as we passed
our eyes fucked
and loved and
sang to each
other
and then
she moved
past me.
I walked on
not looking
back.
then
when I looked
back
she was
gone.
what is one
to do
in a world
where almost everything
worth having
or doing
is
impossible?
I went into
a coffee shop
and decided that
if I ever saw
her again somehow
I’d say,
“listen, please,
I just must
speak to
you …”
I never saw her
again
I never will.
the iron in our
society silences
a man’s
heart
and when you
silence a man’s
heart
you leave him
finally
with only
a cock.
another high-roller
I went to Vegas last weekend
I had on that blue dress
low-cut and short
the one you like
and I wore my brown boots
and this guy at the crap table
he kept winning
and he kept feeding me chips
he said I brought him luck.
I won a few hundred but
I swear to Christ he must have
won 40 thousand dollars that
night.
he was a great guy.
he told me,
“don’t go away, we’re going to win
the world! ”
it was some night, believe me.
I’ll never forget it.
you don’t like Vegas, do
you? she asked.
I once got married there,
I said.
and what did you do over the
weekend? she asked.
I waxed my car,
I told her.
the fucking horses
“the fucking horses,” she said, “you keep bringing me
out to these fucking horse races and I lose, god damn it,
it’s all so useless and ignorant, I hate it, I just
hate it!”
her purse had a long strap and she was swinging it
around and around with great velocity.
we were walking out of the track after the
last race.
“I told you,” I said, “not to bet the horses with
high speed ratings, especially at comparative
distances.”
“but shit,” she screamed, “why doesn’t it work?
the horse that ran faster last time, why doesn’t
he win against the slower ones?”
“anybody can take a short price on exposed form,”
I said. “it’s self-defeating.”
“goddamn you!” she screamed. “I hate you and I hate horses!”
and she swung her purse around and around on its
long strap.
then there was a hard harsh thud:
she had just hit the man on the head
who was walking behind us.
the poor soul was badly staggered.
an elderly Mexican.
I held him up by the arm.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said,
“it was an accident!
she didn’t mean to hit you with her
purse!
she has lost a great deal of money today
and she’s a little crazy!
I’m very sorry!”
“it’s all right,” the fellow said.
I let go of his arm and we turned and
walked on.
“what’s the matter?” she screamed.
“are you afraid of that man?
are you afraid of a real fight?”
“of course I am,” I told her.
“I thought so!” she screamed. “let’s
get the hell out of here!”
it was when we got to the car
and after I got it started that
this thought
went through my mind:
baby, I don’t know why the hell
I’m living with you!
I stopped at the first light.
then as we drove up Huntington Drive
she said to me,
“you know, I don’t know why the hell
I’m living with you!”
I kept on driving up Huntington.
then I turned on the car radio.
we had been together one and one-half
years.
it’s always easier to meet than
to part.
I know
because after that day at the track
we managed to live together for another
year.
hello there!
when death comes with its last cold kiss
I’ll be ready.
(I’ve already experienced my share of
deathly
kisses.)
the mad ladies who helped me
consume my hours
my years
have readied me for the
dark.
when death comes with its last cold kiss
I’ll be ready:
just another whore
come to
shake me
down.
the fuck-master
Arnie was ahead of all of us, he began shaving
first and then he flashed rubbers at us
in their mysterious tin cases
and he was the first one with his own automobile
and he always had some girl in his
car, always a new one,
sitting there quiet and frightened
and we knew he was fucking her
and
he knew where to get gin, he’d get them
drunk on gin and then he’d do it to
them!
all that was in jr. high
but when we went on to
high school
Arnie kept going back to jr. high
to pick up the jr. high school girls
in his car (it was almost like he was stuck
back there in jr.
high).
well, time passed and then Arnie
dropped out of high school and
I forgot about
him.
two years later I was walking
home after classes one afternoon
and here came
Arnie.
Christ, he looked all wizened, almost
vanished.
I had gotten bigger and wiser meanwhile
and I was more comfortable with
things.
I slapped him on the back, “hey, Arnie, you
FUCKER, how ya
doin’?”
“hi, Hank,” he
said.
we shook hands and his hand was trembling
and sweaty.
I let go of
it.
we stood and looked at each other.
“well, see you around, cousin,” I
said.
and I
left him standing there.
the poor guy had fucked hi
mself away, completely
fucked himself
away.
and I still had all mine
left!
my personal psychologist
you’re a screwed-up Romantic, she said,
you read all the old philosophers and you
listen to Wagner and Mahler and you think
the ancient Chinese poets were hot shit, yet
you’re depraved, you’re at the racetrack
every day and you know that’s sick, and
all that wine you drink, it’s eating
your brain away, and when you get drunk
you talk about what a great fighter you
used to be, even though you admit you
took more beatings than you gave.
you dislike people and love animals.
I really don’t know what the hell you’re
all about—you just grab at things, you rely
solely on instinct and your prejudices
and sometimes I think you’re retarded.
it was your childhood, you didn’t get any
love so it’s hard for you to give any,
you just get drunk and call every woman a
whore.
listen, I said, isn’t there any more
beer?
and where the hell are the cigarettes?
there were 3 on this table a moment ago and
now they’re all
gone!
jealousy
I know this fellow, he is
amazing, so terribly
dull
but get him in a room full of
women
and he will find the easy
one
and they will begin
talking
and eventually they will
vanish
and they will
fuck.
his conversation is quite
banal:
“oh, did your mother
come from Michigan? I had a
brother who went to the
University of Detroit!”
what all this means is
that he will talk and talk
about anything and listen and
listen forever to
everything.
the ladies really
ate
it
up.
most of us are
unable to accomplish
this kind of thing
but this fellow
can talk
dumb crap for hours
and much later
after completing his
coitus
he will walk in
with the smiling lady
like a Lion King
as if the
whole thing
was
an endearing adventure
and somehow
fulfilling
for us
all.
her guy
you had gotten out of
jail earlier that morning.
you got home about 4:30 a.m.
and started drinking with those
two dykes.
when I got there around 9 a.m.
you were lying on the couch with them
in your shorts and
undershirt
smoking an old cigar
and holding a beer can in your
hand,
you were a mess,
you had pennies and beer caps
stuck to your back
and the floor was covered with
bottles.
“hi, kid,” you said,
“I just got out … we’re celebrating.”
you were totally gone.
I’d heard some terrible things about you
and finally
I believed them.
dead poet’s wife
she told me that I was insensitive
that I didn’t revere God or love
animals. even flies have souls,
she told me.
we were in a motel room at Laguna
Beach. she was overweight and
so was I and maybe in the
great all-encompassing nature of things
we both had souls
like flies.
I lifted my drink
and emptied it.
“shit,” she said, “William drank too much
too. don’t you know that life can be
beautiful?”
“yes, that’s why I drink.”
“don’t you love the beauty of nature?” she
asked. “don’t you ever think of the miracle
of birth?”
“I think of the miracle of death.”
“I used to think you were a great poet,”
she said, “but now that I’ve met you and
know you better, I don’t think that anymore.
you can’t fuck
me.”
“I don’t have the desire to fuck
you,” I answered, “and you know it.”
it was 3 a.m. and I walked out of the
motel room with a new drink in my hand.
I was dressed in my shorts and I
finished the drink and dropped myself
into the swimming pool. all the lights
were out. the manager stepped out as
I dog-paddled about in the dark.
“what the hell are you doing?” he
screamed.
“turn on the pool lights,” I screamed back.
the lights came on and I paddled around for
5 minutes more, then climbed out and walked
back into the motel room.
she had her back turned to me in the bed.
I got in with a new drink and looked at
my feet sticking out from under the covers.
I decided that I had the most beautiful feet
of any man on earth.
then the pool lights went out and all I
could see was the glowing end of my cigarette.
I decided that in the great all-encompassing
nature of things it must certainly have
a soul too.
scrambled legs
we were having lunch
at Hal’s Diner.
“you know,” he told me, “after we made love
the last time
she lay in my arms and cried. she said,
‘oh my god, I miss him so!’
she was talking about you, Hank.”
“that’s just the way it is, Jack, with all
my women: while I’m with them they hate
me but after I leave them they love
me.
I’m never tempted to go back to them, however, I don’t even
consider it.”
“you don’t mind that I slept with her,
Hank?”
“did she cook you a good breakfast afterwards,
Jack?”
“I don’t remember.”
“well, I’ll tell you: she didn’t.”
“is that the reason you left her:
because she couldn’t cook
a good breakfast?”
“I never eat breakfast, Jack.”
“then what happened?”
“too often, after we made love, she
began crying in my arms about how she
missed some other guy.”
“well,” he said, “I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch.”
“don’t be,” I said, “just pass the salt and
pepper.”
endless love
I’ve seen old married couples
sitting in their rockers
&
nbsp; across from one another
being congratulated
for staying together 60 or 70
years,
either of whom
would
long ago have
settled for something
else, anything else,
but fate
fear and
circumstances have
bound them
eternally together;
and as we tell them
how wonderful
their great and enduring love
is
only they
really know
the truth
but they don’t tell us
that from the first day they
met
somehow
it didn’t mean
all that much:
like
waiting for death
now
it was just an endless determination to
endure.
down and out on the boardwalk
she lived in Venice
on some 2nd floor
and I’d knock and she’d
let me in
and there was no bed
just a mat on the floor
and candles
everywhere
there was even a
piano
and there was also a
guitar
and while we sipped
white wine
she’d sit on the
floor
and play the
guitar
and sing songs
her own lyrics