What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

  rain

  that Saturday night in the

  alley with

  Harry Tabor.

  his eyes were rolling in

  that great dumb

  head,

  one more punch

  and he was mine—

  I missed.

  or the beautiful woman

  who visited me one

  night,

  who sat on my couch

  and told me that she was

  “yours, a gift…”

  but I poured whiskey,

  pranced about

  bragged about

  myself

  and finally

  after returning from the

  kitchen

  I found her

  gone.

  so many near misses.

  so many other near misses.

  oh, Bruckner, I know!

  I am listening to Bruckner

  now and

  I ache for his dead

  guts

  and for my living

  soul.

  we all need

  something we can do well,

  you know.

  like scuba diving or

  opening the morning

  mail.

  this moment

  it’s a farce, the great actors, the great poets, the great

  statesmen, the great painters, the great composers, the

  great loves,

  it’s a farce, a farce, a farce,

  history and the recording of it,

  forget it, forget it.

  you must begin all over again.

  throw all that out.

  all of them out

  you are alone with now.

  look at your fingernails.

  touch your nose.

  begin.

  the day flings itself upon

  you.

  one more good one

  to be writing poetry at the age of 50

  like a schoolboy,

  surely, I must be crazy;

  racetracks and booze and arguments

  with the landlord;

  watercolor paintings under the bed

  with dirty socks;

  a bathtub full of trash

  and a garbage can lined with

  underground newspapers;

  a record player that doesn’t work,

  a radio that doesn’t work,

  and I don’t work—

  I sit between 2 lamps,

  bottle on the floor

  begging a 20-year-old typewriter

  to say something, in a way and

  well enough

  so they won’t confuse me

  with the more comfortable

  practitioners;

  this is certainly not a game for

  flyweights or Ping-Pong players—

  all arguments to the contrary.

  —but once you get the taste, it’s good to get your

  teeth into

  words. I forgive those who

  can’t quit.

  I forgive myself.

  this is where the action is,

  this is the hot horse that

  comes in.

  there’s no grander fort

  no better flag

  no better woman

  no better way; yet there’s much else to say—

  there seems as much hell in it as

  magic; death gets as close as any lover has,

  closer,

  you know it like your right hand

  like a mark on the wall

  like your daughter’s name,

  you know it like the face on the corner

  newsboy,

  and you sit there with flowers and houses

  with dogs and death and a boil on the neck,

  you sit down and do it again and again

  the machinegun chattering by the window

  as the people walk by

  as you sit in your undershirt,

  50, on an indelicate March evening,

  as their faces look in and help you write the next 5

  lines,

  as they walk by and say,

  “the old man in the window, what’s the deal with

  him?”

  —fucked by the muse, friends,

  thank you—

  and I roll a cigarette with one hand

  like the old bum

  I am, and then thank and curse the gods

  alike,

  lean forward

  drag on the cigarette

  think of the good fighters

  like poor Hem, poor Beau Jack, poor Sugar Ray,

  poor Kid Gavilan, poor Villon, poor Babe, poor

  Hart Crane, poor

  me, hahaha.

  I lean forward,

  redhot ash

  falling on my wrists,

  teeth into the word.

  crazy at the age of 50,

  I send it

  home.

  2

  love

  iz

  a

  big

  fat

  turkey

  and

  every

  day

  iz

  thanksgiving

  you do it while you’re killing flies

  Bach, I said, he had 20 children.

  he played the horses during the day.

  he fucked at night

  and drank in the mornings.

  he wrote music in between.

  at least that’s what I told her

  when she asked me,

  when do you do your

  writing?

  the 12 hour night

  I found myself in middle age

  working a 12 hour night,

  night after night,

  year after year

  and somehow there seemed to be

  no way out.

  I was drained, empty and so

  were my co-workers.

  we huddled together

  under the whip,

  under intolerable conditions,

  and many of us were

  fearful of being

  fired

  for there was nothing left

  for us.

  our bodies were worn,

  our spirits whipped.

  there was a sense

  of unreality.

  one becomes so tired one

  becomes so dazed,

  that there is confusion and

  anguish mixed in with the

  deadliness.

  I think that, too,

  kept some of us working there.

  I wasted over a decade of

  12 hour nights.

  I can’t explain why I

  remained.

  cowardice, probably.

  then one night I stood up

  and said,

  “I’m finished, I’m leaving

  this job now!”

  “what? what? what?”

  asked my comrades.

  “do you know what the

  hell you’re doing?”

  “where will you go?”

  “come back!”

  “you’re crazy! what will

  you do?”

  I walked down the rows

  of them, all those faces.

  I walked down the aisle

  past rows and rows of

  them,

  all the faces looking.

  “he’s crazy!”

  then I was in the elevator

  riding down.

  first floor and out.

  I walked into the street,

  I walked along the street,

  then I turned and looked

  at the towering

  building, four stories high,

  I saw the lights in the

  windows,

  I felt the presence of

  those 3,000 people

  in there.

  then I turned and walked away

  into the night.

&n
bsp; and my life was touched by

  magic.

  and it still

  is.

  plants which easily winter kills

  plants which easily winter kills,

  and the hair on the eyelids of a

  horse is called

  brill,

  and

  plants which easily winter kills

  are

  Campanula medium

  Digitalis purpurea

  Early-flowered Chrysanthemums

  Salvia patens

  and

  Shasta Daisy.

  the United Daughters of the Confederacy was

  founded in

  Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 10,

  1894.

  the male heart weighs 10 to 12

  ounces

  and the female

  8 to 10 ounces,

  and in the 14th century

  one-third of the population of England died

  of the Black Death

  which they say was caused by

  unsanitary conditions.

  and be careful of your style:

  bad: he gave all of his

  property to

  charity.

  better:

  he gave all his property

  to

  charity.

  best:

  he kept all his

  property.

  the superficial area of the earth is

  196,950,000 sq. miles

  and the earth weighs

  6,592,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons,

  and my child said to me,

  “thinking is not the same as

  knowing.”

  Jesus Christ died at the age of

  33 and contrary to popular belief

  the sawfish does not attack

  whales.

  the last poetry reading

  was back east.

  I had a drink on the plane

  and landed at the airport, 2 p.m.,

  6 hours until the reading.

  I was supposed to meet a lady in red,

  it was 25 or 30 miles to the college.

  I had a drink, scotch and water while standing up

  at the bar downstairs.

  then I went upstairs to another bar and had a bottle of

  imported

  beer, sitting down.

  when I went downstairs the lady in red was having me

  paged.

  she was the professor’s wife and she taught high school.

  the professor had a 3 o’clock class.

  we drove off to a bar and waited for the professor.

  she was buying and the talk was easy.

  the professor came in and ordered scotch and water.

  I stayed with the beer. “I’ve got to warble,” I told them.

  we drank until 7, then the professor said, “we ought to

  eat,” and I said, “hell, I’m not hungry, I’ve got to warble,

  I’d rather beer up for the last hour.”

  they said all right and we got to the reading a little after

  8.

  I was lucky. after reading a couple of poems I noticed

  a water pitcher and a glass sitting there

  and I had a drink of water and commented upon its lack of

  soul. a student walked up and gave me half-a-bottle

  of good wine. I thanked him, had a drink, and went onto the

  next poem. so this is how they killed Dylan Thomas? I

  thought.

  well, they won’t get me. I need just enough for the rent,

  the beer and the horses.

  I got through the reading and the next thing I knew I was in

  a houseful of yuppies. they passed money for wine and we

  sat around on the floor and talked. it was a

  little dull but not bad.

  then I was back at the professor’s house

  sitting up with him and sharing a 5th of whiskey.

  his wife had to get up at 6:30 a.m. for her high school duties,

  so just the 2 of us drank, we talked a little about literature,

  but more about life and women and things that had happened.

  it wasn’t a bad night.

  I slept on the couch downstairs.

  in the morning I got up and had 2 Alka Seltzers and a coffee.

  I took the professor’s dog for a walk through the woods.

  there were trees everywhere. those people had it made.

  I came back and waited for the professor. luckily he didn’t

  have any classes that day.

  I watched him. I knew what he was doing was wrong: a

  glass of milk and a large bowl of Grapenuts. I

  watched him while he ate it and listened to him in the

  bathroom while he gave it back.

  “what you need,” I told him, “is a half-a-glass of beer in

  half-a-glass of tomato juice.”

  “it was a good reading,” he said.

  “never mind the reading.”

  “you said you wanted to catch the 11:30 out of the

  airport. I don’t know if I can drive.”

  “I’ll drive.”

  she had the new car and he had the old one with the stick shift.

  it was fun learning to use the clutch again.

  I stopped twice along the road while the professor

  vomited. then we stopped at a gas station and had a

  7-Up.

  “it was a good reading.”

  “never mind the reading.”

  the professor drank 2 more 7-Ups.

  “you shouldn’t do that.”

  I waited while he vomited again.

  then he suggested that we ought to have breakfast.

  “breakfast?” I said. “jesus.”

  well, we stopped and I ordered sausage and eggs and he

  ordered ham and eggs, plus milk and Grapenuts.

  “don’t eat that milk and Grapenuts,” I told him.

  he ate it. then I waited while he ran outside.

  I ate the sausage and eggs and potatoes and toast and

  drank my coffee. then I ate his ham and eggs and potatoes

  and toast and drank his coffee.

  I drove on to the airport, thanked him for all, and

  walked into the bar. I had a tomato juice and beer. then

  I had a plain beer. I just made it to the plane before it took

  off. even the stewardesses didn’t look as bad as

  usual. I ordered a scotch and water and when the

  stewardess brought it she

  leaned her body all over me but didn’t even

  smile.

  I found one of the cigars I had stolen from the professor

  and leaned back and lit it with a studied flourish. I sipped

  my drink and looked out the window at the clouds and the

  mountains and I remembered the factories and the slaughter-

  houses and the railroad track gangs, I remembered all the

  dumpy 2-bit slave jobs, the low salaries, the fear, the

  hatred, the despair.

  so this is what killed Dylan Thomas? I thought, sipping

  my drink.

  bring on the next reading.

  probably so

  tonight

  I have 2 spiders clinging to a crack in the wall

  and there’s one fly

  loose.

  a new woman lies on my bed in the next room

  reading the Herald Examiner.

  she has cooked, washed the dishes

  and cleaned the tub.

  she has done a good job.

  I sit alone in here with the spiders

  and the fly.

  I hear her laugh at something in the

  newspaper. she seems

  happy.

  I don’t see how those little spiders

  are ever going to get that

  fly.

  everybody waits

 
everything waits.

  am I the only one

  who lives like

  this?

  assault

  bad shape. sick. can hardly hold my soul together

  here in Hollywood

  here on DeLongpre Ave. where the nurses live

  where the experimental film makers live

  where the trees live hot and sad in the sun.

  here where the wheelchairs drift past

  down from the home for the aged.

  how long Chinaski?

  how many more loves shot out of the sky?

  how many more women?

  how many more days and years?

  pain walks through the shadows of this room.

  I can feel it in my arms,

  I can hear it rattling in my cheap air cooler.

  I remember things and get up and walk about.

  I can’t stop walking

  from one edge of the room to the other.

  I was once a man content to be alone.

  now I have been broken open,

  everything has edges.

  they have me—crazed and trapped.

  they brought me out of myself.

  they are working on me.

  the onslaught is furious and relentless

  and without sound.

  the rivers spill over the dikes.

  the sun smells like burnt cheese.

  ten thousand faces on the boulevards.

  I live with creatures whose existence

  has nothing to do with mine.

  I keep walking about this room.

  I can hardly breathe.

  I have given my pain a name.

  I call it “Assault.”

  Assault, I say, will you please go out for a walk

  and leave me alone?