The Last Night of the Earth Poems

what a lucky god damned

  thing.

  the science of physiognomy

  long gone along the way, faces

  grey and white and black and brown, and

  eyes, all color of eyes.

  eyes are odd, I have lived with a woman,

  at least one, where the sex was fair, the

  conversation passable and sometimes there was

  even a seeming love

  but then I suddenly noticed the eyes, saw there

  the dark smeared walls of a stinking

  hell.

  (of course, I am pleased that I do not often have to

  see my own eyes, lips, hair, ears, so

  forth—

  I avoid the mirror with a studied

  regularity.)

  long gone along the way, he had a face like a

  mole pie, fat and unshivering and he walked up to

  me in the railroad yards, I was beastly sick

  and that flesh plate shook my innards, my psycho-kid

  insides as he said, “I’m waiting on my pay-check,

  I been squeezing this nickel so hard that the

  buffalo is screaming.” he showed me the

  nickel.

  tough, but no beer, I walked away from him,

  my face white like a bright headlight, I walked

  away from him and toward the faces of the nonwhites

  who

  hated me with a natural

  ease.

  long gone along the way, the landladies’ faces,

  doomed, powdered, old lilac faces, old lovely dolls

  with husbands so long gone, the agony diminished but

  still there as I followed them up stairways nearly a

  century old to some cubicle of a room and I always

  told them, “ah, a very nice room…”; to pay

  then, close the door, undress, lay upon that

  bed and turn out the light (it was always early

  evening) and then soon to hear the same sound:

  the scurry of my old friends: either the roaches or

  the mice or the rats.

  long gone along the way, now I wonder about Inez

  and Irene and their sky-blue eyes and their wonderful

  legs and breasts

  but mostly

  their faces, faces carved out of a marble that

  sometimes the gods

  bestow and

  Inez and Irene sat in front of me in class and learned about

  algebra, the shortest distance between two points, the

  Treaty of Versailles, about Attila the Hun and

  etc.

  and I watched them and wondered what they were

  thinking?

  nothing much,

  probably.

  and I wonder where they are tonight

  with their faces these 5 decades and 2 years

  later?

  the skin which covers the bone, the eyes that

  smile; quick, turn out the light, let the dark

  dance…

  the most beautiful face I ever saw was that of a

  paperman, a newsboy, the old fellow so long gone

  down the way

  who sat at a stand at Beverly and Vermont,

  his head, his face looked like what they

  called him: The Frog Man. I saw him

  often but we seldom spoke and

  The Frog Man died suddenly

  and was gone

  but I will always remember him

  and one night

  I came out of a nearby bar,

  he was there at his stand and

  he looked at me and said, “you and I, we know the same

  things.”

  I nodded, put both thumbs up, and that big Frog

  face, the big Frog head lifted in the moonlight

  and began laughing the most terrible and real

  laughter I have ever

  heard.

  long gone along the way

  victory

  what bargains we have made

  we have

  kept

  and

  as the dogs of the hours

  close in

  nothing

  can be taken

  from us

  but

  our lives.

  Edward Sbragia

  puffing on tiny cigarette butts as the world washes to the

  shore I

  burn my

  dumb lips

  think of

  Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen

  und sein

  Fliegerzirkus.

  as my cat sits in the bathroom window I

  light a new

  stub

  as Norway winks and the dogs of hell pray for

  me

  downstairs my wife studies the

  Italian

  language.

  up here

  I would give half my ass for a

  decent

  smoke…

  I

  sneeze

  then

  jump: a little red coal of ash has dropped onto my

  white white

  belly—I

  dig the fiery bit out with my

  fingers:

  a bit of minor

  pain

  I type naked: see my sulking soul

  now

  with a little pink

  dot.

  you see, I have my own show going on up

  here, I don’t need Vegas or cable

  tv,

  the label on my wine bottle states

  in part:

  “…our winemaker, Edward Sbragia, has retained the

  fresh, fruity character of the Pinot Noir and Napa

  Gamay grapes…”

  the dogs of hell pray for me as the

  world washes to the

  shore.

  wandering in the cage

  languid conjecture during hours of moil, trapped in the shadows

  of the father.

  sidewalks outside of cafes are lonely

  through the day.

  my cat looks at me and is not sure what I am and

  I look back and am pleased to feel

  the same

  about him…

  reading 2 issues of a famous magazine of 40 years

  ago, the writing that I felt was bad then,

  I still feel

  is

  that way

  and none of the writers have lasted.

  sometimes there is a strange justice

  working

  somewhere.

  sometimes

  not…

  grammar school was the first awakening of a long hell

  to come:

  meeting other beings as horrible as my

  parents.

  something I never thought

  possible…

  when I won the medal for Manual of Arms in the

  R.O.T.C.

  I wasn’t interested in

  winning.

  I wasn’t much interested in anything, even the

  girls seemed a bad game

  to chase: all too much for all too

  little

  at night before sleeping I often considered what I

  would do, what I would be:

  bank robber, drunk, beggar, idiot, common

  laborer.

  I settled on idiot and common laborer, it

  seemed more comfortable than any of the

  alternatives…

  the best thing about near-starvation and hunger is

  that when you finally

  eat

  it is such a beautiful and delicious and

  magical thing.

  people who eat 3 meals a day throughout life

  have never really

  tasted

  food…

  people are strange: they are constantly angered by

  trivial things,

  but on a major matter
/>
  like

  totally wasting their lives,

  they hardly seem to

  notice…

  on writers: I found out that most of them

  swam together.

  there were schools, establishments,

  theories.

  groups gathered and fought each

  other.

  there was literary politics.

  there was game-playing and

  bitterness.

  I always thought writing was a

  solitary profession.

  still do…

  animals never worry about

  Heaven or Hell.

  neither do

  I.

  maybe that’s why

  we

  get along…

  when lonely people come around

  I soon can understand why

  other people leave them

  alone.

  and that which would be a

  blessing to

  me

  is a horror to

  them…

  poor poor Celine.

  he only wrote one book.

  forget the others.

  but what a book it was:

  Voyage au bout de la nuit.

  it took everything out of

  him.

  it left him a hopscotch

  odd-ball

  skittering through the

  fog of

  eventuality…

  the United States is a very strange

  place: it reached its apex in

  1970

  and since then

  for every year

  it has regressed

  3 years,

  until now

  in 1989

  it is 1930

  in the way of

  doing things.

  you don’t have to go to the movies

  to see a horror

  show.

  there is a madhouse near the post office

  where I mail my works

  out.

  I never park in front of the post office,

  I park in front of the madhouse

  and walk down.

  I walk past the madhouse.

  some of the lesser mad are allowed

  out on the porch.

  they sit like

  pigeons.

  I feel a brotherhood with

  them.

  but I don’t sit with them.

  I walk down and drop my works

  in the first class slot.

  I am supposed to know what I am

  doing.

  I walk back, look at them and

  don’t look at

  them.

  I get in my car and drive

  off.

  I am allowed to drive a

  car.

  I drive it all the way back to my

  house.

  I drive my car up the driveway,

  thinking,

  what am I doing?

  I get out of my car

  and one of my 5 cats walks up to

  me, he is a very fine

  fellow.

  I reach down and touch

  him.

  then I feel all right.

  I am exactly what I am supposed to

  be.

  the pack

  the dogs are at it again; they leap and

  tear, back off, circle, then

  attack again.

  and I had thought this was over, I had

  thought that they had

  forgotten; now there are only

  more of them.

  and I am older,

  now

  but the dogs are

  ageless

  and as always they tear not only at

  the flesh but also at

  the mind and the spirit.

  now

  they are circling me

  in this room.

  they are not

  beautiful; they are the dogs

  from hell

  and they will find you

  too

  even though you are one

  of them

  now.

  question and answer

  he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer

  night, running the blade of the knife

  under his fingernails, smiling, thinking

  of all the letters he had received

  telling him that

  the way he lived and wrote about

  that—

  it had kept them going when

  all seemed

  truly

  hopeless.

  putting the blade on the table, he

  flicked it with a finger

  and it whirled

  in a flashing circle

  under the light.

  who the hell is going to save

  me? he

  thought.

  as the knife stopped spinning

  the answer came:

  you’re going to have to

  save yourself.

  still smiling,

  a: he lit a

  cigarette

  b: he poured

  another

  drink

  c: gave the blade

  another

  spin.

  fan letter

  I been readin’ you for a long time now,

  I just put Billy Boy to bed,

  he got 7 mean ticks from somewhere,

  I got 2,

  my husband, Benny, he got 3.

  some of us love bugs, others hate

  them.

  Benny writes poems.

  he was in the same magazine as you

  once.

  Benny is the world’s greatest writer

  but he got this temper.

  he gave a readin’ once and somebody

  laughed at one of his serious poems

  and Benny took his thing out right

  there

  and pissed on stage.

  he says you write good but that you

  couldn’t carry his balls in a paper

  bag.

  anyhow, I made a BIG POT OF MARMALADE

  tonight,

  we all just LOVE marmalade here.

  Benny lost his job yesterday, he told his

  boss to stick it up his ass

  but I still got my job down at the

  manicure shop.

  you know fags come in to get their nails

  done?

  you aren’t a fag, are you, Mr.

  Chinaski?

  anyhow, I just felt like writing you.

  your books are read and read around

  here.

  Benny says you’re an old fart, you

  write pretty good but that you

  couldn’t carry his balls in a

  paper sack.

  do you like bugs, Mr. Chinaski?

  I think the marmalade is cool enough to

  eat now.

  so goodbye.

  Dora

  hold on, it’s a belly laugh

  it would be good to get

  out of here,

  just go,

  pop off, get away from

  memories of this

  and all

  that,

  but staying has its

  flavor too:

  all those babes who

  thought they were

  hot numbers

  now living in dirty

  flats

  while looking forward

  to the next

  episode on

  some Soap Opera,

  and all those guys,

  those who really

  thought

  they were going to

  make it,

  grinning in the

  Year Book with their

  tight-skinned

  mugs,

  now they are

  cops,

  clerk typists,

  operators of

  sandwic
h stands,

  horse grooms,

  plops

  in the dust.

  it’s good to stay

  around

  to see what

  happened to

  all the

  others-only

  when you go to

  the bathroom,

  avoid the

  mirror

  and

  don’t look

  at

  what you

  flush

  away.

  finished

  the ball comes up to the

  plate and I can’t

  see

  it.

  my batting average has dropped to

  .231

  small things constantly

  irritate me

  and I can’t sleep

  nights.

  “you’ll come back,

  Harry,” my teammates