The Last Night of the Earth Poems
creativity.
also
I noticed that the professor’s advice
on what to do
and what not to do
to become a writer was
very pale and standard stuff
that would lead to
nowhere.
some of the students’ work
was read in class
and I found it to be embarrassingly
inept.
I sat alone in the back row with
my scowl
further noting that
the men didn’t look like men and
the women didn’t look like women.
again
no way to judge creativity.
but what they produced
looked like
what they were.
well
at least the prof did give me
“A’s” on all the work
I turned in
but I got a “B” overall for
poor attendance.
I also knew that
every student in that class
except one
was
creatively doomed.
and even that one
would be 50 years old
before even minor notice
would be taken of
his work.
a bit longer
than even he
had
expected.
cool black air
often from my typing room I step out onto this small
balcony
and there is the night
a cool wash of black air.
I stand in slippers, shorts and undershirt, sucking at
a small cigarette, I can see the curling headlights of
the cars on the winding Harbor Freeway.
they come and come, those lights, they never stop
and I truly wonder that life is still here
after all these centuries, after the hell of
all of our error and our smallness and our
greed, our
selfishness, our bitterness,
life is still here
and the thought of that makes me strangely
elated.
of course, I am woozy from hours of
typing.
and now
the same dog in that yard to the far left barks at me
again.
he should know that old fart standing there in his shorts,
he should know me by now.
I turn and walk back into my typing room.
the typewriter is electric and it is on and it
hums hums hums hums.
last night I did something very odd: after ripping out
a few poems
I covered the machine
then bent down and kissed it once, and said,
“thank you, very much.”
after 50 years in the game I had finally thanked my
typewriter.
now I sit down to it and I BANG IT, I don’t use the light
touch, I BANG IT, I want to hear it, I want it to do its
tricks, it has saved my ass from the worst of women and the
worst of men and the
worst of jobs, it has mellowed my nightmares into a gentle
sanity, it has loved me at my lowest and it has made me
seem to be a greater soul than I ever
was.
I BANG IT I BANG IT
and I know how all of them felt, all the writers, when it was
going good, when it was going hot.
death, I have chopped off your arms and your legs and your
head.
I am sorry, I know you just do what you have to
do
even to that barking dog
but now
I BANG IT
BANG IT
and wait.
the jackals
as the years went on I seemed to have more luck
but now these jackals
these attackers from the past reappear as if
nothing had ever
occurred (one doesn’t mind literary
criticism so long as the envy and the rancor
do not show through)
and now I meet the jackals in eating
places etc.
some even come to the door
bringing entire families—mothers, fathers,
old aunts…
the jackals turn on the charm
and I don’t mind, let the past be
done, I pour the drinks and
listen.
it is afterwards that it occurs, usually
within a week:
a large manuscript arrives with
note: “could you read this?
publisher would like a foreword from
you…”
I brace myself, flop on the bed, give it
a read: the writing is proficient
but somewhere there is a terrible
lacking, an unnatural void…
the manuscript makes me a bit ill;
I let it fall to the
floor.
the other night I made a brief
appearance at a theater where my
video was showing and
as I was leaving
here came the poet, glass of
cheap free wine in his hand, he
poked his face into mine
and repeated his same speech all
over again as if he had forgotten
he had given it
to me before.
“remember me? we met at L’s.
there’s this new mag starting, it’s
going to be better than Rolling
Stone…
what they want me to do is
interview you and you interview me,
we get a thousand a-piece, maybe
more…”
(said jackal had attacked me in an
article after begging me to go
to the boxing matches with him.
his face was continually
in mine, talking, talking,
“listen,” I told him, “let’s just
watch the fights…”
he had told
me he was there to cover the
fights, but he wasn’t: the
article was about me: a
terrible human being who was a
drunk and far past his prime.)
now he kept shoving his face into
mine there on the sidewalk,
repeating his spiel: “I interview
you, you interview me…one
thousand, what do you think, huh,
huh?”
“I’ll let you know,” I told
him.
but he just kept walking along,
pushing his face into mine…
well, I thought, I am going to
have to punch him out.
but I tried something else
first:
“get the fuck away from me!”
he backed off and I walked off
to a better place…
give it a week, I came in from the
track one evening and here was a
large package: 3 of his latest
books from a local press.
I flipped through the pages:
a breezy, bantering style
playing the open, good
human guy but it was like he
was writing on benzedrine
lashing you with shreds of his
soul,
but it was more boring-than
derring-do.
there was a note with phone
number, home address:
“I’ll interview you, you
interview me, the editor thinks
it’s a great idea…and there’s a
grand a-piece in it for each of
us, maybe more…”
/>
I walked into the kitchen and
dumped him into the trash
bag.
I fed the cats and then the phone
rang.
it was a new voice:
“Chinaski?”
“yes?”
“listen, you don’t know me
but my name is Dipper
and I got a great deal for
you.”
“listen, how did you get my
phone number?”
“hey, man, what difference
does that make?”
I hung up.
in a moment the phone was ringing
again.
I walked into the front room
looked out the south window, it
looked fine out there: trees, lawn,
shrubbery,
not a jackal in
sight.
warm light
alone
tonight
in this house,
alone with
6 cats
who tell me
without
effort
all that there
is
to know.
in the shadow of the rose
Dinosauria, we
born like this
into this
as the chalk faces smile
as Mrs. Death laughs
as the elevators break
as political landscapes dissolve
as the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
as the oily fish spit out their oily prey
as the sun is masked
we are
born like this
into this
into these carefully mad wars
into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
into bars where people no longer speak to each other
into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
born into this
into hospitals which are so expensive that it’s cheaper to die
into lawyers who charge so much it’s cheaper to plead guilty
into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
born into this
walking and living through this
dying because of this
muted because of this
castrated
debauched
disinherited
because of this
fooled by this
used by this
pissed on by this
made crazy and sick by this
made violent
made inhuman
by this
the heart is blackened
the fingers reach for the throat
the gun
the knife
the bomb
the fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
the fingers reach for the bottle
the pill
the powder
we are born into this sorrowful deadliness
we are born into a government 60 years in debt
that soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
and the banks will burn
money will be useless
there will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
it will be guns and roving mobs
land will be useless
food will become a diminishing return
nuclear power will be taken over by the many
explosions will continually shake the earth
radiated robot men will stalk each other
the rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante’s Inferno will be made to look like a children’s playground
the sun will not be seen and it will always be night
trees will die
all vegetation will die
radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
the sea will be poisoned
the lakes and rivers will vanish
rain will be the new gold
the rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
the last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
and the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
the petering out of supplies
the natural effect of general decay
and there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
born out of that.
the sun still hidden there
awaiting the next chapter.
cut while shaving
It’s never quite right, he said, the way the people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
it’s never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it’s not quite right,
it’s hardly right at all
he said.
don’t I know it? I
answered.
I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night
nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.
I walked down the stairway and
into it.
a good job
some jobs you like,
there is a clean gentle
feel to some of them,
like the one I had
unloading boxcars
of frozen
fish.
the fish came packed
in coffin-sized boxes,
beautifully
heavy and
almost
unyielding.
you had thick gloves
and a hook
and you gaffed the
damned thing
and pulled it along
the floor and slid it
outside and onto the
waiting
truck.
and strangely there
was no foreman,
they just turned us
loose in there
knowing we’d get
it done.
we were always
sending out one of
the fellows for another
bottle of
wine.
it was slippery and
cold in those
boxcars
we yanked out those
iced fish,
drank the wine
and the bullshit
flew.
there was a
fight or two
but nothing really
violent.
I was the peacemaker.
“come on, fuck
that stuff!
let’s get these
fish out of
here!
yeah!”
then we’d be
laughing and
bullshitting
again.
toward evening
we all got quiet.
the fish seemed to
get heavier and
heavier.
shins got cracked,
knees
bruised
and the wine
settled heavily
into our
guts.
by the time you
got to your last box
you bullied it
out of there
strictly on nerve
alon
e.
when you punched
out
even the timecard
seemed
heavy.
and then you were
in your old car
moving toward
your place,
your shackjob,
wondering
whether good times
or hell
awaited
you.
but the frozen fish
you had
worked,
that thought was
pleasant and
soothing,
and you’d be back
for more,
hooking the wood
and dragging.
the night came
on and you flicked
the headlights
on
and the world was
good enough,
right
then.
last seat at the end