The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

  the sky rejects my scream.

  All I know is this: my nostrils drip with dreams

  the hounds lap us up, the fools laugh out,

  the clock ticks out the dead.

  All I know is this: my feet are sorrow here,

  my words are less than lilies, my words are clotted now:

  the ravens kiss my mouth.

  On Going Back to the Street after Viewing an Art Show

  they talk down through

  the centuries to us,

  and this we need more and more,

  the statues and paintings

  in midnight age

  as we go along

  holding dead hands.

  and we would say

  rather than delude the unknowing:

  a damn good show,

  but hardly enough for a horse to eat,

  and out on the sunshine street where

  eyes are dabbled in metazoan faces

  I decide again

  that in these centuries

  they have done very well

  considering the nature of their

  brothers:

  it’s more than good

  that some of them,

  (closer really to field-mouse than

  falcon)

  have been bold enough to try.

  Anthony

  and the hedges wet in the rain, flaking in a sheet of wind,

  and for a moment everything working: rusty bells, April

  birds, unblushing brides, anything you can name that has not

  died, so exactly, and even the wind like a lover’s hand,

  a somehow important wind, something too like sleep or slain

  enemies,

  and the feet move through paths not restricted by the

  bull-goaded mind,

  and see—all and everywhere—hedges in the rain

  like great cathedrals now, new Caesars, cats walking,

  new gods without plug or wire, love without wasps,

  new Christians, bulls, Romes, new new leaves, new rain

  now splashing through the fire; and I close the door, old room,

  I fall upon the couch, I sweat

  and I cough I cough small words

  lions bearing down through coffee cups and puddles, I

  sigh, Cleopatra. Not for either of us, but for the rest.

  Layover

  Making love in the sun, in the morning sun

  in a hotel room

  above the alley

  where poor men poke for bottles;

  making love in the sun

  making love by a carpet redder than our blood,

  making love while the boys sell headlines

  and Cadillacs,

  making love by a photograph of Paris

  and an open pack of Chesterfields,

  making love while other men—poor fools—

  work.

  That moment—to this…

  may be years in the way they measure,

  but it’s only one sentence back in my mind—

  there are so many days

  when living stops and pulls up and sits

  and waits like a train on the rails.

  I pass the hotel at 8

  and at 5; there are cats in the alleys

  and bottles and bums,

  and I look up at the window and think,

  I no longer know where you are,

  and I walk on and wonder where

  the living goes

  when it stops.

  The Dogs of Egypt

  the dirty dogs of Egypt stride down my bones

  the cat goes home in the morning

  and I think of agony when there’s little else to

  do, and there’s usually little else to do

  except think the agony might kill us—

  but, perhaps, what really saves us from it

  is our being able to luxuriate in it—

  like an old lady putting on a red hat.

  yet my walls are stained where broken glass has

  pissed its liquor.

  I see agony in a box of kitchen soap

  and the walls want their flatness to be my

  flatness, o the dirty dogs of Egypt,

  I see flatirons hanging from hooks

  the eagle is a canary in the breakfastnook

  eating dry seed and cramped by the dream.

  I want so much that is not here and do not know

  where to go.

  Old Man, Dead in a Room

  this thing upon me is not death

  but it’s as real

  and as landlords full of maggots

  pound for rent

  I eat walnuts in the sheath

  of my privacy

  and listen for more important

  drummers;

  it’s as real, it’s as real

  as the broken-boned sparrow

  cat-mouthed, uttering

  more than mere

  miserable argument;

  between my toes I stare

  at clouds, at seas of gaunt

  sepulcher…

  and scratch my back

  and form a vowel

  as all my lovely women

  (wives and lovers)

  break like engines

  into steam of sorrow

  to be blown into eclipse;

  bone is bone

  but this thing upon me

  as I tear the window shades

  and walk caged rugs,

  this thing upon me

  like a flower and a feast,

  believe me

  is not death and is not

  glory

  and like Quixote’s windmills

  makes a foe

  turned by the heavens

  against one man;

  …this thing upon me,

  great god,

  this thing upon me

  crawling like a snake,

  terrifying my love of commonness,

  some call Art

  some call Poetry;

  it’s not death

  but dying will solve its power

  and as my grey hands

  drop a last desperate pen

  in some cheap room

  they will find me there

  and never know

  my name

  my meaning

  nor the treasure

  of my escape.

  Love Is a Piece of Paper Torn to Bits

  all the beer was poisoned and the capt. went down

  and the mate and the cook

  and we had nobody to grab sail

  and the N.wester ripped the sheets like toenails

  and we pitched like crazy

  the hull tearing its sides

  and all the time in the corner

  some punk had a drunken slut (my wife)

  and was pumping away

  like nothing was happening

  and the cat kept looking at me

  and crawling in the pantry

  amongst the clanking dishes

  with flowers and vines painted on them

  until I couldn’t stand it anymore

  and took the thing

  and heaved it

  over

  the side.

  Big Bastard with a Sword

  listen, I went to get a haircut, it was a perfectly good day

  until they brought it to me, I mean I sat waiting my turn in the

  chair and I found a magazine—the usual thing: women with their

  breasts hanging out, etc., and then I turned the page and here

  were photos of Orientals in a field, there was a big

  bastard with the sword—the caption said he had a very good

  swing, plenty of power and the picture showed him getting ready

  with the sword, and you saw an Oriental kneeling there with his

  eyes closed, then—ZIP!—he was kneeling there without a head

  and you could see the neck clean, not yet eve
n

  spurting blood, the separation having been so astonishingly

  swift, and more photos of beheadings, and then a photo of these

  heads lolling in the weeds without bodies, the sun shining on

  them.

  and the heads looking still almost alive as if they hadn’t

  accepted the death—and then the barber said

  next!

  and I walked over to the chair and my head was still on

  and his head said to my head,

  how do you want it?

  and I said, medium.

  and he seemed like a nice sensible fellow

  and it seemed nice to be near nice sensible fellows

  and I wanted to ask him about the heads

  but I thought it would upset him

  or maybe even give him ideas

  or he might say something that wouldn’t help at

  all

  so I kept quiet.

  I listened to him cut my hair

  and he began talking about his baby

  and I tried to concentrate on his

  baby, it seemed very sane and logical

  but I still kept thinking about the

  heads.

  when he finished the cutting

  he turned me in the chair so I could look into the

  mirror. my head was still on.

  fine, I told him, and I got out of the chair, paid, and

  gave him a good tip.

  I walked outside and a woman walked by and she had her

  head on and all the people driving cars had their heads

  on.

  I should have concentrated on the breasts, I thought,

  it’s so much better, all that hanging out, or

  the magic and beautiful legs, sex was a fine thing

  after all, but my day was spoiled, it would take a night’s sleep

  anyway, to get rid of the heads. it was terrible to be a human

  being: there was so much going

  on.

  I saw my head in a plateglass window

  I saw the reflection

  and my head had a cigarette in it

  my head looked tired and sad

  it was not smiling with its new

  haircut.

  then

  it disappeared

  and I walked on

  past the houses full of furniture and cats and

  dogs and people

  and they were lucky and I threw the cigarette

  into the gutter

  saw it burning on the asphalt

  red and white, a tender spit of smoke,

  and I decided that the sun

  felt good.

  About My Very Tortured Friend, Peter

  he lives in a house with a swimming pool

  and says the job is

  killing him.

  he is 27. I am 44. I can’t seem to

  get rid of

  him. his novel keeps coming

  back. “what do you expect me to do?” he screams

  “go to New York and pump the hands of the

  publishers?”

  “no,” I tell him, “but quit your job, go into a

  small room and do the

  thing.”

  “but I need ASSURANCE, I need something to

  go by, some word, some sign!”

  “some men did not think that way:

  Van Gogh, Wagner—”

  “oh hell, Van Gogh had a brother who gave him

  paints whenever he

  needed them!”

  “look,” he said, “I’m over at this broad’s house today and

  this guy walks in. a salesman. you know

  how they talk. drove up in this new

  car. talked about his vacation. said he went to

  Frisco—saw Fidelio up there but forgot who

  wrote it. now this guy is 54 years

  old. so I told him: ‘Fidelio is Beethoven’s only

  opera.’ and then I told

  him: ‘you’re a jerk!’ ‘whatcha mean?’ he

  asked. ‘I mean, you’re a jerk, you’re 54 years old and

  you don’t know anything!’”

  “what happened

  then?”

  “I walked out.”

  “you mean you left him there with

  her?”

  “yes.”

  “I can’t quit my job,” he said. “I always have trouble getting a

  job. I walk in, they look at me, listen to me talk and

  they think right away, ah ha! he’s too intelligent for

  this job, he won’t stay

  so there’s really no sense in hiring

  him.

  now, YOU walk into a place and you don’t have any trouble:

  you look like an old wino, you look like a guy who needs a

  job and they look at you and they think:

  ah ha!: now here’s a guy who really needs work! if we hire

  him he’ll stay a long time and work

  HARD!”

  “do any of those people,” he asks “know you are a

  writer, that you write poetry?”

  “no.”

  “you never talk about

  it. not even to

  me! if I hadn’t seen you in that magazine I’d

  have never known.”

  “that’s right.”

  “still, I’d like to tell these people that you are a

  writer!”

  “don’t.”

  “I’d still like to

  tell them.”

  “why?”

  “well, they talk about you. they think you are just a

  horseplayer and a drunk.”

  “I am both of those.”

  “well, they talk about you. you have odd ways. you travel

  alone.

  I’m the only friend you

  have.”

  “yes.”

  “they talk you down. I’d like to defend you. I’d like to tell

  them you write

  poetry.”

  “leave it alone. I work here like they

  do. we’re all the same.”

  “well, I’d like to do it for myself then. I want them to know

  why

  I travel with

  you. I speak 7 languages, I know my music—”

  “forget it.”

  “all right, I’ll respect your

  wishes. but there’s something else—”

  “what?”

  “I’ve been thinking about getting a

  piano. but then I’ve been thinking about getting a

  violin too but I can’t make up my

  mind!”

  “buy a piano.”

  “you think

  so?”

  “yes.”

  he walks away

  thinking about

  it.

  I was thinking about it

  too: I figure he can always come over with his

  violin and more

  sad music.

  Not Quite So Soon

  in the featherbeds of grander times

  when Kings could call their shots,

  I rather imagine on days like this

  that concubines were sought,

  or the unspoiled genius

  or the chopping block.

  how about a partridge or a grouse

  or a bound behind the merry hounds?

  Maybe I’ll phone Saroyan in Malibu

  or eat a slice of toast…

  the trees shake down September

  like dysentery, and churches sit on their

  corners and wait, and the streetcars are slow,

  and everywhere

  birds fly, cats walk, people ruefully

  exist…

  the charmers are gone, the armies have put down

  their arms, the druid’s drunk, the horses have tossed

  their dice; there are no fires, the phone won’t ring,

&nbs
p; the factory’s closed, tenesmus, everything…

  I think

  even the schizomycetes are sleeping;

  I think

  the horror of no action is greater

  than the scorch of pain; death is the

  barker, but things

  may get better

  yet. I’ll use the knives for spreading

  jam, and the gas to warm

  my greying love.

  Counsel

  as the wind breaks in from the sea again

  and the land is marred with riot and disorder

  be careful with the sabre of choice,

  remember

  what may have been noble

  5 centuries

  or even 20 years ago

  is now

  more often than not

  wasted action

  your life runs but once,

  history has chance after chance

  to prove men fools.

  be careful, then, I would say,

  of any seeming noble

  deed

  ideal

  or action,

  be for this country or love or Art,

  be not taken by the nearness of the minute

  or a beauty or politic

  that will wilt like a cut flower;

  love, yes, but not as a task of marriage,

  and beware bad food and excessive labor;

  live in a country, you must,

  but love is not an order

  either of woman or the land;

  take your time; and drink as much as is needed

  in order to maintain continuance,

  for drink is a form of life

  wherein the partaker returns to a new chance

  at life; furthermore, I say,

  live alone as much as possible;

  bear children if it happens

  but try not to bear