tell me.
then they grin and are
secretly
pleased.
I’ve been benched for a
22 year old
kid.
he looks good up there:
power, lots of line
drives.
“ever thought of coaching?”
the manager asks.
“no,” I tell him, “how about
you?”
when I get home my wife
asks, “you get in the lineup
tonight?”
“nope.”
“don’t worry, he’ll put you
in.”
“no, he won’t. I’m gonna
pinch hit the rest of the
season.”
I go into the bathroom and
look into the
mirror.
I’m no 22 year old
kid.
what gets me is that it
seemed to happen
overnight.
one night I was good.
the next night, it
seemed, I was
finished.
I come out of the bathroom
and my wife says,
“don’t worry, all you need
is a little
rest.”
“I been thinking about going
into coaching,” I tell
her.
“sure,” she says, “and after
that I’ll bet you’ll be a
good manager.”
“hell yes,” I say, “anything
on tv?”
zero
dark taste in mouth, my neck is stiff, I am looking for
my sonic vibrator, the music on my radio is diseased,
the winds of death seep through my slippers, and a
terrible letter in the mail today from a pale non-soul
who requests that he may come by to see me
in repayment, he says, for a ride he gave me home
from a drunken Pasadena party
20 years ago.
also, one of the cats shit on the rug this
morning
and in the first race I bet this afternoon
the horse tossed the jock
coming out of the gate.
downstairs
I have a large photo of Hemingway
drunk before noon in Havana, he’s on the floor
mouth open, his big belly trying to flop
out of his shirt.
I feel like that photo and I’m not even drunk.
maybe
that’s the problem.
whatever the problem is, it’s there, and worse, it
shouldn’t be
for I have been a lucky man, I shouldn’t even
be here
after all I have done to myself
and after all they have done
to me
I ought to be kneeling to the gods and giving
thanks.
instead, I deride their kindness by being
impatient
with the world.
maybe a damned good night’s sleep will bring me back
to a gentle sanity.
but at the moment, I look about this room and, like
myself, it’s all in disarray: things fallen
out of place, cluttered, jumbled, lost, knocked
over, and I can’t put it straight, don’t
want to.
perhaps living through these petty days will get us ready
for the dangerous ones.
eyeless through space
it’s no longer any good, sucker, they’ve
turned out the lights, they’ve
blocked the rear entrance
and
the front’s on fire;
nobody knows your name;
down at the opera they play
checkers;
the city fountains piss
blood;
the extremities are reamed
and
they’ve hung the best
barber;
the dim souls have ascended;
the cardboard souls smile;
the love of dung is unanimous;
it’s no longer any good, sucker, the
graves have emptied out onto the
living;
last is first,
lost is everything;
the giant dogs mourn through dandelion
dreams;
the panthers welcome cages;
the onion heart is frosted,
destiny is destitute,
the horns of reason are muted as
the laughter of fools blockades the air;
the champions are dead
and
the newly born are smitten;
the jetliners vomit the eyeless through
space;
it’s no longer any good, sucker, it’s been
getting to that
right along
and now
it’s here
and you can’t touch it smell it see it
because it’s nothing everywhere as
you look up or down or turn or sit or stand
or sleep or run,
it’s no longer any good, sucker.
it’s no longer any good
sucker sucker sucker
and
if you don’t already know
I’m not surprised
and
if you do, sucker, good
luck
in the dark
going nowhere.
tag up and hold
not much chance in
Amsterdam;
cheese dislikes the
flea;
the center fielder
turns
runs back
in his stupid
uniform,
times it all
perfectly:
ball and man
arriving as
one
he
gloves it
precisely
in tune with the
universe;
not much chance in
east
Kansas City;
and
have you noticed
how
men stand
side by side
in urinals,
trained in the
act,
looking straight
ahead;
the center fielder
wings it
into the
cut-off
man
who eyes the
runners;
the sun plunges
down
as somewhere
an old
woman
opens a window
looks at a
geranium,
goes for a cup of
water;
not much chance in
New York City
or
in the look
of the eye
of
the man
who sits in a
chair
across from
you
he is
going
to ask you
certain
questions about
certain
things
especially
about
what to
do
without
much chance.
upon this time
fine then, thunderclaps at midnight, death in the
plaza.
my shoes need shining.
my typewriter is silent.
I write this in pen
in an old yellow
notebook
while
leaning propped up against the wall
behind the
bed.
Hemingway said, “it won’t com
e
anymore.”
later—the gun
into the
mouth.
not writing is not good
but trying to write
when you can’t is
worse.
hey, I have excuses:
I have TB and the
antibiotics dull the
brain.
“you’ll write again,” people
assure me, “you’ll be
better than
ever.”
that’s nice to know.
but the typewriter is silent
and it looks at
me.
meanwhile, every two or three
weeks
I get a fan letter in the mail
telling me that
surely
I must be
the world’s greatest
writer.
but
the typewriter is silent
and looks at
me….
this is one of the
strangest times
of my
life.
I’ve got to do a
Lazarus
and I can’t even
shine
my shoes.
Downtown Billy
they used to call him
“Downtown” Billy.
“Downtown” had these
long arms
and he swung them
with
abandon
and with great
force.
when you fought
“Downtown” Billy
you never knew
where the punches
were coming
from: “They come
from Downtown…”
“Downtown” once rose
all the way
to #4 in his weight
class,
then he dropped out
of the first
ten.
then he fell to
fighting 6 rounders,
then 4.
the punches still
came from
Downtown
but you could
see them
coming.
then he was just a
sparring
partner.
last I heard
he left
town.
today I feel
like “Downtown” Billy,
sitting in this
blue garden chair
under the
walnut
tree,
watching the
neighbor boy
bounce a
basketball,
take some
fancy steps
forward,
then loop the
ball
through the
hoop
over the
garage
door.
I have just taken
my
pills.
8 count
from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.
one flies
off.
then
another.
one is left,
then
it too
is gone.
my typewriter is
tombstone
still.
and I am
reduced to bird
watching.
just thought I’d
let you
know,
fucker.
ill
being very ill and very weak is a very strange
thing.
when it takes all your strength to get from the
bedroom to the bathroom and back, it seems like
a joke but
you don’t laugh.
back in bed you consider death again and find
the same thing: the closer you get to it
the less forbidding it
becomes.
you have much time to examine the walls
and outside
birds on a telephone wire take on much
importance.
and there’s the tv: men playing baseball
day after day.
no appetite.
food tastes like cardboard, it makes you
ill, more than
ill.
the good wife keeps insisting that you
eat.
“the doctor said…”
poor dear.
and the cats.
the cats jump up on the bed and look at me.
they stare, then jump
off.
what a world, you think: eat, work, fuck,
die.
luckily I have a contagious disease: no
visitors.
the scale reads 155, down from
217.
I look like a man in a death camp.
I
am.
still, I’m lucky: I feast on solitude, I
will never miss the crowd.
I could read the great books but the great books don’t
interest me.
I sit in bed and wait for the whole thing to go
one way or the
other.
just like everybody
else.
only one Cervantes
it’s no use, I’ve got to admit,
I am into my first real
writer’s block
after over
5 decades
of typing.
I have some excuses:
I’ve had a long
illness
and I’m nearing the age of
70.
and when you’re near
70 you always consider the
possibility of
slippage.
but I am bucked-up
by the fact that
Cervantes
wrote his greatest work
at the age of
80.
but how many
Cervantes
are there?
I’ve been spoiled with the
easy way I have created
things,
and now there’s this
miserable
stoppage.
and now
spiritually constipated I’ve
grown testy,
have screamed at my wife
twice this week,
once smashing a glass
into the sink.
bad form,
sick nerves,
bad
style.
I should accept this
writer’s block.
hell, I’m lucky I’m alive,
I’m lucky I don’t have
cancer.
I’m lucky in a hundred
different ways.
sometimes at night
in bed
at one or two a.m.
I will think about
how lucky I am
and it keeps me
awake.
now I’ve always written in a
selfish way, that is, to please
myself.
by writing things down I have
been better able to
live with them.
now, that’s
stopped.
I see other old men with canes
sitting at bus stop benches,
staring straight into the sun and
seeing nothing.
and I know there are other
old men
in hospitals and nursing
homes
sitting upright in their
beds
grunting over
bedpans.
death is nothing, brother,
it’s life that’s
hard.
writing has
been my fountain
of youth,
my whore,
my love,
my gamble.
the gods have spoiled me.
yet look, I am still
lucky,
for writing about a
writer’s block
is better than not writing
at all.
that I have known the dead
that I have known the dead and now I’m
dying
as they spoon succotash and
noodles
into a skull
past
caring.
that I have known the dead and now I’m
dying
in a world long ago
gone
leaving this is
nothing.
loving it was
too.
that I have known the dead and now I’m
dying
fingers thin to the
bone,
I offer no
prayers.