Love Is a Dog From Hell

  go to hell, and even this

  is a better poem than any

  of those gravediggers

  could write.

  artists:

  she wrote me for years.

  “I’m drinking wine in the kitchen.

  it’s raining outside. the children

  are in school.”

  she was an average citizen

  worried about her soul, her typewriter

  and her

  underground poetry reputation.

  she wrote fairly well and with honesty

  but only long after others had

  broken the road ahead.

  she’d phone me drunk at 2 a.m.

  at 3 a.m.

  while her husband slept.

  “it’s good to hear your voice,” she’d

  say.

  “it’s good to hear your voice too,” I’d

  say.

  what the hell, you

  know.

  she finally came down. I think it had

  something to do with

  The Chapparal Poets Society of California.

  they had to elect officers. she phoned me

  from their hotel.

  “I’m here,” she said, “we’re going to elect

  officers.”

  “o.k., fine,” I said, “get some good ones.”

  I hung up.

  the phone rang again.

  “hey, don’t you want to see me?”

  “sure,” I said, “what’s the address?”

  after she said goodbye I jacked-off

  changed my stockings

  drank a half bottle of wine and

  drove on out.

  they were all drunk and trying to

  fuck each other.

  I drove her back to my place.

  she had on pink panties with

  ribbons.

  we drank some beer and

  smoked and talked about

  Ezra Pound, then we

  slept.

  it’s no longer clear to

  me whether I drove her to

  the airport or

  not.

  she still writes letters

  and I answer each one

  viciously

  hoping to make her

  stop.

  someday she may luck into

  fame like Erica

  Jong. (her face is not as good

  but her body is better)

  and I’ll think,

  my God, what have I done?

  I blew it.

  or rather: I didn’t blow

  it.

  meanwhile I have her box number

  and I’d better inform her

  that my second novel will be out

  in September.

  that ought to keep her nipples hard

  while I consider the possibility of

  Francine du Plessix Gray.

  I have shit stains in my underwear too

  I hear them outside:

  “does he always type this

  late?”

  “no, it’s very unusual.”

  “he shouldn’t type this

  late.”

  “he hardly ever does.”

  “does he drink?”

  “I think he does.”

  “he went to the mailbox in

  his underwear yesterday.”

  “I saw him too.”

  “he doesn’t have any friends.”

  “he’s old.”

  “he shouldn’t type this late.”

  they go inside and it begins

  to rain as

  3 gun shots sound half a block

  away and

  one of the skyscrapers in

  downtown L.A. begins

  burning

  25 foot flames licking toward

  doom.

  Hawley’s leaving town

  this guy

  he’s got a crazy eye

  and he’s brown

  a dark brown from the sun

  the Hollywood and Western sun

  the racetrack sun

  he sees me and he says,

  “hey, Hawley’s leaving town

  for a week. he messes up

  my handicapping. now

  I’ve got a chance.”

  he’s grinning, he means it:

  with Hawley out of town

  he’s going to move toward

  that castle in the Hollywood Hills;

  dancing girls

  six German Shepherds

  a drawbridge,

  ten year old

  wine.

  Sam the Whorehouse Man

  walks up and I tell Sam that

  I am clearing $150 a day

  at the track.

  “I work right off the

  toteboard,” I tell him.

  “I need a girl,” he tells me,

  “who can belt-buckle a guy

  without coming out with all

  this Christian moral bullshit

  afterwards.”

  “Hawley’s leaving town,”

  I tell Sam.

  “where’s the Shoe?”

  he asks.

  “back east,” says an old man

  who’s standing there.

  he has a white plastic shield

  over his left eye

  with little holes

  punched into it.

  “that leaves it all to Pinky,”

  says dark brown.

  we all stand looking at each

  other.

  then

  a silent signal given

  we turn away

  and start walking,

  each

  in a different direction:

  north south east west.

  we know something.

  an unkind poem

  they go on writing

  pumping out poems—

  young boys and college professors

  wives who drink wine all afternoon

  while their husbands work,

  they go on writing

  the same names in the same magazines

  everybody writing a little worse each year,

  getting out a poetry collection

  and pumping out more poems

  it’s like a contest

  it is a contest

  but the prize is invisible.

  they won’t write short stories or articles

  or novels

  they just go on

  pumping out poems

  each sounding more and more like the others

  and less and less like themselves,

  and some of the young boys weary and quit

  but the professors never quit

  and the wives who drink wine in the afternoons

  never ever ever quit

  and new young boys arrive with new magazines

  and there is some correspondence with lady or men poets

  and some fucking

  and everything is exaggerated and dull.

  when the poems come back

  they retype them

  and send them off to the next magazine on the list,

  and they give readings

  all the readings they can

  for free most of the time

  hoping that somebody will finally know

  finally applaud them

  finally congratulate and recognize their

  talent

  they are all so sure of their genius

  there is so little self-doubt,

  and most of them live in North Beach or New York City,

  and their faces are like their poems:

  alike,

  and they know each other and

  gather and hate and admire and choose and discard

  and keep pumping out more poems

  more poems

  more poems

  the contest of the dullards:

  tap tap tap, tap tap, tap tap tap, tap tap…

  the bee
/>
  I suppose like any other boy

  I had one best friend in the neighborhood.

  his name was Eugene and he was bigger

  than I was and one year older.

  Eugene used to whip me pretty good.

  we fought all the time.

  I kept trying him but without much

  success.

  once we leaped off a garage roof together

  to prove our guts.

  I twisted my ankle and he came up clean

  as freshly-wrapped butter.

  I guess the only good thing he ever did for me

  was when the bee stung me while I was barefoot

  and while I sat down and pulled the stinger out

  he said,

  “I’ll get the son of a bitch!”

  and he did

  with a tennis racket

  plus a rubber hammer.

  it was all right

  they say they die

  anyway.

  my foot swelled up double-size

  and I stayed in bed

  praying for death

  and Eugene went on to become an

  Admiral or a Commander

  or something large in the United States Navy

  and he passed through one or two wars

  without injury.

  I imagine him an old man now

  in a rocking chair

  with his false teeth

  and glass of buttermilk…

  while drunk

  I fingerfuck this 19 year old groupie

  in bed with me.

  but the worst part is

  (like jumping off the garage roof)

  Eugene wins again

  because he’s not even thinking

  about me.

  the most

  here comes the fishhead singing

  here comes the baked potato in drag

  here comes nothing to do all day long

  here comes another night of no sleep

  here comes the phone ringing the wrong tone

  here comes a termite with a banjo

  here comes a flagpole with blank eyes

  here comes a cat and a dog wearing nylons

  here comes a machinegun singing

  here comes bacon burning in the pan

  here comes a voice saying something dull

  here comes a newspaper stuffed with small red birds

  with flat brown beaks

  here comes a cunt carrying a torch

  a grenade

  a deathly love

  here comes victory carrying

  one bucket of blood

  and stumbling over the berrybush

  and the sheets hang out the windows

  and the bombers head east west north south

  get lost

  get tossed like salad

  as all the fish in the sea line up and form

  one line

  one long line

  one very long thin line

  the longest line you could ever imagine

  and we get lost

  walking past purple mountains

  we walk lost

  bare at last like the knife

  having given

  having spit it out like an unexpected olive seed

  as the girl at the call service

  screams over the phone:

  “don’t call back! you sound like a jerk!”

  ah…

  drinking German beer

  and trying to come up with

  the immortal poem at

  5 p.m. in the afternoon.

  but, ah, I’ve told the

  students that the thing

  to do is not to try.

  but when the women aren’t

  around and the horses aren’t

  running

  what else is there to do?

  I’ve had a couple of

  sexual fantasies

  had lunch out

  mailed three letters

  been to the grocery store.

  nothing on tv.

  the telephone is quiet.

  I’ve run dental floss

  between my teeth.

  it won’t rain and I listen

  to the early arrivals from the

  8 hour day as they

  drive in and park their cars

  behind the apartment

  next door.

  I sit drinking German beer

  and trying to come up with the

  big one

  and I’m not going to make it.

  I’m just going to keep drinking

  more and more German beer

  and rolling smokes

  and by 11 p.m.

  I’ll be spread out

  on the unmade bed

  face up

  asleep under the electric

  light

  still waiting on the immortal

  poem.

  the girl on the bus stop bench

  I saw her when I was in the left lane

  going east on Sunset.

  she was sitting

  with her legs crossed

  reading a paperback.

  she was Italian or Indian or

  Greek

  and I was stopped at a red signal

  as now and then a wind

  would lift her skirt,

  I was directly across from her

  looking in,

  and such perfect immaculate legs

  I had never seen.

  I am essentially bashful

  but I stared and kept staring

  until the person in the car behind

  me honked.

  it had never happened quite like that

  before.

  I drove around the block

  and parked in the supermarket

  lot

  directly across from her

  in my dark shades

  I kept staring

  like a schoolboy in his first

  excitement.

  I memorized her shoes

  her dress

  her stockings

  her face.

  cars came by and blocked my

  view.

  then I saw her again.

  the wind flipped her skirt

  high along her thighs

  and I began rubbing myself.

  just before her bus came

  I climaxed.

  I smelled my sperm

  felt it wet against my shorts

  and pants.

  it was an ugly white bus

  and it took her away.

  I backed out of the parking lot

  thinking, I’m a peep-freak

  but at least I didn’t expose

  myself.

  I’m a peep-freak

  but why do they do that?

  why do they look like that?

  why do they let the wind do

  that?

  when I got home

  I undressed and bathed

  got out

  toweled

  turned on

  the news

  turned off the news

  and

  wrote this poem.

  I’m getting back to where I was

  I used to take the back off

  the telephone and stuff it with rags

  and when somebody knocked

  I wouldn’t answer and if they persisted

  I’d tell them in terms vulgar

  to vanish.

  just another old crank

  with wings of gold

  flabby white belly

  plus

  eyes to knock out

  the sun.

  a lovely couple

  I had to take a shit

  but instead I went

  into this shop to

  have a key made.

  the woman was dressed

  in gingham and smelled

  like a muskrat.

  “Ralph,” she hollered

  and an old swine in a

/>   flowered shirt and

  size 6 shoes, her

  husband, came out and

  she said, “this man

  wants a key.”

  he started grinding

  as if he really didn’t

  want to.

  there were slinking

  shadows and urine

  in the air.

  I moved along the

  glass counter,

  pointed and called

  to her,

  “here, I want this

  one.”

  she handed it to

  me: a switchblade

  in a light purple

  case.

  $6.50 plus tax.

  the key cost

  practically

  nothing.

  I got my change and

  walked out on

  the street.

  sometimes you need

  people like that.

  the strangest sight you ever did see—