in your undershirt,
50, on an indelicate March evening,
as their faces look in and help you write the next 5
lines,
as they walk by and say,
“the old man in the window, what’s the deal with
him?”
—fucked by the muse, friends,
thank you—
and I roll a cigarette with one hand
like the old bum
I am, and then thank and curse the gods
alike,
lean forward
drag on the cigarette
think of the good fighters
like poor Hem, poor Beau Jack, poor Sugar Ray,
poor Kid Gavilan, poor Villon, poor Babe, poor
Hart Crane, poor
me, hahaha.
I lean forward,
redhot ash
falling on my wrists,
teeth into the word.
crazy at the age of 50,
I send it
home.
2
love
iz
a
big
fat
turkey
and
every
day
iz
thanksgiving
you do it while you’re killing flies
Bach, I said, he had 20 children.
he played the horses during the day.
he fucked at night
and drank in the mornings.
he wrote music in between.
at least that’s what I told her
when she asked me,
when do you do your
writing?
the 12 hour night
I found myself in middle age
working a 12 hour night,
night after night,
year after year
and somehow there seemed to be
no way out.
I was drained, empty and so
were my co-workers.
we huddled together
under the whip,
under intolerable conditions,
and many of us were
fearful of being
fired
for there was nothing left
for us.
our bodies were worn,
our spirits whipped.
there was a sense
of unreality.
one becomes so tired one
becomes so dazed,
that there is confusion and
anguish mixed in with the
deadliness.
I think that, too,
kept some of us working there.
I wasted over a decade of
12 hour nights.
I can’t explain why I
remained.
cowardice, probably.
then one night I stood up
and said,
“I’m finished, I’m leaving
this job now!”
“what? what? what?”
asked my comrades.
“do you know what the
hell you’re doing?”
“where will you go?”
“come back!”
“you’re crazy! what will
you do?”
I walked down the rows
of them, all those faces.
I walked down the aisle
past rows and rows of
them,
all the faces looking.
“he’s crazy!”
then I was in the elevator
riding down.
first floor and out.
I walked into the street,
I walked along the street,
then I turned and looked
at the towering
building, four stories high,
I saw the lights in the
windows,
I felt the presence of
those 3,000 people
in there.
then I turned and walked away
into the night.
&n
bsp; and my life was touched by
magic.
and it still
is.
plants which easily winter kills
plants which easily winter kills,
and the hair on the eyelids of a
horse is called
brill,
and
plants which easily winter kills
are
Campanula medium
Digitalis purpurea
Early-flowered Chrysanthemums
Salvia patens
and
Shasta Daisy.
the United Daughters of the Confederacy was
founded in
Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 10,
1894.
the male heart weighs 10 to 12
ounces
and the female
8 to 10 ounces,
and in the 14th century
one-third of the population of England died
of the Black Death
which they say was caused by
unsanitary conditions.
and be careful of your style:
bad: he gave all of his
property to
charity.
better:
he gave all his property
to
charity.
best:
he kept all his
property.
the superficial area of the earth is
196,950,000 sq. miles
and the earth weighs
6,592,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons,
and my child said to me,
“thinking is not the same as
knowing.”
Jesus Christ died at the age of
33 and contrary to popular belief
the sawfish does not attack
whales.
the last poetry reading
was back east.
I had a drink on the plane
and landed at the airport, 2 p.m.,
6 hours until the reading.
I was supposed to meet a lady in red,
it was 25 or 30 miles to the college.
I had a drink, scotch and water while standing up
at the bar downstairs.
then I went upstairs to another bar and had a bottle of
imported
beer, sitting down.
when I went downstairs the lady in red was having me
paged.
she was the professor’s wife and she taught high school.
the professor had a 3 o’clock class.
we drove off to a bar and waited for the professor.
she was buying and the talk was easy.
the professor came in and ordered scotch and water.
I stayed with the beer. “I’ve got to warble,” I told them.
we drank until 7, then the professor said, “we ought to
eat,” and I said, “hell, I’m not hungry, I’ve got to warble,
I’d rather beer up for the last hour.”
they said all right and we got to the reading a little after
8.
I was lucky. after reading a couple of poems I noticed
a water pitcher and a glass sitting there
and I had a drink of water and commented upon its lack of
soul. a student walked up and gave me half-a-bottle
of good wine. I thanked him, had a drink, and went onto the
next poem. so this is how they killed Dylan Thomas? I
thought.
well, they won’t get me. I need just enough for the rent,
the beer and the horses.
I got through the reading and the next thing I knew I was in
a houseful of yuppies. they passed money for wine and we
sat around on the floor and talked. it was a
little dull but not bad.
then I was back at the professor’s house
sitting up with him and sharing a 5th of whiskey.
his wife had to get up at 6:30 a.m. for her high school duties,
so just the 2 of us drank, we talked a little about literature,
but more about life and women and things that had happened.
it wasn’t a bad night.
I slept on the couch downstairs.
in the morning I got up and had 2 Alka Seltzers and a coffee.
I took the professor’s dog for a walk through the woods.
there were trees everywhere. those people had it made.
I came back and waited for the professor. luckily he didn’t
have any classes that day.
I watched him. I knew what he was doing was wrong: a
glass of milk and a large bowl of Grapenuts. I
watched him while he ate it and listened to him in the
bathroom while he gave it back.
“what you need,” I told him, “is a half-a-glass of beer in
half-a-glass of tomato juice.”
“it was a good reading,” he said.
“never mind the reading.”
“you said you wanted to catch the 11:30 out of the
airport. I don’t know if I can drive.”
“I’ll drive.”
she had the new car and he had the old one with the stick shift.
it was fun learning to use the clutch again.
I stopped twice along the road while the professor
vomited. then we stopped at a gas station and had a
7-Up.
“it was a good reading.”
“never mind the reading.”
the professor drank 2 more 7-Ups.
“you shouldn’t do that.”
I waited while he vomited again.
then he suggested that we ought to have breakfast.
“breakfast?” I said. “jesus.”
well, we stopped and I ordered sausage and eggs and he
ordered ham and eggs, plus milk and Grapenuts.
“don’t eat that milk and Grapenuts,” I told him.
he ate it. then I waited while he ran outside.
I ate the sausage and eggs and potatoes and toast and
drank my coffee. then I ate his ham and eggs and potatoes
and toast and drank his coffee.
I drove on to the airport, thanked him for all, and
walked into the bar. I had a tomato juice and beer. then
I had a plain beer. I just made it to the plane before it took
off. even the stewardesses didn’t look as bad as
usual. I ordered a scotch and water and when the
stewardess brought it she
leaned her body all over me but didn’t even
smile.
I found one of the cigars I had stolen from the professor
and leaned back and lit it with a studied flourish. I sipped
my drink and looked out the window at the clouds and the
mountains and I remembered the factories and the slaughter-
houses and the railroad track gangs, I remembered all the
dumpy 2-bit slave jobs, the low salaries, the fear, the
hatred, the despair.
so this is what killed Dylan Thomas? I thought, sipping
my drink.
bring on the next reading.
probably so
tonight
I have 2 spiders clinging to a crack in the wall
and there’s one fly
loose.
a new woman lies on my bed in the next room
reading the Herald Examiner.
she has cooked, washed the dishes
and cleaned the tub.
she has done a good job.
I sit alone in here with the spiders
and the fly.
I hear her laugh at something in the
newspaper. she seems
happy.
I don’t see how those little spiders
are ever going to get that
fly.
everybody waits
everything waits.
am I the only one
who lives like
this?
assault
bad shape. sick. can hardly hold my soul together
here in Hollywood
here on DeLongpre Ave. where the nurses live
where the experimental film makers live
where the trees live hot and sad in the sun.
here where the wheelchairs drift past
down from the home for the aged.
how long Chinaski?
how many more loves shot out of the sky?
how many more women?
how many more days and years?
pain walks through the shadows of this room.
I can feel it in my arms,
I can hear it rattling in my cheap air cooler.
I remember things and get up and walk about.
I can’t stop walking
from one edge of the room to the other.
I was once a man content to be alone.
now I have been broken open,
everything has edges.
they have me—crazed and trapped.
they brought me out of myself.
they are working on me.
the onslaught is furious and relentless
and without sound.
the rivers spill over the dikes.
the sun smells like burnt cheese.
ten thousand faces on the boulevards.
I live with creatures whose existence
has nothing to do with mine.
I keep walking about this room.
I can hardly breathe.
I have given my pain a name.
I call it “Assault.”
Assault, I say, will you please go out for a walk
and leave me alone?
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire Page 7
