that I have known the dead and now I’m
dying
dying
I have known the dead
here on earth
and elsewhere;
alone now,
alone then,
alone.
are you drinking?
washed-up, on shore, the old yellow notebook
out again
I write from the bed
as I did last
year.
will see the doctor,
Monday.
“yes, doctor, weak legs, vertigo, head-aches
and my back
hurts.”
“are you drinking?” he will ask.
“are you getting your
exercise, your
vitamins?”
I think that I am just ill
with life, the same stale yet
fluctuating
factors.
even at the track
I watch the horses run by
and it seems
meaningless.
I leave early after buying tickets on the
remaining races.
“taking off?” asks the mutuel
clerk.
“yes, it’s boring,”
I tell him.
“if you think it’s boring
out there,” he tells me, “you oughta be
back here.”
so here I am
propped against my pillows
again
just an old guy
just an old writer
with a yellow
notebook.
something is
walking across the
floor
toward
me.
oh, it’s just
my cat
this
time.
“D”
the doctor is into collecting art
and the magazines in his waiting room
are Artsy
have thick covers, glistening pages,
and large color
photos.
the receptionist calls my name and
I’m led into a waiting room with
walls adorned with paintings
and a chart of the human
body.
the doctor enters: “how are you
doing?”
not well, I think, or I wouldn’t
be here.
“now,” he goes on, “I am surprised
by the biopsy, I didn’t expect
this…”
the doctor is a bald, well-scrubbed
pink fellow.
“I can almost always tell just by
looking; this time, I
missed…”
he paused.
“go on,” I say.
“all right, let’s say there are
4 types of cancer—A, B, C, D.
well, you’ve got
D.
and if I had cancer I’d rather
have your kind:
D.”
the doctor is in a tough business
but the pay is
good.
“well,” he says, “we’ll just burn it off,
o.k.?”
I stretch out on the table and he has an
instrument, I can feel the heat of it
searing through the air
but also
I hear a whirring sound
like a drill.
“it’ll be over in a
blink…”
the small growth is just inside of
the right nostril.
the instrument touches it
and
the room is filled with the smell
of burning flesh.
then he stops.
then he starts
again.
there is pain but it’s sharp and
centered.
he stops
again.
“now we are going to do it
once more to
clean it
up.”
he applies the instrument
again.
this time I feel the most
pain.
“there now…”
it’s finished, no bandage needed,
it’s
cauterized.
then I’m at the receptionist’s
desk, she makes out a bill, I
pay with my
Mastercard, am out the door,
down the stairway and there
in the parking lot
awaits
my faithful automobile.
It’s a day with a great deal of
afternoon left
I light a cigarette, start the
car and
get the hell
out of there
moving toward something
else.
in the bottom
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
the smoking claw
the red train
the letter home
the deep-fried blues.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
the song you sang together
the mouse in the attic
the train window in the rain
the whiskey breath on grandfather
the coolness of the jail trustee.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
the famous gone quite stupid
churches with peeling white paint
lovers who chose hyenas
schoolgirls giggling at atrophy
the suicide oceans of night.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
button eyes in a cardboard face
dead library books squeezed upright.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
the octopus
Gloria gone mad while shaving her armpits
the gang wars
no toilet paper at all in a train station restroom
a flat tire halfway to Vegas.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
the dream of the barmaid as the perfect girl
the first and only home run
the father sitting in the bathroom with the door open
the brave and quick death
the gang rape in the Fun House.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
the wasp in the spider web
the plumbers moving to Malibu
the death of the mother like a bell that never rang
the absence of wise old men.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
Mozart
fast food joints where the price of a bad meal exceeds the hourly wage
angry women and deluded men and faded children
the housecat
love as a swordfish.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
17,000 people screaming at a homerun
millions laughing at the obvious jokes of a tv comedian
the long and hideous wait in the welfare offices
Cleopatra fat and insane
Beethoven in the grave.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
the damnation of Faust and sexual intercourse
the sad-eyed dogs of summer lost in the streets
the last funeral
Celine failing again
the carnation in the buttonhole of the kindly killer.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
fantasies tainted with milk
our obnoxious invasion of the planets
Chatterton drinking rat poison
the bull that should have killed Hemingway
Paris like a pimple in the sky.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
th
e mad writer in a cork room
the falseness of the Senior Prom
the submarine with purple footprints.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
the tree that cries in the night
the place that nobody found
being so young you thought you could change it
being middle-aged and thinking you could survive it
being old and thinking you could hide from it.
in the bottom of the hour
lurks
2:30 a.m.
and the next to last line
and then the last.
the creative act
for the broken egg on the floor
for the 5th of July
for the fish in the tank
for the old man in room 9
for the cat on the fence
for yourself
not for fame
not for money
you’ve got to keep chopping
as you get older
the glamour recedes
it’s easier when you’re young
anybody can rise to the
heights now and then
the buzzword is
consistency
anything that keeps it
going
this life dancing in front of
Mrs. Death.
a suborder of naked buds
the uselessness of the word is
evident.
I would like to make
this
piece of paper
shriek and dance and
laugh
but
the keys just
strike it harmlessly
and
we settle
for just a fraction of
the whole.
this incompleteness is all
we have:
we write the same things
over and over
again.
we are fools,
driven.
the uselessness of the word is
evident.
writers can only pretend to
succeed
some pretend well, others
not so
yet
none of us come
near
none of us even
close
sitting at these
machines
behooved to
live
out
our indecent
profession.
companion
I am not alone.
he’s here now.
sometimes I think he’s
gone
then he
flies back
in the morning or at
noon or in the
night.
a bird no one wants.
he’s mine.
my bird of pain.
he doesn’t sing.
that bird
swaying on the
bough.
you know and I know and thee know
that as the yellow shade rips
as the cat leaps wild-eyed
as the old bartender leans on the wood
as the hummingbird sleeps
you know and I know and thee know
as the tanks practice on false battlefields
as your tires work the freeway
as the midget drunk on cheap bourbon cries alone at night
as the bulls are carefully bred for the matadors
as the grass watches you and the trees watch you
as the sea holds creatures vast and true
you know and I know and thee know
the sadness and the glory of two slippers under a bed
the ballet of your heart dancing with your blood
young girls of love who will someday hate their mirrors
overtime in hell
lunch with sick salad
you know and I know and thee know
the end as we know it now
it seems such a lousy trick after the lousy agony but
you know and I know and thee know
the joy that sometimes comes along out of nowhere
rising like a falcon moon across the impossibility
you know and I know and thee know
the cross-eyed craziness of total elation
we know that we finally have not been cheated
you know and I know and thee know
as we look at our hands our feet our lives our way
the sleeping hummingbird
the murdered dead of armies
the sun that eats you as you face it
you know and I know and thee know
we will defeat death.
the sun slants in like a golden sword as the odds grow shorter
show biz
I can’t have it
and you can’t have it
and we won’t
get it
so don’t bet on it
or even think about
it
just get out of bed
each morning
wash
shave
clothe
yourself
and go out into
it
because
outside of that
all that’s left is
suicide and
madness
so you just
can’t
expect too much
you can’t even
expect
so what you do
is
work from a modest
minimal
base
like when you
walk outside
be glad your car
might possibly
be there
and if it is—
that the tires
aren’t
flat
then you get
in
and if it
starts—you
start.
and
it’s the damndest
movie
you’ve ever
seen
because
you’re
in it—
low budget
and
4 billion
critics
and the longest
run
you ever hope
for
is
one
day.
darkness & ice
I am spooked by the bluebells and the silent harp while
passing down Western Avenue and seeing the tombstones
placed flat instead of upright upon the cemetery lawn: our decent
modernity not wanting to upset us with Finalities while we
pay 22% interest on our credit cards.
I follow the street on down
feeling wonderful that I do not appear to be lost.
we need our landmarks (like cemeteries), we need our
liquor and our liabilities.
we need so many things we think we do not
need.
strangely then, as I drive south, I begin thinking about
THE WORLD IS SQUARE, INC., an institution which meets and
discusses the fact that: the world is square and the North Pole is at
the CENTER of the SQUARE and holds everything from sliding
over the edge and that the EDGE is really a WALL OF
DARKNESS AND ICE and that nothing or nobody can go through
and that
when we THINK we are circling the globe we are only
CIRCLING the SQUARE, finally arriving back
where we began.
I wait at a signal, the light turns green and I move on
thinking, well, maybe the planets we believe are round are
illusions, and the moon and the sun, they are really square
too.
well, you can’
t rule anything out; I vote for round
but I still realize that it wasn’t too long ago when
EVERYBODY thought the answer was SQUARE.