I suppose they never will be.
I don’t ask them to be.
but sometimes I think about
it.
the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.
too much
too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody
more haters than lovers.
people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.
meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.
there must be a way.
surely there must be a way we have not yet
thought of.
who put this brain inside of me?
it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.
it will not say
“no.”
a horse with greenblue eyes
what you see is what you see:
madhouses are rarely
on display.
that we still walk about and
scratch ourselves and light
cigarettes
is more the miracle
than bathing beauties
than roses and the moth.
to sit in a small room
and drink a can of beer
and roll a cigarette
while listening to Brahms
on a small red radio
is to have come back
from a dozen wars
alive
listening to the sound
of the refrigerator
as bathing beauties rot
and the oranges and apples
roll away.
Scarlet
Scarlet
I’m glad when they arrive
and I’m glad when they leave
I’m glad when I hear their heels
approaching my door
and I’m glad when those heels
walk away
I’m glad to fuck
I’m glad to care
and I’m glad when it’s over
and
since it’s always either
starting or finishing
I’m glad
most of the time
and the cats walk up and down
and the earth spins around the sun
and the phone rings:
“this is Scarlet.”
“who?”
“Scarlet.”
“o.k., get it on over.”
and I hang up thinking
maybe this is it
go in
take a quick shit
shave
bathe
dress
dump the sacks
and cartons of empty
bottles
sit down to the sound of
heels approaching
more an army approaching than
victory
it’s Scarlet
and in my kitchen the faucet
keeps dripping
needs a washer.
I’ll take care of it
later.
red up and down
red hair
real
she whirled it
and she asked
“is my ass still on?”
such comedy.
there is always one woman
to save you from another
and as that woman saves you
she makes ready to
destroy.
“sometimes I hate you,”
she said.
she walked out and sat on
my porch and read my copy
of Catullus, she stayed out
there for an hour.
people walked up and down
past my place
wondering where such an ugly
old man could get
such beauty.
I didn’t know either.
when she walked in I grabbed
her and pulled her to my lap.
I lifted my glass and told
her, “drink this.”
“oh,” she said, “you’ve mixed
wine with Jim Beam, you’re gonna
get nasty.”
“you henna your hair, don’t
you?”
“you don’t look,” she said and
stood up and pulled down her
slacks and panties and
the hair down there was the
same as the hair
up there.
Catullus himself couldn’t have wished
for more historic or
wondrous grace;
then he went
goofy
for tender boys
not mad enough
to become
women.
like a flower in the rain
I cut the middle fingernail of the middle
finger
right hand
real short
and I began rubbing along her cunt
as she sat upright in bed
spreading lotion over her arms
face
and breasts
after bathing.
then she lit a cigarette:
“don’t let this put you off,”
and smoked and continued to rub the
lotion on.
I continued to rub the cunt.
“you want an apple?” I asked.
“sure,” she said, “you got one?”
but I got to her—
she began to twist
then she rolled on her side,
she was getting wet and open
like a flower in the rain.
then she rolled on her stomach
and her most beautiful ass
looked up at me
and I reached under and got the
cunt again.
she reached around and got my
cock, she rolled and twisted,
I mounted
my face falling into the mass
of red hair that overflowed
from her head
and my fattened cock entered
into the miracle.
later we joked about the lotion
and the cigarette and the apple.
then I went out and got some chicken
and shrimp and french fries and buns
and mashed potatoes and gravy and
cole slaw, and we ate. she told me
how good she felt and I told her
how good I felt and we ate
the chicken and the shrimp and the
french fries and the buns and the
mashed potatoes and the gravy and
the cole slaw too.
light brown
light brown stare
that dumb blank marvelous
light brown stare
I’ll take care of
it.
you needn’t carry me
anymore
with your Cleopatra
movie star
tricks
do you realize
that if I were an adding machine
I might break down
tabulating
how many times you’ve used
that light brown stare?
not that you’re not the best
with your light brown stare.
someday some crazy son of a bitch
is going to murder you
and you’ll cry out my name
you’ll finally know
what you should have known
so very long
ago.
huge ear rings
I go to pick her up.
she’s on some errand.
she always has errands
many things to do.
 
; I have nothing to do.
she comes out of her apartment
I see her move toward my car
she is barefooted
dressed casually
except for huge ear rings.
I light a cigarette
and when I look up
she is stretched out on the street
a quite busy street
all 112 pounds of her
as beautiful as anything you might
imagine.
I switch on the radio
and wait for her to get up.
she does.
I flip the car door open.
she gets in. I drive away from the
curb. she likes the song on the radio
she turns the radio up.
she seems to like all the songs
she seems to know all the songs
each time I see her she looks better
and better
200 years ago they would have burned her
at the stake
now she puts on her
mascara as we
drive along.
she came out of the bathroom with her flaming red hair and said—
the cops want me to come down and identify
some guy who tried to rape me.
I’ve lost the key to my car again; I’ve got
the key to open the door but not the one
to start it.
those people are trying to take my child
away from me but I won’t let them.
Rochelle almost o.d.’d, then she went at
Harry with something, and he punched her.
she’s had those cracked ribs, you know,
and one of them punctured her lung. she’s
down at the county under a machine.
where’s my comb?
your comb has all that guck in it.
I told her,
I haven’t seen your
comb.
a killer
consistency is terrific:
shark-mouth
grubby interior with an
almost perfect body,
long blazing hair—
it confuses me
and others
she runs from man to man
offering endearments
she speaks of love
then breaks each man
to her will
shark-mouthed
grubby interior
we see it too late:
after the cock gets swallowed
the heart follows
her long blazing hair,
her almost perfect body
walks down the street
as the same sun
falls upon flowers.
longshot
she’s not for you, man,
she’s not your type,
she’s erased
she’s been used
she’s got all the wrong
habits,
he told me
in between races.
I’m going to bet the 4
horse, I told him.
well, it’s only that I’d
like to turn her around
in mid-stream,
save her, you might say.
you can’t save her, he said,
you’re 55, you need kindness.
I’m going to bet the 6 horse.
you’re not the one to save
her.
who can save her? I asked.
I don’t think the 6 has a
chance, I like the 4.
she needs somebody to beat her
from wall to wall, he said,
kick her ass, she’d love
it. She’d stay home and
wash the dishes.
the 6 horse will be in
the running.
I’m no good at beating women,
I said.
forget her then, he said.
it’s hard to, I said.
he got up and bet the 6
and I got up and bet the 4.
the 5 horse won
by 3 lengths
at 15 to one.
she’s got red hair
like lightning from heaven,
I said.
forget her, he said.
we tore up our tickets
and stared at the lake
in the center of the track.
it was going to be
a long afternoon
for both of us.
the promise
she bent over the side of the bed
and opened the portfolio
along the side of the wall.
we were drinking.
she said, “you promised me these
paintings once, don’t you
remember?”
“what? no, no, I don’t remember.”
“well, you did,” she said, “and you
ought to keep your promises.”
“leave those fucking paintings alone,”
I said.
then I walked into the kitchen for
a beer. I paused to vomit
and when I came out
I saw her through my window
going down the court walk
toward her place in back.
she was trying to hurry
and balanced on top of her head
were 40 paintings:
oils
black and whites
acrylics
water colors.
she stumbled once and almost
fell on her ass.
then she ran up her steps
and was gone through her door
to her place upstairs
running with all those paintings
on top of her head.
it was one of the funniest damned
things I ever did see.
well, I guess I’ll just have to
paint 40 more.
waving and waving goodbye
I paid this one’s fare all the way from Houston
to San Francisco
then flew up to meet her at her brother’s house
and I got drunk
and talked all night about a redhead, and
she finally said, “you sleep up there,”
and I climbed the ladder
up into a bunk and she slept
down there.
the next day they drove me to the airport
and I flew back, thinking, well,
there’s still the redhead and when I got back in
I phoned the redhead and said, “I’m back, baby,
I flew up to see this woman and I talked about
you all night, so here I am…”
“well, why don’t you fly back up and finish
the job?” she said and hung up.
then I got drunk and the phone rang
and they said they were
two ladies from Germany and they’d like
to see me.
so they came over and one was 20 and the
other was 22. I told them that my heart
had been smashed for the last time and
that I was giving up women. they laughed
at me and we drank and smoked and went to
bed together.
I got this thing in front of me and
first I grabbed one and then I grabbed the
other.
I finally settled on the 22 year old and
ate her up.
they stayed 2 days and 2 nights
but I never got to the 20 year old,
she was on tampax.
I finally drove them to Sherman Oaks
and they stood at the foot of a long
driveway
waving and waving goodbye as I backed
my Volks out.
when I got back there was a letter from a
lady in Eureka. she said that she wanted me
to fuck her until she couldn’t
wa
lk anymore.
I stretched out and whacked-off