ass?”

  “just another guy with no

  taste,” I answered.

  I was cool and mean

  in those days and I went on to

  high school, the same one

  Mary Lou attended

  where she secretly got

  married

  during her senior year

  to a guy

  I knew, a guy I

  outdrank and beat the shit out of

  a couple of

  times.

  the guy thought he had

  something.

  he wanted me to be

  best man.

  I told him, no thanks and lots of

  luck.

  I never could see what

  they saw in

  Mary Lou.

  and poor Humm: what a

  lonely sick old

  fart.

  anyhow, then I went on to

  city college

  where the only molesting I

  could see going on

  was what they did to your

  mind.

  rift

  “I can’t live with you anymore,”

  she said,

  “look at you!”

  “uuh?” I

  asked.

  “look at you!

  sitting in that god

  damned

  chair!

  your belly is sticking out

  of your

  underwear,

  you’ve burnt cigarette

  holes in all your

  shirts!

  all you do is suck

  on that god damned

  beer,

  bottle after bottle,

  what do you get out of

  that?”

  “the damage has been

  done,” I told

  her.

  “what’re you talking

  about?”

  “nothing matters and

  we know nothing matters

  and that

  matters…”

  “you’re drunk!”

  “come on, baby, let’s get

  along, it’s

  easy…”

  “not for me!” she screamed,

  “not for

  me!”

  she ran into the bathroom to

  put on her

  makeup.

  I got up for another

  beer.

  I sat back down

  just had the new bottle

  to my mouth

  when she came out of the

  bathroom.

  “holy shit!” she screamed,

  “you’re

  disgusting!”

  I laughed right into the

  bottle, gagged, spit a mouthful of

  beer across my

  undershirt.

  “my god!” she

  said.

  she slammed the door and

  was gone.

  I looked at the closed door

  and at the doorknob

  and strangely

  I didn’t feel

  alone.

  my friend, the parking lot attendant

  —he’s a dandy

  —small black mustache

  —usually sucking on a cigar

  he tends to lean into the cars as he

  transacts business

  first time I met him, he said,

  “hey! ya gonna make a

  killin’?”

  “maybe,” I answered.

  next meeting it was:

  “hey, Ramrod! what’s

  happening?”

  “very little,” I told

  him.

  next time I had my girlfriend with me

  and he just

  grinned.

  next time I was

  alone.

  “hey,” he asked, “where’s the young

  chick?”

  “I left her at home…”

  “Bullshit! I’ll bet she dumped

  you!”

  and the next time

  he really leaned into the car:

  “what’s a guy like you doing driving a

  BMW? I’ll bet you inherited your

  money, you didn’t get this car with your

  brains!”

  “how’d you guess?” I

  answered.

  that was some weeks ago.

  I haven’t seen him lately.

  fellow like that, chances are he just moved on

  to better

  things.

  miracle

  I have just listened to this

  symphony which Mozart dashed off

  in one day

  and it had enough wild and crazy

  joy to last

  forever,

  whatever forever

  is

  Mozart came as close as

  possible to

  that.

  a non-urgent poem

  I had this fellow write me that

  he felt there wasn’t the

  “urgency” in my poems

  of the present

  as compared to my poems

  of the past.

  now, if this is true

  why did he write me

  about it?

  have I made his days

  more

  incomplete?

  it’s

  possible.

  well, I too have felt

  let down

  by writers

  I once thought were

  powerful

  or

  at least

  very damned

  good

  but

  I never considered

  writing them to

  inform them that I

  sensed their

  demise.

  I found the best thing

  I could do

  was just to type away

  at my own work

  and let the dying

  die

  as they always

  have.

  my first affair with that older woman

  when I look back now

  at the abuse I took from

  her

  I feel shame that I was so

  innocent,

  but I must say

  she did match me drink for

  drink,

  and I realized that her life

  her feelings for things

  had been ruined

  along the way

  and that I was no more than a

  temporary

  companion;

  she was ten years older

  and mortally hurt by the past

  and the present;

  she treated me badly:

  desertion, other

  men;

  she brought me immense

  pain,

  continually;

  she lied, stole;

  there was desertion,

  other men,

  yet we had our moments; and

  our little soap opera ended

  with her in a coma

  in the hospital,

  and I sat at her bed

  for hours

  talking to her,

  and then she opened her eyes

  and saw me:

  “I knew it would be you,”

  she said.

  then she closed her

  eyes.

  the next day she was

  dead.

  I drank alone

  for two years

  after that.

  the freeway life

  some fool kept blocking me and I finally got around him, and in the

  elation of freedom I ran it up to 85 (naturally, first checking the rear

  view for our blue suited protectors); then I felt and heard the SMASH of a hard

  object upon the bottom of my car, but wanting to make the track I willed

  myself to ignore it (as if that would make it vanish) e
ven though I began

  to smell gasoline.

  I checked the gas gauge and it seemed to be holding…

  it had been a terrible week already

  but, you know, defeat can strengthen just as victory can weaken, and if

  you have the proper luck and the holy endurance the gods just might deliver

  the proper admixture…

  then

  traffic backed up and stopped, and then I really smelled gas and I saw my

  gas gauge dipping rapidly, then my radio told me that a man

  3 miles up

  on the Vernon overpass had one leg over the side and was threatening

  suicide,

  and there I was threatened with being blown to hell

  as people yelled at me that my tank was broken and pouring gasoline;

  yes, I nodded back, I know, I know…

  meanwhile, waving cars off and working my way over to the outer lane

  thinking, they are more terrorized than I am:

  if I go, those nearby might go also.

  there was no motion in the traffic—the suicide was still trying to make

  up his mind and my gas gauge dipped into the red

  and then the necessity of being a proper citizen and waiting for opportunity

  vanished and I made my move

  up and over a cement abutment

  bending my right front wheel

  I made it to the freeway exit which was totally

  clear

  then worked on down to a gas station on Imperial Highway

  parked it

  still dripping gas, got out, made it to the phone, got in a call

  for the tow truck, not a long wait at all, nice drive back in with a black

  fellow who told me strange stories about stranded motorists…

  (like one woman, her hands were frozen to the wheel, took 15 minutes of

  talking and prying to make her let go.)

  had the car back in a couple of days, was driving back from the track,

  hit the brake and it wouldn’t go down, luckily I wasn’t on the freeway

  yet, cut the ignition, glided to the curb, noted that the steering

  column cover had ripped loose and blocked the brake, ripped that away, then

  ripped some more to make sure, then a whole mass of wires spilled out,

  s h i t…

  I turned the key, hit the gas but the car STARTED

  and I drove off with the dangling wires against my leg

  thinking

  do these things happen to other

  people or am

  I just the chosen one?

  I decided it was the latter and got onto the freeway where

  some guy in a volks swung over and blocked my

  lane

  whereupon I swung around the son-of-a-bitch and hit

  75, 80, 85…

  thinking, the courage it took to get out of bed each

  morning

  to face the same things

  over and over

  was

  enormous.

  the player

  I had 40 win on the 6 horse

  he had 2 lengths in the stretch

  was running along the rail

  when the jock whipped him

  right-handed

  and the horse hit the wood

  spilled

  threw the jock

  and there went the race

  for me.

  that was the 7th race

  and I considered that the horse

  might have lost

  anyhow

  and then I considered leaving

  but I decided to play the

  8th,

  hit 20 win on a 5 to one

  shot.

  in the 9th I went 40 win

  on the second favorite

  and when the bell rang to start them

  the horse reared and

  left my jock

  in the stall.

  I took the escalator down

  and walked out the

  gate

  where a young man asked me

  for a dollar so he could

  take the bus

  home.

  I gave him the buck and

  told him,

  “you ought to stay away from this

  place.”

  “yeah,” he said, “I

  know.”

  then I walked toward parking

  searching my coat for

  cigarettes.

  nothing.

  p.o. box 11946, Fresno, Calif. 93776

  drove in from the track after losing $50.

  a hot day out there

  they pack them in on a Saturday;

  my feet hurt and I had pains in the neck

  and about the shoulders—

  nerves: large crowds of people more than

  unsettle me.

  pulled into the driveway and got the

  mail

  moved up and parked it

  went in and opened the IRS letter

  form 525 (SC) (Rev. 9-83)

  read it

  and was informed that I owed

  TWELVE THOUSAND SIXHUNDREDFOUR DOLLARS AND

  SEVENTY EIGHT CENTS

  on my 1981 income tax plus

  TWO THOUSAND EIGHTHUNDREDEIGHTYTHREE DOLLARS

  AND TWELVE CENTS interest

  and that further interest was being

  compounded

  DAILY.

  I went into the kitchen and poured a

  drink.

  life in America was a curious

  thing.

  well, I could let the interest

  build

  that’s what the government

  did

  but after a while they would

  come for me

  or whatever I had

  left.

  at least that $50 loss at the

  track didn’t look so

  bad anymore.

  I’d have to go tomorrow and

  win $15,487.90 plus

  daily compounded

  interest.

  I drank to that,

  wishing I had purchased a

  Racing Form

  on the way

  out.

  poor Al

  I don’t know how he does it

  but every woman he meets is

  crazy.

  he will get rid of one

  crazy woman

  but he never gets any

  relief—

  another crazy moves right in

  with him.

  it’s only after they move in

  and begin acting

  more than strange

  that they admit to him

  that they’ve done madhouse

  time

  or that their families have

  a long history of mental

  illness.

  his last one

  he sent to a shrink

  once a week:

  $75 for 45 minutes.

  after 7 months

  she walked out on the

  shrink

  and said to Al,

  “that god damned fag doesn’t know

  anything.”

  I don’t know how they all find

  Al.

  he says you can’t tell at the first

  meeting

  they have their guard up

  but after 2 or 3 months the

  guard comes down

  and there’s Al with

  another one.

  It got so bad that Al thought

  maybe it was

  him

  so he went to a shrink

  and asked

  and the shrink said,

  “you’re one of the sanest men

  I’ve ever met.”

  poor Al.

  that made him feel

  worse

  than ever.

  for my ivy league friends:
br />   many of those I met on the reading circuit or heard about on the reading

  circuit in the old days are now either teaching or poets-in-residence

  and have garnered Guggenheims and N.E.A.’s and sundry other grants.

  well, I tried for a Gugg once myself, even got an N.E.A. so I can’t

  knock the act

  but

  you should have seen them back then: raggedy-ass, wild-eyed, raving

  against the order

  now

  they have been ingested, digested, rested

  they write reviews for the journals

  they write well-worked, quiet, inoffensive poesy

  they edit so many of the magazines that I have no idea where I should send this

  poem

  since they attack my work with alarming regularity

  and

  I can’t read theirs

  yet their attacks upon me have been effective in this country

  and

  if it weren’t for Europe I’d probably still be a starving writer

  or down at the row

  or diggin weeds out of your garden

  or…?

  well

  you know the old saying: it’s all a matter of

  taste

  and

  either they’re right and I’m wrong or I’m right and they’re all

  wrong

  or

  maybe it’s some place in between.

  most of the people in the world could care less

  and

  I often feel the same

  way.

  helping the old

  I was standing in line at the bank today

  when the old fellow in front of me

  dropped his glasses (luckily, within the

  case)

  and as he bent over

  I saw how difficult it was for

  him

  and I said, “wait, let me get

  them…”

  but as I picked them up

  he dropped his cane

  a beautiful, black polished

  cane

  and I got the glasses back to him

  then went for the cane