meeting Pound, Picasso, A. Huxley, Lawrence, Joyce,
F. Scott, Hemingway, many
others;
the famous were like precious toys to
them,
and the way it reads
the famous allowed themselves to become
precious toys.
all through the book
I waited for just one of the famous
to tell this rich literary lady and her
rich literary husband to
get off and out
but, apparently, none of them ever
did.
Instead they were photographed with the lady
and her husband
at various seasides
looking intelligent
as if all this was part of the act
of Art.
perhaps because the wife and husband
fronted a lush press that
had something to do
with it.
and they were all photographed together
at parties
or outside of Sylvia Beach’s bookshop.
it’s true that many of them were
great and/or original artists,
but it all seems such a snobby precious
affair,
and the husband finally committed his
threatened suicide
and the lady published one of my first
short stories in the
40’s and is now
dead, yet
I can’t forgive either of them
for their rich dumb lives
and I can’t forgive their precious toys
either
for being
that.
no help for that
there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
a space
and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest
times
we will know it
we will know it
more than
ever
there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and
we will wait
and
wait
in that
space.
my non-ambitious ambition
my father had little sayings which he mostly shared
during dinner sessions; food made him think of
survival:
“succeed or suck eggs…”
“the early bird gets the worm…”
“early to bed and early to rise makes a man (etc.)…”
“anybody who wants to can make it in America…”
“God takes care of those who (etc.)…”
I had no particular idea who he was talking
to, and personally I thought him a
crazed and stupid brute
but my mother always interspersed these
sessions with: “Henry, listen to your
father.”
at that age I didn’t have any other
choice
but as the food went down with the
sayings
the appetite and the digestion went
along with them.
it seemed to me that I had never met
another person on earth
as discouraging to my happiness
as my father.
and it appeared that I had
the same effect upon
him.
“You are a bum,” he told me, “and you’ll
always be a bum!”
and I thought, if being a bum is to be the
opposite of what this son-of-a-bitch
is, then that’s what I’m going to
be.
and it’s too bad he’s been dead
so long
for now he can’t see
how beautifully I’ve succeeded
at
that.
education
at that small inkwell desk
I had trouble with the words
“sing” and “sign.”
I don’t know why
but
“sing” and “sign”:
it bothered
me.
the others went on and learned
new things
but I just sat there
thinking about
“sing” and “sign.”
there was something there
I couldn’t
overcome.
what it gave me was a
bellyache as
I looked at the backs of all those
heads.
the lady teacher had a
very fierce face
it ran sharply to a
point
and was heavy with white
powder.
one afternoon
she asked my mother to come
see her
and I sat with them
in the classroom
as they
talked.
“he’s not learning
anything,” the teacher
told my
mother.
“please give him a
chance, Mrs. Sims!”
“he’s not trying, Mrs.
Chinaski!”
my mother began to
cry.
Mrs. Sims sat there
and watched
her.
it went on for some
minutes.
then Mrs. Sims said,
“well, we’ll see what we
can do…”
then I was walking with
my mother
we were walking in
front of the school,
there was much green grass
and then the
sidewalk.
“oh, Henry,” my mother said,
“your father is so disappointed in
you, I don’t know what we are
going to do!”
father, my mind said,
father and father and
father.
words like that.
I decided not to learn anything
in that
school.
my mother walked along
beside me.
she wasn’t anything at
all.
and I had a bellyache
and even the trees we walked
under
seemed less than
trees
and more like everything
else.
downtown L.A.
throwing your shoe at 3 a.m. and smashing the window, then sticking
your head through the shards of glass and laughing as the phone rings
with authoritative threats as you curse back through the receiver, slam
it down as the woman screeches: “WHAT THE FUCK YA DOIN’, YA ASSHOLE!”
you smirk, look at her (what’s this?), you’re cut somewhere, love it, the
dripping of red onto your dirty torn undershirt, the whiskey roaring
through your invincibility: you’re young, you’re big, and the world
stinks from centuries of Humanity while
you’re on course
and there’s something left to drink—
it’s good, it’s a dramatic farce and you can handle it with
verve, style, grace and elite
mysticism.
another hotel drunk—thank god for hotels and whiskey and ladies of the
street!
you turn to her: “you chippy hunk of shit, don’t bad mouth me! I’m
the toughest guy in town, you don’t know who the hell you’re in this room
with!”
she just looks, half-believing…a cigarette dangling, she’s half-
insane, looking for an out; she’s hard, she’s scared, she’s been
fooled, taken, abused, used, over-
used…
but, under all that, to me she’s the flower, I see her as she was
before she was ruined by the lies: theirs and
hers.
to me, she’s new again as I am new: we have a chance
together.
I walk over and fill her drink: “you got class, doll, you’re not like the
others…”
she likes that and I like it too because to make a thing true all you’ve
got to do is believe.
I sit across from her as she tells me about her life, I give her refills,
light her cigarettes, I listen and the City of the Angels
listens: she’s had a hard row.
I get sentimental and decide not to fuck her: one more man for her
won’t help and one more woman for me won’t
matter—besides, she doesn’t look that
good.
actually, her life is boring and rather common but most are—mine is too
except when lifted by
whiskey
she gets into a crying-jag, she’s cute, really, and pitiful, all she wants
is what she always wanted, only it’s getting further and further
away.
then she stops crying, we just drink and smoke, it’s
peaceful—I won’t bother her that
night…
I have trouble trying to yank the pull-down bed from the wall, she
comes up to help, we pull together—suddenly, it releases—flings
itelf upon us, a hard death-like mindless object, it knocks us upon
our asses beneath it as
first in fear we scream
then begin laughing, laughing like
crazy.
she gets the bathroom first, then I use it, then we stretch out and
sleep.
I am awakened in the early morning…she is down at my center, she has
me in her mouth and is working furiously.
“it’s all right,” I say, “you don’t have to do
that.”
she continues, finishes…
in the morning we pass the desk clerk, he has on thick-rimmed dark glasses,
seems to sit in the shade of some tarantula dream: he was there when we
entered, he is there now: some eternal darkness, we are almost to the door
when he says:
“don’t come back.”
we walk 2 blocks up, turn left, walk one block, then one block south, enter
Willie’s at the middle of the
block, place ourselves at bar
center.
we order beer for starters, we sit there as she searches her purse for
cigarettes, then I get up, move toward the juke box, put a coin
within, come back, sit down, she lifts her glass, “the first one’s best,”
and I lift my drink, “and the last…”
outside, the traffic runs up and down, down and
up,
going
nowhere.
another casualty
cat got run over
now silver screw holding together a broken
femur
right leg
bound in bright red
bandage
got cat home from vet’s
took my eye off
him for
a moment
he ran across floor
dragging his red
leg
chasing the female
cat
worst thing the
fucker could
do
he’s in the penalty
box
now
sweating it
out
he’s just like the
rest of
us
he has these large
yellow eyes
staring
only wanting to
live the
good
life.
driving test
drivers
in defense and anger
often give the
finger
to those
who become involved in their
driving problems.
I am aware what the
signal of the finger
implies
yet when it is directed
at me
sometimes
I can’t help laughing at
the florid
twisted
faces
and
the gesture.
yet today
I found myself
giving the finger
to some guy
who pulled directly
into my lane
without waiting
from a supermarket
exit.
I shook the finger at
him.
he saw it
and I drove along right on his
rear
bumper.
it was my first
time.
I was a member of the
club
and I felt like a
fucking
fool.
that’s why funerals are so sad
he’s got all the tools but he’s lazy, has no
fire, the ladies drain his senses, his
emotions, he just wants to drive his
flashy car
he gets a wax job once a month
throws away his shoes when they get
scuffed
but
he’s got the best right hand in the
business
and his left hook can cave in a man’s ribs
if I can get him to do it
but
he has no god damned imagination
he’s in the top ten
but the music is missing.
he makes the money
but it’s all going to get away from
him.
some day he’s not going to be able to do
even the little
he’s doing now.
his idea of victory is to pull down as
many women’s panties as he
can.
he’s
champ at that.
and when you see me screaming at him
in his corner between
rounds
I’m trying to awaken him to the fact that
the TIME is
NOW.
he just grins at me:
“hell, you fight him, he’s a
bitch…”
you have no idea, cousin, how many
men
can do it
but
won’t.
cornered
well, they said it would come to
this: old. talent gone. fumbling for
the word
hearing the dark
footsteps, I turn
look behind me…
not yet, old dog…
soon enough.
now
they sit talking about
me: “yes, it’s happened, he’s
finished…it’s
sad…”
“he never had a great deal, did
he?”
“well, no, but now…”
now
they are celebrating my demise
in taverns I no longer
frequent.
now
I drink alone
at this malfunctioning
machine
as the shadows assume
shapes
I fight the slow
retreat
now
my once-promise
dwindling
dwindling
now
lighting new cigarettes
pouring more
drinks
it h
as been a beautiful
fight
still
is.
bumming with Jane
there wasn’t a stove
and we put cans of beans
in hot water in the sink
to heat them
up
and we read the Sunday papers
on Monday
after digging them out of the
trash cans
but somehow we managed
money for wine
and the
rent
and the money came off
the streets
out of hock shops
out of nowhere
and all that mattered
was the next
bottle
and we drank and sang
and
fought
were in and out
of drunk
tanks
car crashes
hospitals
we barricaded ourselves
against the
police
and the other roomers
hated
us
and the desk clerk
of the hotel
feared
us
and it went on
and
on
and it was one of the
most wonderful times
of my
life.
darkness
darkness falls upon Humanity
and faces become terrible
things
that wanted more than there
was.
all our days are marked with
unexpected
affronts—some
disastrous, others
less so
but the process is
wearing and
continuous.
attrition rules.
most give
You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense Page 2
