Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

  Literature at a university in Oregon,

  I’ve been drunk with him and his wife, several times,

  so he teaches me,

  that’s nice.

  99 degrees in Burbank

  and as I sit here

  any number of things are happening,

  mostly unhappy things

  like swearing mechanics with hangovers climbing under cars

  and drunken dentists pulling teeth and cursing

  and bald-headed surgeons making too much of a mess,

  and the editor of Time magazine backing his car out of the

  driveway

  after an argument with his wife;

  it’s 99 degrees in Burbank

  and there’s a jet overhead,

  I don’t think it will bomb me,

  those Asians don’t have enough tax money,

  the only clever Asians are the ones who claim they are

  Supremely Blessed, speak good English,

  grow grey thick beards plus a heavenly smile topped by

  shining eyes and

  charge $4 admit at the Shrine to

  teach placidity and non-ambition

  and screw half the intellectual girls in the city.

  it’s 99 degrees in Burbank

  and those who will survive will survive

  and those who will die will die,

  and most will dry up and look like toads eating hamburger

  sandwiches at noon,

  I don’t know what to do—

  send money and the way,

  be kind to me,

  I like it

  effortless, sweet and easy, remember,

  I never bombed

  anybody, I

  can’t even kill this

  fly.

  happy new year

  I have them timed—

  first the nurse will arrive in her nice

  yellow automobile—4:10 p.m.—

  she always shows me a lot of

  leg—and I always look—

  then think—

  keep your leg, baby.

  then, after that,

  there’s the man who arrives

  and takes his bulldog

  out to crap

  about the time I’m out to mail

  my letters. We test each other,

  never speak—I live without working,

  he works without

  living;

  I can see us some day

  battling on his front lawn—

  he screaming, “you bum!”

  and myself screaming back:

  “lackey! slave!”

  as his bulldog chews my leg

  and the neighbors pelt me

  with stones.

  I guess I better get interested in

  Mexican jumping beans

  and the Rose Bowl

  Parade.

  the shoelace

  a woman, a

  tire that’s flat, a

  disease, a

  desire; fears in front of you,

  fears that hold so still

  you can study them

  like pieces on a

  chessboard…

  it’s not the large things that

  send a man to the

  madhouse. death he’s ready for, or

  murder, incest, robbery, fire, flood…

  no, it’s the continuing series of small tragedies

  that send a man to the

  madhouse…

  not the death of his love

  but a shoelace that snaps

  with no time left…

  the dread of life

  is that swarm of trivialities

  that can kill quicker than cancer

  and which are always there—

  license plates or taxes

  or expired driver’s license,

  or hiring or firing,

  doing it or having it done to you, or

  constipation

  speeding tickets

  rickets or crickets or mice or termites or

  roaches or flies or a

  broken hook on a

  screen, or out of gas

  or too much gas,

  the sink’s stopped-up, the landlord’s drunk,

  the president doesn’t care and the governor’s

  crazy.

  lightswitch broken, mattress like a

  porcupine;

  $105 for a tune-up, carburetor and fuel pump at

  Sears Roebuck;

  and the phone bill’s up and the market’s

  down

  and the toilet chain is

  broken,

  and the light has burned out—

  the hall light, the front light, the back light,

  the inner light; it’s

  darker than hell

  and twice as

  expensive.

  then there’s always crabs and ingrown toenails

  and people who insist they’re

  your friends;

  there’s always that and worse;

  leaky faucet, Christ and Christmas;

  blue salami, 9 day rains,

  50 cent avocados

  and purple

  liverwurst.

  or making it

  as a waitress at Norm’s on the split shift,

  or as an emptier of

  bedpans,

  or as a carwash or a busboy

  or a stealer of old lady’s purses

  leaving them screaming on the sidewalks

  with broken arms at the age of

  80.

  suddenly

  2 red lights in your rear view mirror

  and blood in your

  underwear;

  toothache, and $979 for a bridge

  $300 for a gold

  tooth,

  and China and Russia and America, and

  long hair and short hair and no

  hair, and beards and no

  faces, and plenty of zigzag but no

  pot, except maybe one to piss in and

  the other one around your

  gut.

  with each broken shoelace

  out of one hundred broken shoelaces,

  one man, one woman, one

  thing

  enters a

  madhouse.

  so be careful

  when you

  bend over.

  chilled green

  what is it?

  an old woman, fat, yellow dress,

  torn stockings

  sitting on the curbing

  with a little boy.

  98 degrees at 3 in the afternoon

  it seems

  obscene.

  but look, they are calm,

  almost happy,

  they eat the green jello

  and the red roses shine.

  life

  to be eaten by a hog with

  bad breath

  as the lemons swing in the wind

  yellow and ours.

  III

  lovers everywhere

  clutch like asparagus

  leaves

  american matador

  of course, he still gets his choice

  after the bullfights,

  but like with any other man

  the special one comes along.

  you can feel it in the stomach

  when they get you there,

  and the girl said,

  “It’s either bullfighting or me.”

  he turned on love

  to look at the face of death.

  you can see him at Tijuana

  working close to the horn

  taking chance after

  chance. he’s been gored

  a number of times.

  and you wonder if the thing is

  working at his stomach

  as he fights

  getting him in closer

  than he should

  the sword is pointed

  in the sunlight,


  it goes in:

  love.

  i saw an old-fashioned whore today

  at the Thrifty drugstore

  buying a 5th of gin and a 5th of vodka

  she was a dyed blond

  and she was relaxed in a black and white striped dress

  that fell just below knee-length

  and her breasts were large

  and she was a little bit fat

  and the salesgirl who served her showed disgust

  but the whore was used to all that

  and waited for her change

  and for the bottles to be bagged

  and when the whore walked out

  she walked out easily

  and people looked up from their magazines

  and the boys around the newsstand looked

  and the people parking their cars looked

  and I walked behind her

  and I looked

  and she got into a green car

  pooltable green

  lit a cigarette,

  and I’m sure she drove off to someplace

  magic

  where people were always laughing and

  the music was always playing

  and the drinks were good

  and the furniture and rugs were nice

  and the mountains were tall

  and there were 3 German shepherds on the lawn,

  and when she made love you knew it

  and the price was not a lifetime,

  the blue cigarette smoke curling in the black

  ashtray a little wet with beer and mix,

  she’d roll you with the security of a leopard

  getting a deer,

  and you ought to see her in the bathtub

  singing an aria from one of those

  Italian operas.

  poem for barbara, poem for jane, poem for frances, poem for all or any of them

  the fish ate the flower

  and the tombs whistled

  Dixie

  as you told me you didn’t care

  anymore

  old men in the pawnshops of the world

  looked around and killed themselves in my mind

  when you said you

  didn’t care

  anymore

  the day I saw you with your new

  lover

  you and your new lover

  walking down my boulevards

  past the butcher shop

  past the liquor store

  past the real estate

  agency

  ha ha

  suddenly I didn’t care

  anymore

  I went into the store and I bought

  a figurine of a fawn

  a small cactus

  a box of shrimp

  a pair of green gloves

  a paring knife

  some incense

  pepper milk eggs

  a fifth of

  whiskey

  and a roadmap of lower

  Texas

  the clerk put it all in a bag

  it bulged and was heavy and

  at last I knew that I had

  something.

  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.

  the dwarf

  we’d had our icecream cones

  been scared by a dog

  picked flowers

  held hands in the sunlight.

  my little girl is 6

  and as good a girl as can

  be.

  we walked back to my place

  where two ladies were moving

  out of the apartment

  next door.

  one was a dwarf,

  quite squat

  with short trunk-like

  legs.

  “Hank, what’s wrong with that

  woman?”

  I’m sorry, little lady,

  that my child didn’t know

  that there wasn’t anything

  wrong with you.

  merry christmas

  There I am

  hungover, I’ve just made it in

  and sit next to the mother of my child;

  she sits there old and grey,

  I sit there old and greying…

  there’s a 6 year old daughter,

  it’s Christmas at Edison Grammar School,

  December 17th,

  1 p.m.

  I sit mostly with women.

  ah, there’s a guy, and there’s a guy…

  what’s the matter with those bums?

  no jobs? too

  bad.

  first there’s something…

  they need 5 nominations for the

  P.T.A. board.

  4 old dames nominate each other,

  like sneaky Hitlers.

  nobody wants the 5th nomination…

  “Will everybody in favor of the nominations

  being closed, please Yea in the

  affirmative?”

  there’s a dog in there…somebody

  steps on his

  tail:

  “YEA-IKE!” he goes…

  everybody laughs, the nominations are closed.

  Jesus Christ,

  by a dog…

  o.k., trot them on.

  no wait. the orchestra. tiny little people with

  tiny little violins, most serious little

  people. they are the string section.

  they play “Christmas Songs” under the direction

  of Mr. Plepler and Mr. Mettler.

  Mettler? oh well, it’s not

  very good.

  “Five Little Christmas Bells,” courtesy A.M. & P.M. Kindergarten,

  has been changed to “Rocking The Child.”

  no reason is

  given.

  the dog has been

  kicked out. I am still there

  with hangover.

  next the Kindergartens sing

  “Jingle Bells.” they’ve been taught by

  Mrs. Bowers, Miss Lemon, Miss Lieberman.

  I check my program…

  how much longer?

  I notice that the children are black, white,

  oriental, brown…it’s integration

  but it’s easy, they show us how easy.

  2nd, 3rd, 4th grades…

  “Twelve Days of Christmas,” they hold up paintings,

  take them down; up down, up down, and back to

  the Partridge in the Pear Tree.

  they’ve done it. perfect. even with the

  mistakes. courtesy Mrs. La Brache, Mrs. Bitticks.

  next comes

  “Pine Cones and Holly Berries,” not so

  good.

  now here are the 5th and 6th graders…

  “Santa and the Mouse”…

  it’s garbled, nobody can hear what they are

  saying. it’s under the direction of

  Mr. Doerflinger. and he flings ’em.

  he sits them down and sits right down with them

  and all you can hear is

  Mr. Doerflinger’s beautiful voice.

  Doerflinger seems everywhere. there he is in the center.

  there he is showing his

  buttocks. he likes to leap and run

  about. he sings and sings and gives his 5th and 6th

  graders the minor parts to back his

  singular chorus. I try to force myself to get jealous

  of Doerflinge
r but I

  can’t. I’m very happy that I am not

  Mr. Doerflinger. a woman across the aisle turns to me:

  “He has a beautiful voice,” she says.

  “Yes,” I smile back,

  “he has.”

  “Christmas Tree,” 3rd, 4th, 5th graders.

  then, of course, we have

  “Deck the Halls.”

  courtesy of Mrs. Homes.

  o, my god, it’s the 1st and 2nd graders

  now! I’m nervous as shit.

  I’m sick, I

  don’t know what to

  do. I’ve done time, lain in alleys drunk,

  slept with 50 women, I can’t take

  it…the mother of my child seems

  quite calm. I’m the

  coward…where is she?

  all of a sudden they bring them through the

  back door—

  they’ve been bringing them

  through the front.

  what’s going on?

  there’s my kid, she’s walking

  past. “hi!” I say, “hi!”

  she smiles and puts a finger to her

  lips. “shhh…”

  they file onto the

  platform. 1st and 2nd graders,

  c/o Mr. Garnes, Miss McCormick, Mrs. Nagata, Mrs.

  Samarge. o.k.

  “Too Fat for the Chimney”…

  not too good,

  but she keeps looking at me and grinning,

  singing, waving;

  I smile back, wave, all

  grins…the old jailbird…

  then “Toy Trains.”

  much better. we applaud. they file out in order,