aliens
you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction or
distress.
they dress well, eat
well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they have moments of
grief
but all in all
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy
death, usually in their
sleep.
you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.
but I am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one
of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them
but they are
there
and I am
here.
sparrow
To give life you must take life,
and as our grief falls flat and hollow
upon the billion-blooded sea
I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed
with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures
lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes.
Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow
did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be
young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh.
I hated you when it would have taken less courage
to love.
cause and effect
the best often die by their own hand
just to get away,
and those left behind
can never quite understand
why anybody
would ever want to
get away
from
them
for jane
225 days under grass
and you know more than I.
they have long taken your blood,
your are a dry stick in a basket.
is this how it works?
in this room
the hours of love
still make shadows.
when you left
you took almost
everything.
I kneel in the nights
before tigers
that will not let me be.
what you were
will not happen again.
the tigers have found me
and I do not care.
heart
during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment
and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.
mistake
I reached up into the top of the closet
and took out a pair of blue panties
and showed them to her and
asked "are these yours?"
and she looked and said,
"no, those belong to a dog."
she left after that and I haven't seen
her since. she's not at her place.
I keep going there, leaving notes stuck
into the door. I go back and the notes
are still there. I take the Maltese cross
cut it down from my car mirror, tie it
to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave
a book of poems.
when I go back the next night everything
is still there.
I keep searching the streets for that
blood-wine battleship she drives
with a weak battery, and the doors
hanging from broken hinges.
I drive around the streets
an inch away from weeping,
ashamed of my sentimentality and
possible love.
a confused old man driving in the rain
wondering where the good luck
went.
genius
I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.
it was the first time I'd
realized
that.
i’m in love
she's young, she said,
but look at me,
I have pretty ankles,
and look at my wrists, I have pretty
wrists
o my god,
I thought it was all working,
and now it's her again,
every time she phones you go crazy,
you told me it was over
you told me it was finished,
listen, I've loved long enough to become a
good woman,
why do you need a bad woman?
you need to be tortured, don't you?
you think life is rotten if somebody treats you
rotten it all fits,
doesn't it?
tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a
piece of shit?
and my son, my son was going to meet you.
I told my son
and I dropped all my lovers.
I stood up in a cafe and screamed
I'M IN LOVE,
and now you've made a fool of me ...
I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry.
hold me, she said, will you please hold me?
I've never been in one of these things before, I said,
these triangles ...
she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over. she paced up and down, wild and crazy. she had
a small body. her arms were thin, very thin, and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred,
centuries deep and true. I was wrong and graceless and
sick. all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no living creature as foul as I
and all my poems were
false.
melancholia
the history of melancholia
includes all of us.
me, I writhe in dirty sheets
while staring at blue walls
and nothing.
I have gotten so used to melancholia
that
I greet it like an old
friend.
I will now do 15 minutes of grieving
for the lost redhead,
I tell the gods.
I do it and feel quite bad
quite sad,
then I rise
CLEANSED
even though nothing
is solved.
that's what I get for kicking
religion in the ass.
I should have kicked the redhead
in the ass
where her brains and her bread and
butter are
at ...
but, no, I've felt sad
about everything:
the lost redhead was just another
smash in a lifelong
loss ...
I listen to drums on the radio now
and grin.
there is something wrong with me
besides
melancholia.
oh yes
there are worse things than
being alone
but it often takes decades
to realize this
and most often
when you do
it's too late
and there's nothing worse
than
too late.
poetry
it
takes
a lot of
desperation
dissatisfaction
and
disillusion
to
write
a
few
good
poems.
it's not
for
everybody
either to
write
it
or even to
read
it.
string
each man must realize
that it can all disappear very
quickly:
the cat, the woman, the job,
the front tire,
the bed, the walls, the
room; all our necessities
including love,
rest on foundations of sand -
and any given cause,
no matter how unrelated:
the death of a boy in Hong Kong
or a blizzard in Omaha ...
can serve as your undoing.
all your chinaware crashing to the
kitchen floor, your girl will enter
and you'll be standing, drunk,
in the center of it and she'll ask:
my god, what's the matter?
and you'll answer: I don't know,
I don't know ...
shoes
when you're young
a pair of
female
high-heeled shoes
just sitting
alone
in the closet
can fire your
bones;
when you're old
it's just
a pair of shoes
without
anybody
in them
and
just as
well.
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.
the bluebird
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?
the meek shall inherit the earth
if I suffer at this
typewriter
think how I'd feel
among the lettuce-
pickers of Salinas?
I think of the men
I've known in
factories
with no way to
get out-
choking while living
choking while laughing
at Bob Hope or Lucille
Ball while
2 or 3 children beat
tennis balls against
the wall.
some suicides are never
recorded.
retreat
this time has finished me.
I feel like the German troops
whipped by snow and the communists
walking bent
with newspapers stuffed into
worn boots.
my plight is just as terrible.
maybe more so.
victory was so close
victory was there.
as she stood before my mirror
younger and more beautiful than
any woman I had ever known
combing yards and yards of red hair
as I watched her.
and when she came to bed
she was more beautiful than ever
and the love was very very good.
eleven months.
now she's gone
gone as they go.
this time has finished me.
it's a long road back
and back to where?
the guy ahead of me
falls.
I step over him.
did she get him too?
the worst and the best
in the hospitals and jails
it's the worst
in madhouses
it's the worst
in penthouses
it's the worst
in skid row flophouses
it's the worst
at poetry readings
at rock concerts
at benefits for the disabled
it's the worst
at funerals
at weddings
it's the worst
at parades
at skating rinks
at sexual orgies
it's the worst
at midnight
at 3 a.m.
at 5:45 p.m.
it's the worst
falling through the sky
firing squads
that's the best
thinking of India
looking at popcorn stands
watching the bull get the matador
that's the best
boxed lightbulbs
an old dog scratching
peanuts in a celluloid bag
that's the best
spraying roaches
a clean pair of stockings
natural guts defeating natural talent
that's the best
in front of firing squads
throwing crusts to seagulls
slicing tomatoes
that's the best
rugs with cigarette burns
cracks in sidewalks
waitresses still sane
that's the best
my hands dead
my heart dead
silence
adagio of rocks
the world ablaze
that's the best
for me.
trapped
don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin:
don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.
she's long ago
forgotten me.
she's trying on a new
hat
and looks more the
coquette
than ever.
she is a
child
and a mannequin
and death.
I can't hate
that.
she didn't do
anything
unusual.
I only wanted her
to.
true
one of Lorca's best lines
is,
"agony, always
agony ..."
think of this when you
kill a
cockroach or
pick up a razor to
shave
or awaken in the morning
to
face the
sun.
Break-In
It was one of the outer rooms of the first floor. I stumbled on something
- I think it was a footstool - and I almost went down. I banged into a
table to hold myself up.
"That's right," said Harry, "wake up the whole fucking household."
"Look," I said, "what are we going to get here?"
"Keep your fucking voice down!"
"Harry, do you have to keep saying fucking?"
"What are you, a fucking linguist? We're here for cash and jewels."
I didn't like it. It seemed like total insanity. Harry was crazy; he'd
been in and out of madhouses. Between that and doing time he'd spent three-quarters
of his adult life in lockup. He'd talked me into the thing. I didn't have
much resistance.
"This damn country," he said. "there are too many rich pricks having
it too easy." Then Harry banged into something. "Shit!" he said.
"Hello? What is it?" We heard a man's voice coming from upstairs.
"We're in trouble," I said. I could feel the sweat dripping down from
my armpits.
"No," said Harry, "he's in trouble."
"Hello," said the man upstairs.
"Who's down there?"
"Come on," Harry told me.
He began walking up the stairway. I followed him. There was a hallway,
and there was a light coming from one of the rooms. Harry moved quickly
and silently. Then he ran into the room. I was behind him. It was a bedroom.
A man and a woman were in separate beds.
Harry pointed his .38 Magnum at the man. "All right, buddy, if you
don't want your balls blown off, you'll keep it quiet. I don't play."
The man was about 45, with a strong and imperial face. You could see
he had had it his own way for a long time. His wife was about 25, blond,
long hair, truly beautiful. She looked like an ad for something or other.
"Get the hell out of my house!" the man said.
"Hey," Harry said to me, "you know who this is?"
"No."
"It's Tom Maxson, the famous news broadcaster, Channel 7. Hello Tom."
"Get out of here! NOW!" Maxson barked.
He reached out and picked up the phone. "Operator-"
Harry ran up and slammed him across the temple with the butt of his
.38. Maxson fell across the bed. Harry put the phone back on the hook.
"You bastards, you hurt him!" cried the blond. "You cheap, cowardly
bastards!"
She was dressed in a light-green negligee. Harry walked around and
broke one of the shoulder straps. He grabbed one of the woman's breasts
and pulled it out. "Nice, ain't it?" he said to me. Then he slapped her
across the face, hard.
"You address me with respect, whore!" Harry said. Then he walked around
and sat Tom Maxson back up. "And you: I told you I don't play."
Maxson revived. "You've got the gun; that's all you've got."
"You fool. That's all I need. Now I'm gonna get some cooperation from
you and your whore or it's going to get worse."
"You cheap punk!" Maxson said.
"Just keep it up, keep it up. You'll see," said Harry.
"You think I'm afraid of it couple of cheap hoods?"
"If you're not, you ought to be."
"Who's your friend? What does he do?"
"He does what I tell him."
"Like what?"
"Like, Eddie, go kiss that blond!"
"Listen, you leave my wife out of this!"
"And if she screams, I put a bullet in your gut. I don't play. Go on,
Eddie, kiss the blond-"
The blond was trying to hold up the broken shoulder strap with one
hand.
"No," she said, "please-"
"I'm sorry, lady, I gotta do what Harry tells me."
I grabbed her by the hair and got my lips on hers. She pushed against
me, but she wasn't very strong. I'd never kissed a woman that beautiful
before.
"All right, Eddie, that's enough."
I pulled away. I walked around and stood next to Harry. "Why, Eddie,"
he said, "what's that thing sticking out in font of you?"
I didn't answer.
"Look, Maxson," said Harry, "your wife gave my man a hard-on! How the
hell are we supposed to get any work done around here? We came for cash
and jewelry."
"You wise-ass punks make me sick. You're no better than maggots."
"And what have you got? The six o'clock news. What's so big about that?
Political pull and an asshole public. Anybody can read the news. I make
the news."
"You make the news? Like what? What can you do?"
"Any amount of numbers. Ah, let me think. How about, TV newscaster
drinks burglar's piss? How's that sound to you?"
"I'd die first."
"You won't. Eddie, go get me a glass. There's one there on the nightstand.
Bring me that."
"Look," said the blond, "please take our money. Take our jewels. just
go away. What's the need for all this?"
"It's your loudmouthed, spoiled husband, lady. He's getting on my fucking
nerves."
I brought Harry the glass, and he unzipped his pants and began to piss
into it. It was a tall glass, but he filled it to the brim. Then he zipped
up and moved toward Maxson.
"Now you're gonna drink my piss, Mr. Maxson."
"No way, bastard. I'd die first."
"You won't die. You'll drink my piss, all of it!"
"Never, punk!"
"Eddie," Harry nodded to me, "see that cigar on the dresser mantle?"
"Yeah."
"Get it. Light it. There's a lighter there."
I got the lighter and lit the cigar. It was a good one. I puffed on
it. My best cigar. Never had anything like it.
"You like the cigar, Eddie?" Harry asked me.
"It's great, Harry."
"OK. Now you walk over to the whore and get that breast out from under
the broken shoulder strap. Pull it out. I'm gonna hand this jerk-off this
glass full of my piss. You hold that cigar next to the nipple of the lady's
breast. And if this jerk-off doesn't drink all of this piss down to the
very last drop, I want you to burn that nipple off with that cigar. Understand?"
I got it. I walked around and pulled out Mrs. Maxson's breast. I felt
dizzy looking at it- never had I seen anything like that.
Harry handed Tom Maxson the glass of piss. Maxson looked over at his
wife and tilted the glass and began to drink.
The blond was trembling all over. It felt so good to hold her breast.
The yellow piss was going down the newscaster's throat. He stopped
a moment at the Halfway mark. He looked sick.
"All of it," said Harry. "Go ahead; it's good to the last drop."
Maxson put the glass to his lips and drained the remainder. The glass
fell from his hand.
"I still think you're a couple of cheap punks," gasped Maxson.
I was still standing there holding the blond's breast. She yanked it
away.
"Tom," said the blond, "will you stop antagonizing these men? You're
doing the most foolish thing possible!"
"Oh, playing the winners, eh? Is that why you married me? Because I
was a winner?"
"Of course that's why she married you, asshole," said Harry. "Look
at that fat gut on you. Did you think it was for your body?"
"I've got something," said Maxson. "That's why I'm Number One in newscasting.
You don't do that on luck."
"But if she hadn't married Number One," said Harry, "she would have
married Number Two."
"Don't listen to him, Tom," said the blond.
"It's all right," said Maxson, "I know you love me."
"Thank you, Daddy," said the blond.
"It's all right, Nana,"
"'Nana,'" said Harry, "I like that name, 'Nana.' That's class, Class
an ass. That's what the rich get while we get the scrubwomen."
"Why don't you join the Communist Party?" asked Maxson.
"Man, I don't care to Wait Centuries for something that might not finally
work. I want it now."
"Look, Harry," I said, "all we're doing is standing around and holding
conversations with these people. That doesn't get us anything. I don't
care what they think. Let's get the loot and split. The longer we stay,
the sooner we draw the heat."
"Now, Eddie," he answered, "that's the first good bit of sense I've
heard you speak in five or six years."
"I don't care," said Maxson. "You're just the weak feeding off of the
strong. If I weren't here, you'd hardly exist. You remind me of people
who go around assassinating political and spiritual leaders. It's the worst
kind of cowardice; it's the easiest thing to do with the least talent available.
It comes from hatred and envy; it comes from rancor and bitterness and
ultimate stupidity; it comes from the lowest scale of the human ladder;
it stinks and it reeks and it makes me ashamed to belong to the same tribe."
"Boy," said Harry, "that was some speech. Even piss can't stop your
flow of bullshit. You're one spoiled turd. You realize how many people
there are on this earth without a chance? Because of where and how they
were born? Because they had no education? Because they never had anything
and never will have and nobody gives a fuck, and you marry the best body
you can find, your age be damned?"
"Take your loot and go," said Maxson. "All you bastards who never make
it have some alibi."
"Oh, wait," said Harry, "everything counts. We're making now. You don't
quite understand."
"Tom," said the blond, "just give them the money, the jewelry ... let
them go ... please get off Channel 7."
"It's not Channel 7, Nana. It's letting them know. I've got to let
them know."
"Eddie," said Harry, "check the bathroom. Bring back some adhesive
tape."
I walked down the hall and found the bathroom. In the medicine cabinet
was a wide roll of adhesive. Harry made me nervous. I never knew what he
was going to do. I brought the tape back into the bedroom. Harry was yanking
the phone cord out of the wall. "OK," he told me, "shut off Channel 7."
I got it. I taped his mouth good.
"Now the hands, the hands in back," said Harry.
He walked over to Nana, pulled out both of her breasts and looked at
them.
Then he spit in her face. She wiped it off with the bedsheet.
"OK," he said, "now this one. Get the mouth, but leave the hands loose.
I like a little fight."
I fixed her up.
Harry got Tom Maxson turned on his side in his bed; he had him facing
Nana. He walked over and got one of Maxson's cigars and lit it. "I guess
Maxson's right," said Harry. "We are the suckerfish. We are the maggots.
We are the slime, and maybe the cowards."
He took a good pull on the cigar.
"It's yours, Eddie."
"Harry, I can't."
"You can. You don't know how. You've never been taught how. No education.
I'm your teacher. She's yours. It's simple."
"You do it, Harry."
"No. She'll mean more to you."
"Why?"
"Because you're such a simple asshole."
I walked over to her bed. She was so beautiful and I was so ugly I
fell as if my whole body was smeared with a layer of shit.
"Go on," said Harry, "get it on, asshole."
"Harry, I'm scared. It's not right; she's not mine."
"She's yours."
"Why?"
"Look at it like a war. We won this war. We've killed all their machos,
all their big-timers, all their heroes. There's nothing left but women
and children. We kill the children and send the old women up the road.
We are the conquering army. All that's left is their women. And the most
beautiful woman of all is ours . . . is yours. She's helpless. Take her."
I walked up and pulled back the covers. It was as if I had died and
was suddenly in heaven, and there was this magical creature in front of
me. I took her negligee and ripped it completely off.
"Fuck her, Eddie!"
All the curves were absolutely where they were supposed to be. They
were there and beyond. It was like beautiful skies; it was like beautiful
rivers flowing. I just wanted to look. I was afraid. I stood there, this
horn of a thing in front of me. I had no rights.
"Go ahead," said Harry. "Fuck her! She's the same as any other woman.
She plays games, tells lies. She'll be an old woman someday, and other
young girls will replace her. She'll even die. Fuck her while she's still
there!"
I pulled at her shoulders, trying to gather her to me. She had gotten
strength from somewhere. She pushed against me, pulling her head back.
She was completely repulsed.
"Listen, Nana, I really don't want to do this ... but I do. I'm sorry.
I don't know what to do. I want you and I'm ashamed."
She made a sound through the adhesive on her mouth and pushed against
me. She was so beautiful. I didn't deserve that. Her eyes looked into mine.
They said what I was thinking: I had no human right.
"Go ahead," said Harry, "slam it to her! She'll love it."
"I can't do it, Harry."
"All right," he said, "you watch Channel 7 then."
I walked over and sat next to Tom Maxson. We sat side-by-side on his
bed. He was making small sounds through the adhesive. Harry walked over
to the other bed. "All right, whore, I guess I'll have to impregnate you."
Nana leaped out of bed and ran toward the door. Harry caught her by
the hair, spun her and slapped her hard across the face. She fell against
the wall and slid down. Harry pulled her up by the hair and hit her again.
Maxson made a louder sound through his adhesive and leaped up. He ran over
and butted Harry with his head. Harry gave him a chop along the back of
the neck, and Maxson dropped.
"Tape the hero's ankles," he told me.
I bound Maxson's feet and shoved him onto his bed.
"Sit him up," said Harry. "I want him to watch."
"Look, Harry," I said, "let's get out of here. The longer we stay-"
"Shut up!"
Harry dragged the blond back to the bed. She still had on a pair of
panties. He ripped them off and threw them at Maxson. The panties fell
at his feet. Maxson moaned and began to struggle. I punched him a hard
one, deep into the belly.
Harry took off his pants and undershorts.
"Whore," he said to the blond, "I'm gonna sink this thing deep into
you and you're going to feel it and there's nothing you can do. You'll
take all of it! And I'm going to cream deep inside of you!"
He had her on her back; she was still struggling. He hit her again,
hard. Her head fell back. He spread her legs. He tried to work his cock
in. He was having trouble.
"Loosen up, bitch; I know you want it! Lift your legs!"
He hit her hard, twice. The legs rose.
"That's better, whore!"
Harry poked and poked. Finally, he penetrated. He moved it in and out,
slowly.
Maxson began moaning and moving again. I sank another one into his
belly.
Harry began to get up a rhythm. The blond groaned as if in pain.
"You like it, don't you, whore? It's better turkeyneck than your old
man ever gave you, ain't it? Feel it growing?"
I couldn't stand it. I stood up, took out my cock and began masturbating.
Harry was ramming the blond so hard that her head was bouncing. Then he
slapped her and pulled out.
"Not yet, whore. I'm taking my time."
He walked over to where Tom Maxson was sitting.
"Look at the SIZE of that thing! And I'm going to put it back into
her now and come right inside her, Tommy boy! You'll never be able to make
love to your Nana without thinking of me! Without thinking of THIS!"
Harry put his cock right into Maxson's face, "And I may have her suck
me off after I'm finished!"
Then he turned, went back to the other bed and mounted the blond. He
slapped her again and began pumping wildly.
"You cheap, stinking whore, I'm going to come!"
Then: "Oh, shit! OH, MY GOD! Oh, oh, oh!"
He fell down against Nana and lay there. After a moment he pulled out.
Then he looked over at me. "Sure you don't want some?"
"No thanks, Harry."
Harry began to laugh. "Look at you, fool, you've whacked off!" Harry
got back into his pants, laughing.
"All right," he said, "tape up her hands and ankles. We're gettin'
out of here."
I walked over and taped her up.
"But, Harry, how about the money and jewels?"
"We'll take his wallet. I want to get out of here. I'm nervous."
"But, Harry, let's take it all."
"No," he said, "just the wallet. Check his trousers. just take the
money."
I found the wallet.
"There's only $83 here, Harry."
"We take it and we leave. I'm nervous. I feel something in the air.
We have to go."
"Shit, Harry, that's no haul! We can really clean them out!"
"I told you: I'm nervous. I feel trouble coming. You can stay. I'm
leaving."
I followed him down the stairway.
"That son of a bitch will think twice before he insults anybody again,"
said Harry.
We found the window we had jimmied open and left the same way. We walked
through the garden and out the iron gate.
"All right," said Harry, "we walk at a casual gait. Light a cigarette.
Try to look normal."
"Why are you so nervous, Harry?"
"Shut up!"
We walked four blocks. The car was still there. Harry took the wheel
and we drove off.
"Where we going?" I asked.
"The Guild Theater."
"What's playing?"
"Black Silk Stockings, with Annette Haven."
The place was down on Lankershim.
We parked and got out. Harry bought the tickets. We walked in.
"Popcorn?" I asked Harry.
"No."
"I want some."
"Get it."
Harry waited until I got the popcorn, large. We found some seats near
the back. We were in luck. The feature was just beginning.
Orignially appeared in Hustler magazine, March 1979
Confession of a Coward
God, she thought lying in bed naked andre-reading Aldington's Portrait
of a Genius, But...he's an impostor! Not D.H. Lawrence, but her husband-Henry-with
his bauble of a belly and all the hair he never combed and the way he stood
around in his shorts, and the way he stood naked before the window like
an Arabian and howled; and he told her that he was turning into a toad
and that he wanted to buy a Buddha and that he wanted to be old and drown
in the sea, and that he was going to grow a beard and that he felt as if
he was turning into a woman.
And Henry was poor, poor and worthless and miserable and sick. And
he wanted to join the Mahler Society. His breath was bad, his father was
insane and his mother was dying of cancer.
And besides all this, the weather was hot,hot as hell.
"I've got a new system," he said. "All I needis four or five grand.
It's a matter of investment. We could travel from track to track in a trailer."
She felt like saying something blase like,"We don't have four or five
grand," but it didn't come out. Nothing came out: all the doors were closed
and all the windows were down, and it was in the middle of the desert -
not even vultures- and they were about to drop the Bomb. She should have
stayed in Texas, she should have stayed with Papa-this man is a goon, a
gunnysack, a gutless no-nothing in a world of doers. He hides behind symphonies
and poetic fancies; a weak and listless soul.
"Are you going to take me to the museum?"she asked.
"Why?"
"They're having an Art Exhibit."
"I know."
"Well, don't you want to see Van Gogh?"
"To hell with Van Gogh! What's Van Gogh to me?"
The doors closed again and she couldn't think of an answer.
"I don't like museums," he continued. "I don't like museum-people."
The fan was going but it was a small apartment and the heat held as
if enclosed in a kettle.
"In fact," he said, peeling off his T-shirt and standing in just his
shorts, "I don't like any kind ofpeople."
Amazingly, he had hair on his chest.
"In fact," he continued, pulling his shorts down and over the end of
one foot, "I'm going towrite a book some day and call it Confession of
a Coward."
The doorbell rang like a rape, or the tearing of ripe flesh.
"Jesus Christ!" he said like something trapped.
She jumped off the bed, looking very white and unpeeled. Like a candy
banana. Aldington and D.H. Lawrence and Taos fell to the floor.
She ran to the closet and began stuffing herself inside the flying
cloth of female necessaries.
"Never mind the clothes," he said.
"Aren't you going to answer?"
"No! Why should I?"
It rang again. The sound of the bell entered the room and searched
them out, scaled and scalded their skins, pummeled them with crawling eyes.
Then it was silent.
And the feet turned with their sound, turning and guiding some monster,
taking it back down the stairwell, one two three, 1, 2, 3; and then gone.
"I wonder," he said, still not moving, "what that was?"
"I don't know," she said, bending double at the waist and pulling her
petticoat back over her head.
"Here!" she yelled. "Here!" holding her arms out like feelers.
He finished yanking the petticoat off overher head with some distaste.
"Why do you women wear this crap?" heasked in a loud voice.
She didn't feel an answer was necessary and went over and pulled Lawrence
out from under the bed. Then she got into bed with Lorenzo and her husband
sat on the couch.
"They built a little shrine for him," he said.
"Who?" she asked irritably.
"Lawrence."
"Oh."
"They have a picture of it in that book."
"Yes, I've seen it."
"Have you ever seen a dog-graveyard?"
"What?"
"A dog-graveyard."
"Well, what about it?"
"They always have flowers. Every dog always has flowers, fresh, all
in neat little clusters oneach grave. It's enough to make you cry."
She found her place in the book again, like a person searching for
solitude in the middle of alake: So the bitter months dragged by miserably,
accompanied by Lorenzo's tragic feeling of loss, his-
"I wish I had studied ballet," he said. "I go about all slumped over
but that's because my spirit is wilted. I'm really lithe, ready to tumble
on spring mattresses of some sort. I should have been a frog, at least.
You'll see. Someday I'm going to turn into a frog."
Her lake rippled with the irritating breeze:"Well, for heaven's sake,
study ballet! Go at night!Get rid of your belly! Leap around! Be a frog!"
"You mean after WORK?" he asked woefully.
"God," she said, "you want everything for nothing." She got up and
went to the bathroom and closed the door.
She doesn't understand, he thought, sittingon the couch naked, she
doesn't understand that I'm joking. She's so god-damned serious. Everything
I say is supposed to carry truth or tragic import, or insight or something.
I've been through all that!
He noticed a pencil-scrawled piece of paper, in her handwriting, on
the side table. He picked it up:
My husband is a poet published alongside Sartre and Lorca;
he writes about insanity and Nietzsche and Lawrence,
but what has he written about me?
she reads the funnies
and empties garbage
and makes little hats
and goes to Mass at 8 AM
I too am a poet and an artist, some discerning critics
say, but my husband wrote about me:
she reads the funnies...
He heard the toilet flush, and a moment later, out she came.
"I'd like to be a clown in a circus," he greeted her.
She got back on the bed with her book.
"Wouldn't you like to be a tragicomic clown stumbling about with a
painted face?" he asked her.
She didn't answer. He picked up the Racing Form:
POWER 114 B.g.4, by Cosmic Bomb-
Pomayya, by Pompey
Breeder, Brookmeade Stable.
1956 12 2 4 1 $12,950
July 18-Jam I I/16 1:45 1/5ft. 3 122 2
1/2 3 2h GuerinE'Alw 86
"I'm going to Caliente next Sunday," he said.
"Good. I'll have Charlotte over. Allen can bring her in the car."
"Do you believe she really got propositioned by the preacher in that
movie like she claimed?"
She turned the page of her book.
"God damn you, answer me!" he screamed,angry at last.
"What about?"
"Do you think she's a whore and making it all up? Do you think we're
all whores? What are we trying to do, reading all these books? Writing
all the poems they -send back, and working in some dungeon for nothing
because we're not really interested in money?"
She put the book down and looked back over her shoulder at him. "Well,"
she said in a low voice, "do you want to give it all up?"
"Give WHAT all up? We don't have anything! Or, do you mean Beethoven's
Fifth orHandel's Water Music? Or do you mean the SOUL?"
"Let's not argue. Please. I don't want to argue.vi
"Well, I want to know what we are trying to do!"
The doorbell rang like all the bells of doom sweeping across the room.
"Shhh," he said, "shhh! Be quiet!"
The doorbell rang again, seeming to say, Iknow you are in there, I
know you are in there.
"They know we're in here." she whispered.
"I feel that this is it, " he said.
"What?"
"Never mind. Just be quiet. Maybe it will go away."
"Isn't it wonderful to have all these friends?"she took up the joke-cudgel.
"No. We have no friends. I tell you, this is something else!"
It rang again, very short, flat and spiritless. "I once tried to make
the Olympic swimming team," he said, getting completely off the point.
"You make more ridiculous statements by the minute, Henry."
"Will you get off my back? Just for that!,"he said, raising his voice,
"WHO IS IT?"
There was no answer.
Henry rose wide-eyed, as if in a trance, and flung the door open, forgetting
his nakedness. He stood there transfixed in thought for some time, but
it was obvious to her that nobody was there - in his state of undress there
would have been quite a commotion or, at the very least, some sophisticated
comment.
Then he closed the door. He had a strange look on his face, a round-eyed
almost dull look and he swallowed once as he faced her. His pride, perhaps?
"I've decided," he announced, "that I'm not going to turn into a woman
after all."
"Well, that will help matters between us considerably, Henry."
"And I'll even take you to see Van Gogh.No wait, I'll let you take
me."
"Either way, dear. It doesn't matter."
"No," he said, "you'll have to take me!"
He marched into the bathroom and closedthe door.
"Don't you wonder," she said through the door, "who that was?"
"Who what was?"
"Who that was at the door? Twice?"
"Hell," he said, "I know who it was."
"Who was it, then?"
"Ha!"
"What?"
"I said, 'Ha!' I'm not telling!"
"Henry, you simply don't know who it was,any more than I do. You're
simply being silly again."
"If you promise to take me to see Van Gogh,I'll tell you who was at
the door."
"All right," she humored him along, "I promise."
"O.K., it was me at the door!"
"You at the door?"
"Yes," he laughed a silly little laugh, "melooking for me! Both times."
"Still playing the clown aren't you, Henry?"
She heard the water running in the basin and knew he was going to shave.
"Are you going to shave, Henry?"
"I've decided against the beard," he answered.
He was boring her again and she simply opened her book at a random
page and began reading:
You don't want any more of me?
I want us to break off-you be free of me, I free of you.
And what about these last months?
I don't know. I've not told you anything but what I thought was true.
Then why are you different now?
I'm not-I'm the same-only I know it's no good going on.
She closed the book and thought about Henry. Men were children. You
had to humor them. They could take no hurt. It was a thing every woman
knew. Henry tried-he was just so - all this playing the clown. All the
poor jokes.
She rose from the bed as if in a dream, walked across the floor, opened
the door and stared. Against the basin stood a partly soaped shaving brush
and his still wet shaving mug. But the water in the basin was cold and
at the bottom,against the plug, green and beyond her reach at last and
the size of a crumpled glove, stared back the fat, living frog.
Black Sparrow "New Year's Greeting" 1995
the great slob
I was always a natural slob
I liked to lay upon the bed
in undershirt (stained, of
course) (and with cigarette
holes)
shoes off
beerbottle in hand
trying to shake off a
difficult night, say with a
woman still around
walking the floor
complaining about this and
that,
and I'd work up a
belch and say, "HEY, YOU DON'T
LIKE IT? THEN GET YOUR ASS
OUT OF HERE!"
I really loved myself, I
really loved my slob-
self, and
they seemed to also:
always leaving
but almost
always
coming
back.
THE BLACKBIRDS ARE ROUGH TODAY
lonely as a dry and used orchard
spread over the earth
for use and surrender.
shot down like an ex-pug selling
dailies on the corner.
taken by tears like
an aging chorus girl
who has gotten her last check.
a hanky is in order your lord your
worship.
the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
jail---
wine wine whine,
the blackbirds run around and
fly around
harping about
Spanish melodies and bones.
and everywhere is
nowhere---
the dream is as bad as
flapjacks and flat tires:
why do we go on
with our minds and
pockets full of
dust
like a bad boy just out of
school---
you tell
me,
you who were a hero in some
revolution
you who teach children
you who drink with calmness
you who own large homes
and walk in gardens
you who have killed a man and own a
beautiful wife
you tell me
why I am on fire like old dry
garbage.
we might surely have some interesting
correspondence.
it will keep the mailman busy.
and the butterflies and ants and bridges and
cemeteries
the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics
will still go on a
while
until we run out of stamps
and/or
ideas.
don't be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on
doors.
Nothing Subtle
there is nothing subtle about dying or
dumping garbage, or the spider
and this fist full of nickels and
the barking of dogs tonight
when the beast puffs on beer
and moonlight,
and asks my name
and I hold to the wall
not man enough to cry
as the city dumps its sorrow
in wine bottles and stale kisses,
and the handcuffs and crutches and slabs
fornicate like mad.
Practice
I keep practicing death
and as the worms writhe
in agony of waiting
I might as well have another
drink, and I am thinking
I am there:
and I cross my legs
in the patio of
some Mexico City hotel
in 1997
and the birds come down
to pick out my eyes
and the birds fly away
and I no longer see them.
is it shotguns of cancer
or sun-madness?
the rotting of the heart,
the gut, the lily.
now there's Hem. I always thought of Hem
as a tough old guy frying a steak
in some kitchen under a bright light. what
happened, Ernie?
Hem was practicing too.
Everytime he watched a bull die
he got ready. when he lit a cigar
at four in the afternoon, he
got ready.
the bulls, the soldiers, the cities
the towns...
my sadness, my sadness
(let me have this drink)
could be strung across guitars
everywhere
and played for 10 minutes
with all the generals bowing
whores little girls again
maids kissing my photograph
on the plaza wall haha
and old warriors
rubbing their blue stiff veins
and hoping for one more day
of bravery.
I practice for you, death:
your wig
that dress
your eyes
these teeth.
I too am an old man frying a steak
in a small kitchen.
when I run out of luck
I'll run out of whiskey
and when I run out of whiskey
the land will not be green,
and my love and my sadness...
who needs these?
I practice death pretty good:
send in the bull
send in the girl whose white flesh
maddens men on the boulevards,
send in Paris,
send in the car on the freeway
with 6 people going to a picnic,
send in the winner of the 8th,
send in Palm Beach and all the people
on the sand!
and I practice for you
too,
and the man sweeping the sidewalk
and the lady in bed with me
and the poems of Shakespeare
and the elephants
and the queers and the murderers,
I practice for everybody,
but for myself mostly.
pouring another drink now
at 9:30 in the morning,
the Racing Form on the couch,
the mailman walking toward me
with a loveletter from a lady who
doesn't want to die and a letter from the
government
telling me to give them money;
and I practice for the government too,
and I'm red, all red inside,
punctured with heart and intestine and lung,
I hope they don't arrest me,
I practice pretty good
and I've got a steak, a cigar
and a fifth of scotch,
I've read most of the classics
and I watch the birds fly this morning
and I can see most of them,
many of them that you can't see,
and I'm going to take a bath pretty soon,
put on some clean clothes
and drive South to the track.
it is not an unusual morning except that
it is one more,
and I want to thank you
for listening.
my best friend
dragging a cardboard suitcase
to the marching music of roominghouse
rats
it was always too hot or too freezing
fucking cold
and the young ladies were in love with
the warriors for the
dollar
and I was dragging that cardboard suitcase
through Texas, Arizona, Louisiana,
Georgia, Florida, South Carolina
I was nuts
I was on the fritz
couldn't face the
obvious
ended up sucking on
gin
on the dirty mattresses of
nowhere
getting the bedbugs alocoholic
too
I made suicide plans and
failed,
ended up with tiny
drudge
jobs
the hours like targets blown to
bits by somebody who
didn't care
by somebody
more clever than myself.
I couldn't go to God to
get me
out of
that
but
god
I emptied
bottles
hundreds and hundreds of
bottles
down the rivers of
nowhere
and you can say
what you want to
about the evils of
drink
but without
it
I never could have
faced
those foreman with their
rodent eyes and
small
foreheads
those workers
contented with
holidays and group
insurance
the actual
human slavery
of men who didn't
know
that they were
slaves
who
really felt
that they were the
chosen.
it was the bottle
and only
the bottle
and all the
bottles
that got me through
all that.
each day
dreaming about night
when I'd be back
in my room again
shoes
off
stretched out on the bed
in the dark
unscrewing the cap from the
bottle
taking that first good
hit
letting the rot
the decay
drop
away
lighting a
cigarette and
loving the walls
and the light of the
moon
through the
window
I inhaled the
dirty
game
and then
exhaled it
all away
like
that
then reaching again
for the
bottle
not being
weak
but
strong:
taking that great
hit
setting the bottle down
again:
each man
beats
the odds
in a different
fashion.
we must
we must bring
our own light
to the
darkness.
nobody is going
to do it
for us.
as the young boys
ski
down the slopes
as the fry cook
gets his last
paycheck
as dog chases
dog
as the chessmaster
loses more than
the game
we must bring
our own light
to the
darkness.
nobody is going
to do it for us,
as the lonely
telephone
anybody
anywhere
as the great beast
trembles
in nightmare
as the final season
leaps into
focus
nobody is going
to do it
for us.
sometimes it's easier to kill somebody else
I was never very good at suicide, I gave it a go now and
then but something always seemed to go
wrong:
the time I was living on Kingsley Drive and working for
the post office I deceided to have another go
at it:
I swigged down a 6-pack and then prepared the
place,
I was living on the 3rd floor of an apartment house and
it was a fine sunny afternoon
and as an old suicide-pro I knew what to do;
I taped the cracks around the door, jammed newspapers
under the door, closed all the windows, turned on the
oven and all the jets on the stove and also started up the
gas heater.
I found the last beer in the refrigerator, cracked it, went
to bed, sat up against the pillow and worked at the
beer, finished it, then I
stretched out, flat on my back, closed my
eyes.
the hissing sound of the unlit gas was not unpleasent;
waiting there I had no regrets at leaving, although
I did consider that death might be worse than life, outside
of that there wasn't much thought; the main one
being:
this is very strange, there is no
fear.
I listened to the hissing and then I passed into another
area: I could still hear the hissing but all about me,
mostly inside of my head, my brain, my skull, whatever, was
this dark steady
blackness; it was a very non-threatening
blackness...
then that
left
and there was
nothing; I have no idea how long that
lasted
but
at once! I jack-knifed, sat up in the
bed: a steel band was fastened around my head
just above the eyes
the steel ring ran around my head
squeezing
squeezing
hard.
I reached up and tried to pull the ring
away, then I started laughing. I got up
still laughing
opened the windows
stopped laughing
shut off the jets
the stove
everything, sat back down upon the
edge of my bed, had the worst headache
of my life
and then
at once
it vanished
just an easy pumping at the
temples.
so, I sat and thought, maybe I'm
now brain-damaged, well, that's
all right.
I deceided upon a couple of 6-
packs.
being clothed, all I had to do was
put on my
shoes
which I did, pulled the tape and
newspapers from the door, walked
out and down the street to the
liquor store...
when I got back and was fitting my key
into the lock
the old lady across the way opened her
door and asked, "listen, do you smell
gas?"
"gas? no, I don't smell any
gas."
I went inside and opened a beer, sat on
the couch and let the cool juices
run down my throat, then I noticed an
old cigar in the ashtray, I stuck it
into my mouth, picked up the lighter and
flicked it...
there was an explosion, it made this small
BANG! and there was a round flame
in front of my face, it was intensely hot,
a vigorous circle of
red
almost the size of a child's
balloon, then it
vanished.
I smelled burning hair and my face was
indecently hot, I picked up the can of beer
went into the bathroom and looked into the
mirror: my eye lashes had been burned almost
completely off-a few twists of ravished
hair
remained and
I had no eyebrows at all
and my nose was not so red as
purple
and one strand of twisted burnt hair
from my head was dangling into my
face
and then I started laughing
again.
final word
there he was in that room
beached
under that white sheet:
blind
legs amputated:
again and
again,
they kept chopping away
at him.
all the operations, it
was all they knew
to
do.
he talked about various
things, mostly about a
subject we had both been
imbued with
and that he was still
strangely
interested in.
the nurse came in,
indicated to me
that
he needed
rest.
I told him that
I must
leave.
"there is something
terrible
that finally comes to most
people," he
said
Then he whispered what it was.
we said
goodbye.
on that long drive back
into town
on the
freeway
I saw it
everywhere
it shouted and it
flailed and it
wailed
it hung there
in the
sky
as
the fat belly of
heaven
laughed:
"bitterness."
I Cannot Stand Tears
there were several hundred fools
around the goose who broke her leg
trying to decide
what to do
when the gaurd walked up
and pulled out his cannon
and the issue was finished
except for a woman
who ran out of a hut
claiming he'd killed her pet
but the gaurd rubbed his straps
and told her
kiss my ass,
take it to the president;
the woman was crying
and I cannot stand tears.
I folded my canvas
and went further down the road:
the bastards had ruined
my landscape.
A Trick To Dull Our Bleeding
practically speaking
the great words of great men
are not so great.
nor do great nations nor great beauties
leave anything but the residue
of reputation to be slowly
gnawed away.
nor do great wars seem so great,
nor great poems
nor first-hand legends.
even the sad deaths
are not now so sad,
and failure was nothing but a
trick
to keep us going.
and fame and love
a trick to dull our bleeding.
and as fire becomes ash and steel
becomes rust, we become
wise
and then
not so wise.
and we sit in chairs
reading old maps,
wars done, loves done, lives done,
and a child plays before us like a monkey
and we tap our pipe and yawn,
close our eyes and sleep.
pretty words
like pretty ladies,
wrinkle up and die.
YOUNG IN NEW ORLEANS
starving there, sitting around the bars,
and at night walking the streets for
hours,
the moonlight always seemed fake
to me, maybe it was,
and in the French Quarter I watched
the horses and buggies going by,
everybody sitting high in the open
carriages, the black driver, and in
back the man and the woman,
usually young and always white.
and I was always white.
and hardly charmed by the
world.
New Orleans was a place to
hide.
I could piss away my life,
unmolested.
except for the rats.
the rats in my dark small room
very much resented sharing it
with me.
they were large and fearless
and stared at me with eyes
that spoke
an unblinking
death.
women were beyond me.
they saw something
depraved.
there was one waitress
a little older than
I, she rather smiled,
lingered when she
brought my
coffee.
that was plenty for
me, that was
enough.
there was something about
that city, though
it didn't let me feel guilty
that I had no feeling for the
things so many others
needed.
it let me alone.
sitting up in my bed
the llights out,
hearing the outside
sounds,
lifting my cheap
bottle of wine,
letting the warmth of
the grape
enter
me
as I heard the rats
moving about the
room,
I preferred them
to
humans.
being lost,
being crazy maybe
is not so bad
if you can be
that way
undisturbed.
New Orleans gave me
that.
nobody ever called
my name.
no telephone,
no car,
no job,
no
anything.
me and the
rats
and my youth,
one time,
that time
I knew
even through the
nothingness,
it was a
celebration
of something not to
do
but only
know.
stupid pain
a hard hard
face
under hard
hard
skin
but what a grand
body
and your red hair
so long
but when I
TOUCHED
it
it was
tougher than cat-
gutcoarse as a screaming
crow
but what a
marvel-
ous
body
part of the problem
was that
I thought you might be
able to
change into
something
else.
another part
is
that you're hardly
worth
writing about
anymore
and being free of
that
I have a new
more reasonable
agony.
short order
I took my girlfriend to your last poetry reading,
she said.
yes, yes? I asked.
she's young and pretty, she said.
and? I asked.
she hated your
guts.
then she stretched out on the couch
and pulled off her
boots.
I don't have very good legs,
she said.
all right, I thought, I don't have very good
poetry; she doesn't have very good
legs.
scramble two.
on the rebound
so often, he said, after a split,
you're sitting there feeling as if your soul was
decapitated
or whatever it is you have instead of a
soul
then
the phone rings or there is a knock upon
the door
and there is
a totally new and refreshing
female.
it's as if a sign has been sent to you
from above
and
there they are
and
they enter your life with
all their best signals
working
and
you accept that
as if nothing could ever go wrong
again,
there's this chance once again
when no second chance is
deserved, there's
all that first laughter
all that first miracle
there
again.
whoever planned this
had the eye of the fox
the quick response of the
hawk
and an awful
sense of
humor.
on the other hand, I said, it doesn't
always work that
way.
pray that you are right, he
answered, I need a
rest.
bibliography
'tween the two you should be set.
Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail (1960)
Longshot Pomes for Broke Players (1962)
Run with the Hunted (1962)
It Catches My Heart in Its Hands (1963)
Crucifix in a Deathhand (1965)
Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965)
Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (1965)
All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966)
At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968)
Poems Written Before Jumping out of an 8 Story Window (1968)
Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)
A Bukowski Sampler (1969)
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)*
Fire Station (1970)
Post Office (1971) * Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)*
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary
Madness (1972)
South of No North (1973)*
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (1974)*
Factotum (1975)*
Love Is a Dog from Hell: Poems 1974-1977 (1977)*
Women (1978)*
Play the Piano Drunk/Like a Percussion Instrument/Until the Fingers
Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979)*
Shakespeare Never Did This (1979)
Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981)* Ham on Rye (1982)*
Bring Me Your Love (1983)*
Hot Water Music (1983)*
There's No Business (1984)*
War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984 (1984)*
You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)*
The Movie: "Barfly" (1987)*
The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966 (1988)*
Hollywood (1989)*
Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990)*
The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)*
Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (1993)*
Pulp (1994)*
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