open.
they are each
18, married, wear
red shoes,
are blonde,
slim.
they play
everything: jazz,
classical, rock,
country, modern
as long as it is
loud.
this is the problem
of being poor:
we must share each
other’s sounds.
last week it was
my turn:
there were two women
in here
fighting each other
and then they
ran up the walk
screaming.
the police came.
now it’s their
turn.
now I am walking
up and down in
my dirty shorts,
two rubber earplugs
stuck deep into
my ears.
I even consider
murder.
such rude little
rabbits!
walking little pieces
of snot!
but in our land
and in our way
there has never
been a chance;
it’s only when
things are not
going too badly
for a while
that we forget.
someday they’ll
each be dead
someday they’ll
each have a
separate coffin
and it will be
quiet.
but right now
it’s Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan Bob
Dylan all the
way.
the night I fucked my alarm clock
once
starving in Philadelphia
I had a small room
it was evening going into night
and I stood at my window on the 3rd floor
in the dark and looked down into a
kitchen across the way on the 2nd floor
and I saw a beautiful blonde girl
embrace a young man there and kiss him
with what seemed hunger
and I stood and watched until they broke
away.
then I turned and switched on the room light.
I saw my dresser and my dresser drawers
and my alarm clock on the dresser.
I took my alarm clock
to bed with me and
fucked it until the hands dropped off.
then I went out and walked the streets
until my feet blistered.
when I got back I walked to the window
and looked down and across the way
and the light in their kitchen was
out.
when I think of myself dead
I think of automobiles parked in a
parking lot
when I think of myself dead
I think of frying pans
when I think of myself dead
I think of somebody making love to you
when I’m not around
when I think of myself dead
I have trouble breathing
when I think of myself dead
I think of all the people waiting to die
when I think of myself dead
I think I won’t be able to drink water anymore
when I think of myself dead
the air goes all white
the roaches in my kitchen
tremble
and somebody will have to throw
my clean and dirty underwear
away.
Christmas eve, alone
Christmas eve, alone,
in a motel room
down the coast
near the Pacific—
hear it?
they’ve tried to do this place up
Spanish, there’s
tapestry and lamps, and
the toilet’s clean, there are
tiny bars of pink
soap.
they won’t find us
here:
the barracudas or the ladies or
the idol
worshippers.
back in town
they’re drunk and panicked
running red lights
breaking their heads open
in honor of Christ’s
birthday. that’s nice.
soon I’ll finish this 5th of
Puerto Rican rum.
in the morning I’ll vomit and
shower, drive back
in, have a sandwich by 1 p.m.,
be back in my room by
2,
stretched on the bed,
waiting for the phone to ring,
not answering,
my holiday is an
evasion, my reasoning
is not.
there once was a woman who put her head into an oven
terror finally becomes almost
bearable
but never quite
terror creeps like a cat
crawls like a cat
across my mind
I can hear the laughter of the masses
they are strong
they will survive
like the roach
never take your eyes off the roach
you’ll never see it again.
the masses are everywhere
they know how to do things:
they have sane and deadly angers
for sane and deadly
things.
I wish I were driving a blue 1952 Buick
or a dark blue 1942 Buick
or a blue 1932 Buick
over a cliff of hell and into the
sea.
beds, toilets, you and me—
think of the beds
used again and again
to fuck in
to die in.
in this land
some of us fuck more than
we die
but most of us die
better than we
fuck,
and we die
piece by piece too—
in parks
eating ice cream, or
in igloos
of dementia,
or on straw mats
or upon disembarked
loves
or
or.
:beds beds beds
:toilets toilets toilets
the human sewage system
is the world’s greatest
invention.
and you invented me
and I invented you
and that’s why we don’t
get along
on this bed
any longer.
you were the world’s
greatest invention
until you
flushed me
away.
now it’s your turn
to wait for the touch
of the handle.
somebody will do it
to you,
bitch,
and if they don’t
you will—
mixed with your own
green or yellow or white
or blue
or lavender
goodbye.
this then—
it’s the same as before
or the other time
or the time before that.
here’s a cock
and here’s a cunt
and here’s trouble.
only each time
you think
well now I’ve learned:
I’ll let her do that
and I’ll do this,
I no longer want it all,
just some comfort
and some sex
and only a minor
love.
now I’m waiting again
and the years run thin.
I have my radio
and the kitchen walls
are yellow.
I keep dumping bottles
and listening
for footsteps.
I hope that death contains
less than this.
imagination and reality
there are many single women in the world
with one or two or three children
and one wonders where the husbands
have gone or where the lovers have
gone
leaving behind
all those hands and eyes and feet
and voices.
as I pass through their homes
I like opening cupboards and
looking in
or under the sink
or in a closet—
I expect to find the husband
or lover and he’ll tell me:
“hey, buddy, didn’t you notice her
stretch-marks, she’s got stretch-marks
and floppy tits and she eats
onions all the time and farts…but
I’m a handy man. I can fix things,
I know how to use a turret-lathe and
I make my own oil changes. I can shoot
pool, bowl, and I can finish 5th or
6th in any cross-country marathon
anywhere. I’ve got a set of golf
clubs, can shoot in the 80’s. I know
where the clit is and what to do about
it. I’ve got a cowboy hat with the brim
turned straight up at the sides.
I’m good with the lasso and the dukes
and I know all the latest dance steps.”
and I’ll say, “look, I was just leaving.”
and I will leave before he can challenge me
to arm-wrestling
or tell a dirty joke
or show me the dancing tattoo on his
right bicep.
but really
all I find in the cupboards are
coffee cups and large cracked brown plates
and under the sink a stack of hardened
rags, and in the closet—more coathangers
than clothes, and it’s not until she shows
me the photo album and the photos of him—
nice enough like a shoehorn, or a cart in
the supermarket whose wheels aren’t stuck—
that the self-doubt leaves, and the
pages turn and there’s one child on a
swing wearing a red outfit and there’s
the other one
chasing a seagull in Santa Monica.
and life becomes sad and not dangerous
and therefore good enough:
to have her bring you a cup of coffee in
one of those coffee cups without him
jumping out.
stolen
I keep thinking it will be outside
now
waiting for me
blue
front bumper twisted
Maltese cross hanging
from the mirror.
rubber floormat
twisted under the pedals.
20 m.p.g.
good old TRV 491
the faithful love of a man,
the way I put her into second
while taking a corner
the way she could dig from a signal
with any other around.
the way we conquered large and
small spaces
rain
sun
smog
hostility
the crush of things.
I came out of last Thursday night’s
fights at the Olympic
and my 1967 Volks was gone
with another lover
to another place.
the fights had been good.
I called a cab at a Standard station
and sat eating a jelly doughnut
with coffee in a cafe and
waited,
and I knew that if I found
the man who stole her
I would kill him.
the cab came. I waved to the
driver, paid for the coffee and
doughnut, got out into the night,
got in, and told him, “Hollywood
and Western,” and that particular
night was just about over.
the meek have inherited
if I suffer at this
typewriter
think how I’d feel
among the lettuce-pickers
of Salinas?
I think of the men
I’ve known in
factories
with no way to
get out—
choking while living
choking while laughing
at Bob Hope or Lucille
Ball while
2 or 3 children beat
tennis balls against
the walls.
some suicides are never
recorded.
the insane always loved me
and the subnormal.
all through grammar school
junior high
high school
junior college
the unwanted would attach
themselves to
me.
guys with one arm
guys with twitches
guys with speech defects
guys with white film
over one eye,
cowards
misanthropes
killers
peep-freaks
and thieves.
and all through the
factories and on the
bum
I always drew the
unwanted. they found me
right off and attached
themselves. they
still do.
in this neighborhood now
there’s one who’s
found me.
he pushes around a
shopping cart
filled with trash:
broken canes, shoelaces,
empty potato chip bags,
milk cartons, newspapers, penholders…
“hey, buddy, how ya doin’?”
I stop and we talk a
while.
then I say goodbye
but he still follows
me
past the beer
parlours and the
love parlours…
“keep me informed,
buddy, keep me informed,
I want to know what’s
going on.”
he’s my new one.
I’ve never seen him
talk to anybody
else.
the cart rattles
along a little bit
behind me
then something
falls out.
he stops to pick
it up.
as he does I
walk through the
front door of the
green hotel on the
corner
pass down through
the hall
come out the back
door and
there’s a cat
shitting there in
absolute delight,
he grins at
me.
Big Max
in junior high school
Big Max was a problem.
we’d be sitting during lunch hour
eating our peanut butter sandwiches
and potato chips.
he was hairy of nostril
and of eyebrow, his lips
glistened with spittle.
he already wore size ten and a half
shoes. his shirts stretched across a
massive chest. his wrists looked like
two by fo
urs. and he walked up
through the shadows behind the gym
where we sat, my friend Eli and I.
“you guys,” he stood there, “you guys
sit with your shoulders slumped!
you walk around with your shoulders
slumped! how are you ever going to
make it?”
we didn’t answer.
then Max would look at me.
“stand up!”
I’d stand up and he’d walk around
behind me and say, “square your
shoulders like this!”
and he’d snap my shoulders back.
“there! doesn’t that feel better?”
“yeah, Max.”
then he’d walk off and I’d resume a
normal posture.
Big Max was ready for the
world. it made us sick
to look at him.
trapped
in the winter walking on my
ceiling my eyes the size of streetlamps.
I have 4 feet like a mouse but
wash my own underwear—bearded and
hungover and a hard-on and no lawyer. I
have a face like a washrag. I sing
love songs and carry steel.
I would rather die than cry. I can’t
stand hounds can’t live without them.
I hang my head against the white
refrigerator and want to scream like