Come on In!

  better than I

  do.

  there were always words

  I wanted to use

  but I was too lazy to

  check the

  spelling.

  so I used a simpler version

  or just didn’t

  bother.

  now I toss the word

  in,

  then ask the computer if

  I’ve got it spelled

  right.

  there’s an old theory

  that if you put ten thousand

  monkeys in a room for

  Eternity

  they would eventually

  rewrite every great novel

  ever written,

  word for word.

  with a computer

  they’d do it

  in half an

  hour.

  anyhow, I’m more or less

  one of those

  monkeys now

  and my wife hardly ever

  sees me anymore, as I said

  before.

  I hear her coughing in the

  next room

  so I know that she is

  there.

  but that’s enough

  computer talk.

  it’s time for another

  poem.

  this is where they come for what’s left of your soul

  the books are selling, there are critical articles, more and

  more critical articles that claim my work is, indeed,

  at last, pretty damned good.

  I am being taught alongside some of the masters.

  a dangerous time, a most dangerous time

  for me.

  if I accept my new position, then I must work from that new

  position.

  I must then attempt to hold my ground, not

  despoil it.

  but I have watched too many others

  soften, lose their natural force.

  too much acceptance destroys.

  so listen, my fine fellows and ladies, I am going to

  ignore your late applause,

  I intend to still play it loose, commit my errors,

  enrage the entrenched and piss upon your

  guardians, angels and / or devils.

  I intend to do what I

  have to do, what I have always done.

  it’s been too much fun to falter now.

  you will not escape my iron grip

  and I will escape

  yours.

  hot night

  like this, sitting in my shorts, listening to a tenor

  all the way from Cleveland

  garnering applause on the radio.

  I’ve never been to Cleveland.

  I sit here in my shorts on a humid night

  now listening to Ravel with my gut hanging out

  over my shorts.

  my soft white gut.

  I draw on this cigar, inhale, then blow

  blue smoke as

  Ravel waltzes.

  I read a fan letter written to me from Japan.

  then I rip it once, twice, three times, trash

  it.

  young girls send me photos of their naked

  selves.

  blank-faced, I set my lighter to the photos,

  turn them to twisted black

  ash.

  it’s midnight and I’m too dumb to

  sweat.

  “oil and natural gas,” says the man on the radio,

  “we need oil and natural gas

  for the nation’s energy needs.”

  “fuck you, buddy,” I say.

  I scratch, yawn, rise, walk

  to where my little refrigerator holds food

  and drink.

  it takes me 7 steps to get there.

  one for each decade.

  did you know that

  to this very day

  nobody can figure out how

  they built the

  pyramids?

  the x-bum

  it was a good training ground out there

  (although there were times

  of fear and madness)

  and there were times when it wasn’t kind

  and there were times when my comrades were

  cowardly

  treacherous

  or

  debased.

  it taught me also

  that there was no bottom to life

  you could always fall lower

  into a bestial groveling

  and when you reached

  that point

  nobody cared or would ever

  care.

  and then, with no feelings left, that was the strangest

  feeling of them

  all.

  so, today I got into my BMW, drove to my

  bank and picked up my American Express

  Gold Card. (I always promised myself that I’d

  write about that when it

  happened.)

  I know what people will say: “Chinaski! writing about

  his American Express Gold Card! who gives a damn

  about that? or who cares that he’s now in

  Who’s Who in America?”

  I can’t think of another poet who makes people as

  angry as I do.

  I enjoy it

  knowing that we are all brothers and sisters

  in a very unkind extended

  family

  and I also never forget that

  no matter

  what the circumstances,

  the park bench is never that far away

  from any one of

  us.

  something cares

  a reader writes from Germany

  that a lady friend saw me interviewed

  on tv and then

  told him

  that to kiss my face would be a

  disgusting thing.

  I wrote back that

  she might be right, I didn’t know,

  I’d never actually tried

  it.

  but really

  I don’t write with my

  face

  I use my fingers

  and this old Olympia

  standard,

  and with all the luck

  I’ve had

  I should kiss this

  typer

  but

  I won’t.

  well, there, I just

  did.

  it was a cold kiss

  but a faithful

  one.

  and now the machine

  answers back:

  I love you too,

  old boy.

  my cats

  I know. I know.

  they are limited, have different

  needs and

  concerns.

  but I watch and learn from them.

  I like the little they know,

  which is so

  much.

  they complain but never

  worry.

  they walk with a surprising dignity.

  they sleep with a direct simplicity that

  humans just can’t

  understand.

  their eyes are more

  beautiful than our eyes.

  and they can sleep 20 hours

  a day

  without

  hesitation or

  remorse.

  when I am feeling

  low

  all I have to do is

  watch my cats

  and my

  courage

  returns.

  I study these

  creatures.

  they are my

  teachers.

  6:30 a.m.
/>
  fondly embracing mad hopes in my dreams the first intrusion

  of day begins when that young cat of mine starts knocking

  over and attacking things at 6:30 in the

  morning. I rise to lead that frisky rascal down the

  stairway and open the door where he always pauses

  introspectively until I give him a gentle boot in the ass

  and then he is gone into the blissful glory of the day while I then

  climb back up the stairway to bed down again with wife who

  has heard nothing who sleeps so still I must check

  her breathing to make certain she’s alive and finding that

  she’s o.k. I pull the covers up. I have the best hours of

  sleep then before the long drive to the racetrack

  one more time one more time and one more time again

  until I get so old that the DMV will take away my driver’s

  license and I will have to ride the bus out there

  with the damned ghost people son-of-a-bitch what an

  awful goddamned thought better to stay home with wife and

  cats putter with paints a la Henry Miller and also

  help with the weeding and the shopping while the last of

  the sun slants in like a golden sword.

  what I need

  I need a light pine kitchen, a new freezer, a picture window,

  a first-alert ready-light, a pair of jogging shoes, some real

  excitement, a yellow banjo, hot chips, a spark, two love birds,

  sheer stockings, a touch of miracle, a March star, a true woman, a

  new fantasy, a spicy sky, a charmed quark, some luck, a

  VISA card, a walrus, a sunset at the beach, a well-

  seasoned cigar, an antelope, a racy subject, an ideal to fight for, a

  rainbow, a halcyon holiday and

  a winner in the first, a winner in the second, a winner in the

  third, a winner in the fourth, a winner in the

  fifth.

  hell, that’s what I got just now: a winner in the

  fifth!

  couldn’t you

  guess?

  gender benders

  I’m only guessing, of course, as

  usual but here goes:

  when the ladies gather over

  cocktails they talk about

  how their husbands tend to

  stifle them, smother their creative

  instinct, their natural joy,

  their ultimate female

  selves.

  without their husbands they

  would float free

  and thrive and grow

  without limit

  as they were meant to do.

  but ladies, I will tell you

  this:

  when men gather they

  never talk about their

  wives.

  we discuss the

  Dallas Cowboys

  or the new barmaid at

  The Bat Cove Tavern

  or about how Tyson would

  kick Holyfield’s ass …

  unconcerned with

  petty argument

  we have floated free …

  giant macho soaring

  balloons!

  WHEE!

  after many nights

  the last hour at the typewriter is only

  good

  if you’ve had a lucky and

  productive

  night,

  otherwise

  your time and effort have been

  wasted.

  this night

  I feel good about the poems scattered

  on the floor.

  the door of this room is

  open

  and I can see out into the

  night,

  see part of the city to

  my left;

  see many lights—yellow, white

  red, blue;

  see also the moving lights

  of the cars

  traveling south on the

  Harbor Freeway.

  the lights of this city

  are not at rest,

  they shimmer in the

  dark.

  a blue tree outside the

  window

  looms powerful and at

  peace.

  my death,

  after so many nights

  like this,

  will seem

  logical,

  sane

  and

  (like a few of my poems)

  well-

  written.

  good morning, how are you?

  $650,000 home, swimming pool, tennis court,

  sauna, 4 late-model cars, a starlet wife;

  he was blond, young, broad-shouldered, great

  smile, great sense of humor.

  he was an investor, said his starlet wife.

  but he always seemed to be at home.

  one afternoon

  while he was playing tennis with his friends

  two plainclothes cops

  walked up

  handcuffed him

  took him

  off.

  it was in the papers the next day: he was a

  hit man wanted for killing over fifty

  men.

  what bothered the neighbors most was

  not who would move in next

  but

  when

  had he found time to do it?

  a reader of my work

  what will you write about? he asks.

  you no longer live with whores, you no

  longer engage in barroom brawls, what

  will you write about?

  he seems to think that I’ve manufactured

  a life to suit my typewriter

  and if my life gets good

  my writing will get bad.

  I tell him that trouble will always

  arrive, never worry about

  that.

  he doesn’t seem to understand.

  he asks,

  what will your readers

  think?

  Norman Mailer still has

  his readers,

  I say.

  but you’re different,

  he says.

  not at all, I say,

  we’re both about

  25 pounds

  overweight.

  he stares at me

  unblinking

  through dull

  gray

  eyes.

  Sumatra Cum Laude

  sitting across from my lawyer, I

  decide, at this time, one needs a good

  lawyer, a tax accountant, a decent

  auto mechanic, a sympathetic doctor and

  a faithful wife, in order to

  survive.

  also, one needs some talent of one’s own,

  very few friends, a good home security

  system and the ability to sleep peacefully at

  night.

  you need at least this much in order to

  get by and naturally you also must

  hope to evade a long illness and / or

  senility; finally, you can only

  pray for a quick clean finish with

  very little subsequent mourning by everybody

  closely connected.

  sitting across from my lawyer, I

  have these thoughts.

  we are on the 16th floor of a downtown office

  building

  and I like my lawyer, he has fine eyes,

  great manners.

  also, he has gotten my ass out of

  several jams.

  (meanwhile, among other things, you also need

&nbsp
; a plumber who doesn’t overbill and

  an honest jockey who knows where the

  finish line is.)

  you need all the above (and more) before

  you can go home with a clear mind, open a

  wooden box labeled Sumatra Cum

  Laude, take one out, light it

  and take a quick puff or two

  before the bluebird leaves

  your shoulder,

  before the snow melts,

  and before the rain and the traffic

  and our hurly-burly life

  churn everything into

  black

  slush.

  the disease of existence

  dark, dark, dark.

  humanity’s shadow

  shrouds the moon.

  the process is

  eternal.

  once, I imagined that

  in my old age

  there would be

  peace,

  but not this:

  dark humanity’s

  insufferable

  relentless

  presence.

  humanity claws

  at me

  as persistently

  now

  as in the

  beginning.

  I was not born to be

  one with them

  yet here I am

  with only

  the thought

  of death

  and that final

  separation

  to comfort me.

  so there’s no chance,

  no

  hope,

  just this waiting,

  sitting here

  tonight

  surrounded

  unsure