Love Is a Dog From Hell

  I had this room in front on DeLongpre

  and I used to sit for hours

  in the daytime

  looking out the front

  window.

  there were any number of girls who would

  walk by

  swaying;

  it helped my afternoons,

  added something to the beer and the

  cigarettes.

  one day I saw something

  extra.

  I heard the sound of it first.

  “come on, push!” he said.

  there was a long board

  about 2½ feet wide and

  8 feet long;

  nailed to the ends and in the middle

  were roller skates.

  he was pulling in front

  two long ropes attached to the board

  and she was in back

  guiding and also pushing.

  all their possessions were tied to the

  board:

  pots, pans, bedquilts, and so forth

  were roped to the board

  tied down;

  and the skatewheels were grinding.

  he was white, red-necked, a

  southerner—

  thin, slumped, his pants about to

  fall from his

  ass—

  his face pinked by the sun and

  cheap wine,

  and she was black

  and walked upright

  pushing;

  she was simply beautiful

  in turban

  long green ear rings

  yellow dress

  from

  neck to

  ankle.

  her face was gloriously

  indifferent.

  “don’t worry!” he shouted, looking back

  at her, “somebody will

  rent us a place!”

  she didn’t answer.

  then they were gone

  although I still heard the

  skatewheels.

  they’re going to make it,

  I thought.

  I’m sure they

  did.

  in a neighborhood of murder

  the roaches spit out

  paperclips

  and the helicopter circles and circles

  smelling for blood

  searchlights leering down into our

  bedroom

  5 guys in this court have pistols

  another a

  machete

  we are all murderers and

  alcoholics

  but there are worse in the hotel

  across the street

  they sit in the green and white doorway

  banal and depraved

  waiting to be institutionalized

  here we each have a small green plant

  in the window

  and when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.

  we speak

  softly

  and on each porch

  is a small dish of food

  always eaten by morning

  we presume

  by the

  cats.

  private first class

  they took my man off the street

  the other day

  he wore an L.A. Rams sweatshirt with

  the sleeves cut

  off

  and under that

  an army shirt

  private first class

  and he wore a green beret

  walked very straight

  he was black in brown walking shorts

  hair dyed blonde

  he never bothered anybody

  he stole a few babies

  and ran off cackling

  but he always returned the infants

  unharmed

  he slept in the back of the

  Love Parlor

  the girls let him.

  compassion is found in

  strange places.

  one day I didn’t see him

  then another.

  I asked around.

  my taxes are going to go up

  again. the state’s got to

  house and feed

  him. the cops took him

  in. no

  good.

  love is a dog from hell

  feet of cheese

  coffeepot soul

  hands that hate poolsticks

  eyes like paperclips

  I prefer red wine

  I am bored on airliners

  I am docile during earthquakes

  I am sleepy at funerals

  I puke at parades

  and am sacrificial at chess

  and cunt and caring

  I smell urine in churches

  I can no longer read

  I can no longer sleep

  eyes like paperclips

  my green eyes

  I prefer white wine

  my box of rubbers is getting

  stale

  I take them out

  Trojan-Enz

  lubricated

  for greater sensitivity

  I take them out

  and put three of them on

  the walls of my bedroom are blue

  Linda where did you go?

  Katherine where did you go?

  (and Nina went to England)

  I have toenail clippers

  and Windex glass cleaner

  green eyes

  blue bedroom

  bright machinegun sun

  this whole thing is like a seal

  caught on oily rocks

  and circled by the Long Beach Marching Band

  at 3:36 p.m.

  there is a ticking behind me

  but no clock

  I feel something crawling along

  the left side of my nose:

  memories of airliners

  my mother had false teeth

  my father had false teeth

  and every Saturday of their lives

  they took up all the rugs in their house

  waxed the hardwood floors

  and covered them with rugs again

  and Nina is in England

  and Irene is on ATD

  and I take my green eyes

  and lay down in my blue bedroom.

  my groupie

  I read last Saturday in the

  redwoods outside of Santa Cruz

  and I was about 3/4’s finished

  when I heard a long high scream

  and a quite attractive

  young girl came running toward me

  long gown & divine eyes of fire

  and she leaped up on the stage

  and screamed: “I WANT YOU!

  I WANT YOU! TAKE ME! TAKE

  ME!”

  I told her, “look, get the hell

  away from me.”

  but she kept tearing at my

  clothing and throwing herself

  at me.

  “where were you,” I

  asked her, “when I was living

  on one candy bar a day and

  sending short stories to the

  Atlantic Monthly?”

  she grabbed my balls and almost

  twisted them off. her kisses

  tasted like shitsoup.

  2 women jumped up on the stage

  and

  carried her off into the

  woods.

  I could still hear her screams

  as I began the next poem.

  maybe, I thought, I should have

  taken her on the stage in front

  of all those eyes.

  but one can never be sure

  whether it’s good poetry or

  bad acid.

  now, if you were teaching creative writing, he asked, what would you tell them?

  I’d tell them to have an unhappy love

  affair, hemorrhoids, bad teeth

  and to drink cheap wine,

  avoid opera and golf and chess,

 
to keep switching the head of their

  bed from wall to wall

  and then I’d tell them to have

  another unhappy love affair

  and never to use a silk typewriter

  ribbon,

  avoid family picnics

  or being photographed in a rose

  garden;

  read Hemingway only once,

  skip Faulkner

  ignore Gogol

  stare at photos of Gertrude Stein

  and read Sherwood Anderson in bed

  while eating Ritz crackers,

  realize that people who keep

  talking about sexual liberation

  are more frightened than you are.

  listen to E. Power Biggs work the

  organ on your radio while you’re

  rolling Bull Durham in the dark

  in a strange town

  with one day left on the rent

  after having given up

  friends, relatives and jobs.

  never consider yourself superior and/

  or fair

  and never try to be.

  have another unhappy love affair.

  watch a fly on a summer curtain.

  never try to succeed.

  don’t shoot pool.

  be righteously angry when you

  find your car has a flat tire.

  take vitamins but don’t lift weights or jog.

  then after all this

  reverse the procedure.

  have a good love affair.

  and the thing

  you might learn

  is that nobody knows anything—

  not the State, nor the mice

  the garden hose or the North Star.

  and if you ever catch me

  teaching a creative writing class

  and you read this back to me

  I’ll give you a straight A

  right up the pickle

  barrel.

  the good life

  a house with 7 or 8 people

  living in it

  getting up the rent.

  there’s a stereo never used

  and a set of bongos

  never used

  and there are rugs over the

  windows

  and you smoke

  as the living roaches

  stumble over buttons on your

  shirt and tumble

  off.

  it’s dark and somebody sends

  out for food. you eat the food

  and sleep. everybody sleeps at

  once: on floors, coffeetables,

  couches, beds, in bathtubs. there’s

  even one in the brush outside.

  then somebody wakes up and

  says, “come on, let’s roll

  one!”

  a few others wake up.

  “sure. yea. o.k.”

  “all right. come on, somebody

  roll a couple. let’s get it

  on!”

  “yeah! Let’s get it on!”

  we smoke a few joints and then

  we’re asleep again

  except we reverse positions:

  bathtub to couch, coffeetable to

  rug, bed to floor, and a new one

  falls into the brush

  outside, and they haven’t yet

  found Patty Hearst and Tim doesn’t

  want to speak to

  Allan.

  the Greek

  the guy in the front court can’t

  speak English, he’s Greek, a

  rather stupid-looking and

  fairly ugly man.

  now my landlord does some painting,

  it’s not very good.

  he showed the Greek one of his paintings.

  the Greek went out and purchased

  paper, brushes, paints.

  the Greek started painting in his front

  court. he leaves the paintings outside to

  dry.

  the Greek had never painted before—

  here it comes:

  a blue guitar

  a street

  a horse.

  he’s good

  in his mid-forties he’s

  good.

  he’s found a

  toy.

  he’s happy

  now.

  then I think, I wonder if he will get

  very good?

  and I wonder if I will have to watch

  the rest?

  the glory and the women and the women and

  the women and the women and

  the decay.

  I can almost smell the bloodsuckers forming

  to the left.

  you see,

  I have fastened to him already.

  my comrades

  this one teaches

  that one lives with his mother.

  and that one is supported by a red-faced alcoholic father

  with the brain of a gnat.

  this one takes speed and has been supported by

  the same woman for 14 years.

  that one writes a novel every ten days

  but at least pays his own rent.

  this one goes from place to place

  sleeping on couches, drinking and making his

  spiel.

  this one prints his own books on a duplicating

  machine.

  that one lives in an abandoned shower room

  in a Hollywood hotel.

  this one seems to know how to get grant after grant,

  his life is a filling-out of forms.

  this one is simply rich and lives in the best

  places while knocking on the best doors.

  that one had breakfast with William Carlos

  Williams.

  and this one teaches.

  and that one teaches.

  and this one puts out textbooks on how to do it

  and speaks in a cruel and dominating voice.

  they are everywhere.

  everybody is a writer.

  and almost every writer is a poet.

  poets poets poets poets poets poets

  poets poets poets poets poets poets

  the next time the phone rings

  it will be a poet.

  the next person at the door

  will be a poet.

  this one teaches

  and that one lives with his mother

  and that one is writing the story of

  Ezra Pound.

  oh, brothers, we are the sickest and the

  lowest of the breed.

  soul

  oh, how worried they are about my

  soul!

  I get letters

  the phone rings…

  “are you going to be all right?”

  they ask.

  “I’ll be all right,” I tell them.

  “I’ve seen so many go down the drain,”

  they tell me.

  “don’t worry about me,” I say.

  yet, they make me nervous.

  I go in and take a shower

  come out and squeeze a pimple on my

  nose.

  then I go into the kitchen and make

  a salami and ham sandwich.

  I used to live on candy bars.

  now I have imported German mustard

  for my sandwich. I might be in danger

  at that.

  the phone keeps ringing and the letters keep

  arriving.

  if you live in a closet with rats and

  eat dry bread

  they like you.

  you’re a genius

  then.

  or if you’re in the madhouse or

  the drunktank

  they call you a genius.

  or if you’re drunk and shouting

  obscenities and

  vomiting your life-guts on

  the floor

  you’re a genius.

  but get the rent paid up a month in r />
  advance

  put on a new pair of stockings

  go to the dentist

  make love to a healthy clean girl

  instead of a whore

  and you’ve lost your

  soul.

  I’m not interested enough to ask about

  their souls.

  I suppose I

  should.

  a change of habit

  Shirley came to town with a broken leg

  and met the Chicano who smoked

  long slim cigars

  and they got a place together

  on Beacon street

  5th floor;

  the leg didn’t get in the way

  too much and

  they watched television together

  and Shirley cooked, on her

  crutches and all;

  there was a cat, Bogey,

  and they had some friends

  and talked about sports and Richard Nixon

  and how the hell to

  make it.

  it worked for some months,

  Shirley even got the cast off,

  and the Chicano, Manuel,

  got a job at the Biltmore,

  Shirley sewed all the buttons back on

  Manuel’s shirts, mended and matched his

  socks, then

  one day Manuel returned to the place, and

  she was gone—

  no argument, no note, just

  gone, all her clothes

  all her stuff, and