The People Look Like Flowers at Last: New Poems
from the floor.
we leave and
go up a
syphilitic staircase and back into
the kitchen where
a hog’s head is swimming
in a very large white
pot along with
onions
carrots
potatoes,
one small onion floating in an
empty eye,
and there’s his
daughter
2 and one half feet tall
who remembers me
from another
day.
she says some genuine funny things
to us
then walks away into an
upstairs
bedroom
while her father and I sit around
listening to old German
marching songs
and smoking
Picayunes.
the anarchists
one time I began sitting around my place
with some fellows with long dark beards
who were very intense.
many people come to see me but
I usually roust them after a while.
none of them ever bring women,
they hide their women.
I drink beer and listen, but not too
attentively.
but this particular crowd kept coming
back. to me it was mostly beer and
chatter. I noticed that they
usually arrived in a caravan and had
some central yet confused organization.
I kept telling them that I didn’t give
a fuck—either about America or about
them. I just kept sitting there and each
morning when I awakened they’d be gone—
and that was best.
finally they stopped coming and a
few months later I wrote a short story
about their political chatter—which,
of course, trashed their idealism.
the story was published somewhere and
about a month later the leader walked
in, sat down and split a six-pack.
“I want to tell you something, Chinaski,
we read that story. we held a council
and took a vote on whether to murder
you or not. you were spared, 6 to 5.”
I laughed then, some years ago,
but I no longer laugh. and even
though I paid for most of the beer and
even though
some of you fellows pissed on the
toilet lid, I now appreciate that
extra vote.
perfect white teeth
I finally bought a color tv
and the other night
I hit on this movie
and here’s a guy in
Paris
he has no money
but he wears a very good suit
and his necktie is knotted perfectly
and he’s neither worried nor drunk
but he’s in a café
and all the beautiful women are
in love with him
and somehow he keeps paying his rent
and walking up and down staircases
in very clean shirts
and he advises a few of the girls
that while they can’t write poetry
he can
but he doesn’t really feel like it
at the moment—
he’s looking for Truth instead.
meanwhile he has a perfect haircut
no hangover
no nervous tics around the eyes and perfect
white teeth.
I knew what would happen:
he’d get the poetry, the women and
the Truth.
I popped off the tv set
thinking, you dumb-ass son-of-a-bitch
you deserve
all
three.
4 blocks
I drove my daughter to the school auditorium
where her mother was to meet her
at 5 p.m.
I let her out of the car
and she reached her head back through the window
and kissed me
as she always did.
she was 8. I was 52.
two fat women stood watching us.
I waved goodbye to my daughter
and as she walked to the doorway
one of the fat women asked her,
“wait a minute, who was that man?”
and she answered, “that’s my daddy.”
then one of the fatsos ran toward me:
“wait a minute, can I get a ride, just 4
blocks?”
“I have a very dirty car,” I said.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” she said,
getting in,
“just follow the road. it’s not far.”
I followed the road.
“Marina,” she said, “is a very nice girl, we
all like Marina.”
“yes,” I said, “she’s a very quiet and
gentle girl.”
“yes,” she answered, “yes, she is.”
“I’m usually very quiet and gentle too,”
I said.
“well,” she replied, “I guess if you don’t
praise yourself, nobody else will, hahaha!”
“it’s quite windy today,” I said.
“now,” she said, “go two blocks north, then turn
right.”
“all right,” I said, “I will.”
“I hope,” she said, “that I’m not taking you too far
out of your way? I hope that I’m not
intruding?”
“have you met Marina’s mother?” I asked.
“oh yes,” she said, “she’s a lovely person, quite a
lovely person.”
“are you sure somebody else will?” I asked.
“will what?” she asked.
“praise you if you don’t praise yourself,” I
replied.
“well,” she said, “it’s 3 more blocks,
then you take a right.”
I ran up 3 blocks and took a
right.
“now,” she said, “see that truck with the gate hanging
open?”
“I see it,” I said.
“you just park right there by that truck and I’ll
get out.”
I parked there and she got
out.
“I sure want to thank you,” she said,
“and I hope I didn’t
intrude.”
“I’ll see you around,” I said,
“take care of yourself.”
I drove ahead and took another right
onto a one-way street. the ocean was
down there. there was not a sailboat
in sight. vaguely I wondered about
flying fish
dismissed them as a myth
spun my car around
at the first opportunity
and headed back
to Los Angeles.
you can’t force your way through the eye of the needle
tearing up poems is my
specialty.
on a given night
I will write between 5 and a
dozen
r /> feeling very good about
all of
them.
the next day
in the cold morning
light
I face them
again:
some have
at best
only a decent line or
two.
to rip and basket
these failures
is pure
pleasure.
there are some
days
when all of them
go.
the poem is hardly the
core of our
existence
although
there have been many
poets
who felt that
it
was.
whatever they are,
the gods are not
dumb.
they must laugh
and wonder
at our
fever for
fame.
two kinds of hell
I sat in the same bar for 7 years, from 6 a.m.
until 2 a.m.
sometimes I didn’t remember going back
to my room.
it was as if I was sitting on that bar stool
continuously.
I had no money but somehow the drinks kept
coming.
I wasn’t the bar clown but rather the
bar fool.
but often a fool can find an even greater
fool to
treat him to drinks.
fortunately,
it was a crowded
place.
but I had a point of view: I was waiting for
something extraordinary to
happen.
but as the years drifted past
nothing ever did unless I
caused it:
a broken bar mirror, a fight with a 7-foot
giant, a dalliance with a lesbian,
the ability to call a spade a spade and to
settle arguments that I did not
begin, and etc.
one day I just upped and left.
just like that.
and as I began to drink alone I found my own company
more than satisfactory.
then, as if the gods were annoyed by my peace of
mind, the ladies began knocking at my door.
the gods were sending ladies to the
fool!
the ladies arrived one at a time and when one left
the gods immediately—without allowing me any respite—would send
another.
and each seemed at first to be a fresh miracle, but then everything
that at first seemed wonderful ended up
badly.
my fault, of course, yes, that’s what they usually told
me.
the gods just won’t let a man drink alone; they are jealous of
simple pleasures; so they send a lady to
knock upon your door.
I remember all those cheap hotels; it was as if all the women
were one; the first delicate rap on the wood and then,
“oh, I heard you playing that lovely music on your radio. we’re
neighbors. I’m down in 603 but I’ve never seen you in
the hall before!”
“come on in.”
and there went your sanctity.
you also remember the time when
you walked up behind the 7-foot giant and knocked off his
cowboy hat, yelling,
“I’ll bet you’re too tall to suck your mother’s
nipples!”
and somebody in the bar saying, “hey, sir, forget it, he’s a mental
case, he’s an asshole, he doesn’t know what he is
saying!”
“I know EXACTLY what I am saying and I’ll say it again,
‘I’ll bet you were too tall…’”
he won the fight but you didn’t die, not the way you died inside after
the gods arranged for all those ladies to come knocking at your door.
the fistfight was more fair: he was slow, stupid and even a little
bit frightened and the battle went well enough for you for quite a while,
just like it did at first with those ladies the gods
sent.
the difference being, I decided, I at least had a chance with the
ladies.
my faithful Indian servant
I reached over to turn on
the lights. the lights were already
on. I was in a bad way. “Hudnuck!”
I bawled for my faithful Indian
servant. “kiss my sack,” he answered.
in the dim light
I saw him on the couch with
my wife. I stepped outside
and blew my bugle.
3 camels answered my call, and came
running across the yard.
“Hudnuck!” I bawled.
“hold your horses, daddy-o,” he answered,
“until I’m finished.”
I blew my bugle. nothing happened.
it was full of spit and
tears.
Hudnuck stepped out on the
porch, pulling his zipper closed.
“I want a raise,” he said,
“I’m working for nothing.”
“and I’m living for nothing, Hud:
don’t you realize that
I’m a broken man?”
“don’t talk that way,” he said,
“you’ve got a nice wife.”
my wife stepped out on the
porch. “what are you having
for breakfast, darling?” she
asked.
“bacon and eggs,” I answered.
“not you, you fool! she snapped.
“t-bone and liver sausage,” said
Hudnuck.
“thank you, darling,” said my nice
wife, going back into our
nest.
I blew my bugle. a crow answered.
Hudnuck ripped the bugle
from my hand. he wiped it
across the front of my best
shirt. (he was wearing
it.)
he played “Hearts and Flowers”
on the damn thing. the tears
welled up in my eyes.
I decided to give him a
raise. looking over, I saw
him twisting my bugle into
the shape of a cross as he
whistled “It Ain’t Gonna
Rain No More.”
he had strong, sensitive, beautiful
hands. I looked down at my own.
at first I couldn’t find them. then quickly
I took them out of my pockets
and applauded
him.
a plausible finish
there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
or you’re tired of getting drunk
and the grass doesn’t work anymore,
and I don’t mean to go
to hash or cocaine,
I mean a place to go to besides
the death that’s waiting
or to a love that doesn’t work
&nb
sp; anymore.
there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
besides to a tv set or to a movie
or to buy a newspaper
or to read a novel.
it’s not having that place to go to
that creates the people now in madhouses
and the suicides.
I suppose what most people do
when there isn’t any place to go
is to go to some place or to something
that hardly satisfies them,
and this ritual tends to sandpaper them
down to where they can somehow continue even
without hope.
those faces you see every day on the streets
were not created
entirely without
hope: be kind to them:
like you
they have not
escaped.
another one of my critics
I haven’t written a good poem
in weeks. she’s 15
and she walks in.
“bastard, when are you going to get
out of bed?”
it’s ten minutes to noon
so I get up and walk to the typewriter.
she walks up in a Yankees baseball cap and
stares at me.
“DON’T BUG ME!” I scream. “I AM WRITING!”
“imbecile,” she says and walks off.
staring at that sheet of white paper
I begin to think that some of my critics are
right.
she walks into the room again and looks at
me.
“blubbermouth,” she says, “hello, blubbermouth.”
I ignore her.
she reaches up and tugs at my beard.
“hey, when you gonna take that mask off?
I’m sick of that mask.”
then she goes to the bathroom
and with the door open she sits on the pot.
she strains: “urrg, urrg, urrg…”
I look over.
“listen, you’re supposed to
close the bathroom
door when you do that.”
“well, close it then, dummy,” she says.
I get up and close it.
I know a writer who spent 2 thousand dollars