too many unkind noons, plus a
steady fixation for
the ladies of death.
I am
finished. roll me
up, package
me,
toss me
to the birds of Normandy or the
gulls of Santa Monica, I
no longer
read
I
no longer
breed,
I
talk to old men over quiet
fences.
is this where my suicide complex
uncomplexes?:
as
I am asked over the telephone:
did you ever know Kerouac?
I now allow cars to pass me on the freeway.
I haven’t been in a fist fight for 15 years.
I have to get up and piss 3 times a night.
and when I see a sexpot on the street I
only see
trouble.
I am
finished, back to square one,
drinking alone and listening to classical
music.
much about dying is getting ready.
the tiger walks through my dreams.
the cigarette in my mouth just exploded.
curious things still do
occur.
no, I never knew Kerouac.
so you see:
my life wasn’t
useless
after
all.
the writer
when I think of the things I endured trying to be a
writer—all those rooms in all those cities,
nibbling on tiny bits of food that wouldn’t
keep a rat
alive.
I was so thin I could slice bread with my
shoulderblades, only I seldom had
bread…
meanwhile, writing things down
again and again
on pieces of paper.
and when I moved from one place to
another
my cardboard suitcase was just
that: paper outside stuffed with
paper inside.
each new landlady would
ask, “what do you
do?”
“I’m a writer.”
“oh…”
as I settled into tiny rooms to evoke my
craft
many of them pitied me, gave me little
tidbits like apples, walnuts,
peaches…
little did they know
that that
was about all that I
ate.
but their pity ended when
they found cheap wine bottles in my
place.
it’s all right to be a starving writer
but not
a starving writer who
drinks.
drunks are never forgiven
anything.
but when the world is closing in very
fast
a bottle of wine seems a very
reasonable friend.
ah. all those landladies,
most of them heavy, slow, their husbands
long dead, I can still see those
dears
climbing up and down the stairways of
their world.
they ruled my very existence:
without them allowing me
an extra week on the rent
now and then,
I was out on the
street
and I couldn’t WRITE
on the street.
it was very important to have a
room, a door, those
walls.
oh, those dark mornings
in those beds
listening to their footsteps
listening to them cough
hearing the flushing of their
toilets, smelling the cooking of
their food
while waiting
for some word
on my submissions to New York City
and the world,
my submissions to those educated,
intelligent, snobbish, inbred,
formal, comfortable people
out there
they truly took their time to
say, no.
yes, in those dark beds
with the landladies rustling about
puttering and snooping, sharpening
utensils,
I often thought of those editors and
publishers out there
who didn’t recognize
what I was trying to say
in my special
way
and I thought, they must be
wrong.
then this would be followed
with a thought much worse
than that:
I could be a
fool:
almost every writer thinks
they are doing
exceptional work.
that’s
normal.
being a fool is
normal.
and then I’d
get out of bed
find a piece of
paper
and start
writing
again.
they don’t eat like us
my father eating.
his ears moved.
he munched with great vigor.
I wished him in hell.
I watched the fork in his hand.
I watched it put food into his mouth.
the food I ate was tasteless and deadly.
his small bits of conversation entered my head.
the words ran down my spine.
they spilled into my shoes.
“eat your food, Henry,” my mother said.
he said, “many people are starving and don’t eat as well as us!”
I wished him in hell.
I watched his fork.
it gathered more food and put it into his mouth.
he chewed in a dog-like fashion.
his ears moved.
the brutal beatings he gave me I was ready for.
but watching him eat brought on the darkness.
there at the tablecloth.
there with the green and blue wooden napkin holders.
“eat your food or I’ll strop your god damned ass,” he told me.
later in life I made him pay somewhat.
but he still owes me.
and I’ll never collect.
let me tell you
hell is built
piece by piece
brick by brick
around
you.
it’s a gradual,
not a rapid
process.
we build our
own
inferno,
blame
others.
but hell is
hell.
wordly hell is
hell.
my hell and
your
hell.
our
hell.
hell, hell,
hell.
the song of
hell.
putting your
shoes on
in the
morning.
hell.
blasted apart with the first breath
running out of days
as the banister glints
in the early morning sun.
there will be no rest
even in our dreams.
now, all there is to do is
reset
broken moments.
when even to exist seems a
victory
then surely our luck has
run thin
thinner than a bloody stream
toward death.
life is a sad song:
we have
heard too many
voices
seen too many
faces
too many
bodies
worst have been the faces:
a dirty joke that no one
can understand.
barbaric, senseless days total
in your skull;
reality is a juiceless
orange.
there is no plan
no out
no divinity
no sparrow of
joy.
we can’t compare life to
anything—that’s
too dreary a
prospect.
relatively speaking,
we were never short on
courage
but, at best, the odds
remained long
and
at worst,
unchangeable.
and what was worst:
not that we wasted
it
but that it was
wasted
on us:
coming out of
the Womb
trapped
in light and
darkness
stricken and numbed
alone in the temperate zone of
dumb agony
now
running out of days
as the banister glints
in the early morning sun.
Elvis lives
the boy was going to take the bus out
to see the
Graceland Mansion
then
the Greyhound Lines went
on strike.
there were only two clerks
and two lines
at the station
and the lines were
50 to 65 people
long.
after two hours in line
one of the clerks told the
boy
that his bus
would leave
as soon as the substitute
driver arrived.
“when will that be?” the
boy asked.
“we can’t
be certain,” the
clerk answered.
the boy slept on the floor
that night
but by 9 a.m.
the next morning
the substitute driver
still had not
arrived.
the boy had to wait
in another line
to get to the
toilet.
he finally got a
stall, carefully
fitted the
sanitary toilet seat
paper cover,
pulled down his
pants,
his shorts
and
sat down.
luckily
the boy had a
pencil.
he found a clean
space
among all the
smeared and demented
scrawlings and
drawings
and very
carefully
and
heavily
he printed:
HEARTBREAK HOTEL
then he dropped the
first
one.
my buddy in valet parking at the racetrack:
after 9 long races among greedy faces
on a hot Sunday that hardly rhymes with
reason
I have murdered another day,
come out with shoelaces flopping (while
secretly craving to be in a moss-lined
cave, say,
watching black and white cartoons
while wanton simplicity soothes the
muddled brain)
as my buddy the valet races the
machine up, revving the 8-year-old
engine, he leaps
out:
“how ya doin’, baby?”
“things have me by the jugular, Frank,
I’m ready to run up the white
flag.”
“not you, baby, you’re my
leader!”
“you can do better than that,
Frank…”
I get in, hook the seat belt, put on
the driving glasses, put it in first…
“hey, man,” he sticks his head into the
window, “let’s go out and get drunk and
kick some ass and find some
pussy!”
I tell him, “I’ll consider that.”
as I pull out I can see him in the rearview mirror: he’s giving me the
finger.
I smile for the first time in 7 or
8 hours.
see here, you
blazing bastard fools
poets
with your
idiot scrolls
you are so
pompous
in your
knowledge
so
assured
that you are
on a hot roll
to
nirvana
you
soft lumps of
humanity
you
imitators of
other
pretenders
you are still
in
the shadow of
the
Mother
you
have never
bargained with
the
Beast
you have never
tasted
the full flavor of
Hell
you have never
seen
the Edge of
yourself
you have never
been alone
with the
razor-sharp
walls
you
blazing bastard fools
with your
idiot scrolls
there is nothing
to
know
no place
to
travel
your
lives
your
deaths
your
idiot
scrolls
useless
disgusting
and
not as real
as
the
wart
on the ass
of
a
hog.
you
are rejected by
circumstance.
good
bye.
spark
I always resented all the years, the hours, the
minutes I gave them as a working stiff, it
actually hurt my head, my insides, it made me
dizzy and a bit crazy—I couldn’t understand the
murdering of my years
yet my fellow workers gave no signs of
agony, many of them even seemed satisfied, and
seeing them that way drove me almost as crazy as
the dull and senseless work.
the workers submitted.
the work pounded them to nothingness, they were
scooped-out and thrown away.
I resented each minute, every minute as it was
mutilated
and nothing relieved the monotony.
I considered suicide.
I drank away my few leisure hours.
I worked for decades.
I lived with the worst kind of women, they killed what
the job failed to kill.
I knew that I was dying.
something in me said, go ahead, die, sleep, become as
them, accept.
then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.
it needn’t be much, just a spark.
a spark ca
n set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it.
I think I did.
I’m glad I did.