I was always studying the wood of the
bar, the grains, the scratches, the
cigarette burns.
there was something there but I
couldn’t quite figure what it
was
and that kept me going.
another one was to look at my
hand around the
glass.
there is something about
one’s hand about a
glass that is gently
fascinating.
and, of course, there is this one:
all drunks do it:
taking your thumbnail and slowly
ripping off the label
on a bottle of beer that has been
soaking in the icewater.
smoking cigarettes is a good show
too, especially in the early morning
hours with the Venetian blinds at
your back,
the smoke curls up and forms its
divergent patterns.
this gives one the feeling of
peace
and really so, more so,
if there is one of your favorite
old songs
emanating from the
juke.
and if the bartender was old
and a little tired and a little bit
wise
it was good to see where he
was or what he was doing—
washing glasses or leaning
against the counter or
sneaking a quick
shot
or whatever he was doing
it was always nice to just
see a bit of him,
to take note of the white
shirt.
the white shirt was an
important backdrop to
drink to and
with.
also you listened to the
traffic going by,
car by car.
it was not a deliberate
listening—more an offhand
one.
and it was best when
it had rained
and you could hear the
tires on the
wet street.
the bar was the best
place to hide in.
time came under your
control, time to wade
in, time to do nothing
in.
no guru was needed,
no god.
nothing expected but
yourself
and nothing lost
to the
unexpected.
my uncle Jack
my uncle Jack
is a mouse
is a house on fire
is a war about to begin
is a man running down the street with a knife in his back.
my uncle Jack
is the Santa Monica pier
is a dusty blue pillow
is a scratching black-and-white dog
is a man with one arm lighting a cigarette with one hand.
my uncle Jack
is a slice of burnt toast
is the place you forgot to look for the key
is the pleasure of finding 3 rolls of toilet paper in the closet
is the worst dream you’ve ever had that you can’t remember.
my uncle Jack
is the firecracker that went off in your hand
is your run-over cat dead outside your driveway at 10:30 a.m.
is the crap game you won in the Santa Anita parking lot
is the man your woman left you for that night in the cheap hotel room.
my uncle Jack
is your uncle Jack
is death coming like a freight train
is a clown with weeping eyes
is your car jack and your fingernails and the scream of the biggest mountain now.
the area of pause
you have to have it or the walls will close
in.
you have to give everything up, throw it
away, everything away.
you have to look at what you look at
or think what you think
or do what you do
or
don’t do
without considering personal
advantage
without accepting guidance.
people are worn away with
striving,
they hide in common
habits.
their concerns are herd
concerns.
few have the ability to stare
at an old shoe for
ten minutes
or to think of odd things
like who invented the
doorknob?
they become unalive
because they are unable to
pause
undo themselves
unkink
unsee
unlearn
roll clear.
listen to their untrue
laughter, then
walk
away.
my first computer poem
have I gone the way of the deathly death?
will this machine finish me
where booze and women and poverty
have not?
is Whitman laughing at me from his grave?
does Creeley care?
is this properly spaced?
am I?
will Ginsberg howl?
soothe me!
get me lucky!
get me good!
get me going!
I am a virgin again.
a 70 year old virgin.
don’t fuck me, machine
do.
who cares?
talk to me, machine!
we can drink together.
we can have fun.
think of all the people who will hate me at this
computer.
we’ll add them to the others
and continue right
on.
so this is the beginning
not the
end.
Rossini, Mozart and Shostakovich
are who I will hear tonight
after reading about the death of Red Grange.
my wife and I ate at a Japanese restaurant tonight
and I told her that Red Grange had died.
I had red bean ice cream for dessert.
my wife declined.
the war was still on in the Gulf.
we got into the car and I drove us back here.
now I am listening to Rossini
who died before Red Grange.
now the audience is applauding.
now the players are readying for Mozart.
Red Grange got a hell of a write-up in the papers.
now Mozart is beginning.
I am smoking a small cigarette imported from India.
4 of my 6 cats are asleep in the next room.
my wife is downstairs.
outside it is a cold, still winter night.
I blow smoke into the desk lamp and watch it curl.
Mozart is doing very well.
Shostakovich is getting ready.
it is a late Tuesday evening.
and Red Grange is dead.
it’s a shame
a great mind and a good body seldom go
together.
or a great body and a good
mind.
or a great body and a great
mind.
but worse, a not so good mind and a
not so good body often go
together.
in fact, that’s almost the entire
populace.
and all these
reproducing more of
themselves.
is there any wonder why the world
is where it’s at
now?
just notice the creature sitting ne
ar you
in a movie house
or standing ahead of you in a
supermarket line.
or giving a State of the Union
Address.
that the gods have let us go on
this long
this badly.
as the snail comes crawling home
to manna.
what a writer
what I liked about e. e. cummings
was that he cut away from
the holiness of the
word
and with charm
and gamble
gave us lines
that sliced through the
dung.
how it was needed!
how we were withering
away
in the old
tired
manner.
of course, then came all
the
e. e. cummings
copyists.
they copied him then
as the others had
copied Keats, Shelley,
Swinburne, Byron, et
al.
but there was only
one
e. e. cummings.
of course.
one sun.
one moon.
one poet,
like
that.
hangovers
I’ve probably had about more of them
than any person alive
and they haven’t killed me
yet
but some of those mornings felt
awfully near
death.
as you know, the worst drinking is done
on an empty stomach, while smoking
heavily and downing many different
types of
libations.
and the worst hangovers are when you
awaken in your car or in a strange room
or in an alley or in jail.
the worst hangovers are when you
awaken to realize that you have done
something absolutely vile, ignorant and
possibly dangerous the night before
but
you can’t quite remember what it
was.
and you awaken in various states of
disorder—parts of your body
damaged, your money missing
and/or possibly and often your
car, if you had one.
you might place a telephone call to
a lady, if you were with one, most
often to have her slam the phone
down on you.
or, if she is next to you then,
to feel her bristling and outrageous
anger.
drunks are never forgiven.
but drunks will forgive themselves
because they need to drink
again.
it takes an ungodly durability to
be a drinking person for many
decades.
your drinking companions are
killed by it.
you yourself are in and out of
hospitals
where the warning often is:
“One more drink will kill
you.”
but
you beat that
by taking more than one more
drink.
and as you near three quarters of
a century in age
you find that it takes more and more
booze to get you
drunk.
and the hangovers are worse,
the recovery stage is
longer.
and the most remarkably stupid
thing is
that you are not unpleased that
you have done it
all
and that you are still
doing it.
I am typing this now
under the yoke of one of my
worst hangovers
while downstairs now
sit various and sundry
bottles of
alcohol.
it’s all been so beastly
lovely,
this mad river,
this gouging
plundering
madness
that I would wish upon
nobody
but myself,
amen.
they are everywhere
the tragedy-sniffers are all
about.
they get up in the morning
and begin to find things
wrong
and they fling themselves
into a rage about
it,
a rage that lasts until
bedtime,
where even there
they twist in their
insomnia,
not able to rid their
minds
of the petty obstacles
they have
encountered.
they feel set against,
it’s a plot.
and by being constantly
angry they feel that
they are constantly
right.
you see them in traffic
honking wildly
at the slightest
infraction,
cursing,
spewing their
invectives.
you feel them
in lines
at banks
at supermarkets
at movies,
they are pressing
at your back
walking on your
heels,
they are impatient to
a fury.
they are everywhere
and into
everything,
these violently
unhappy
souls.
actually they are
frightened,
never wanting to be
wrong
they lash out
incessantly…
it is a malady
an illness of
that
breed.
the first one
I saw like that
was my
father
and since then
I have seen a
thousand
fathers,
ten thousand
fathers
wasting their lives
in hatred,
tossing their lives
into the
cesspool
and
ranting
on.
war
war, war, war,
the yellow monster,
the eater of mind
and body.
war,
the indescribable,
the pleasure of
the mad,
the final argument
of
ungrown men.
does it belong?
do we?
as we approach
the last flash of
our chance.
one flower left.
one second.
breathing like this.
the idiot
I believe the thought came to me
when I was about eleven years
old:
I’ll become an idiot.
I had noticed some in the neighborhood,
those who the people called
“idiots.”
although looked down upon,
the idiots seemed to have the
more peaceful lives:
nothing was expected of
them.
I imagined myself standing upon
streetcorners, hands in pockets,
and drooling a bit at the
mouth.
nobody would bother
me.
I began to put my plan into
ef
fect.
I was first noticed in the
school yards.
my mates jibed at me,
taunted me.
even my father noticed:
“you act like a god damned
idiot!”
one of my teachers noticed,
Mrs. Gredis of the long silken
legs.
she kept me after
class.
“what is it, Henry?
you can tell me…”
she put her arms
about me
and I rested myself
against
her.
“tell me, Henry, don’t
be afraid…”