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    The People Look Like Flowers at Last: New Poems

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      3 bathrooms. then the squaw decided that she also needed a

      bath. and then somebody else decided they had to take a

      shit. they all vanished. I drank my drink and went back to

      sleep.

      “we are so sorry to see you go,” a

      voice said, waking me.

      the Indians had left.

      “it’s all right,” I

      said.

      I didn’t get any

      argument.

      I got into the car with Helen and the sight

      of her nylon knees beat hammers into my brain.

      I was so sorry that I would never possess anything good,

      anything like her,

      that nothing good would ever belong to me

      not because I was always poor in dollars

      but because I was poor at expressing myself one-on-one.

      I was as yellow as the sun perhaps

      but also as warm and as true as the sun

      somewhere there inside me

      but nobody would ever find it.

      I would certainly end up forever crying the blues into a

      coffee cup in a park for old men playing

      chess or silly games of some sort.

      shit! shit!

      and then Helen shifted the gears and we rolled down through the

      rich hills and there was nothing I could say to her

      about her beauty or how tough I was

      or that just to sit and look at her for a month

      never to touch her again

      would be my only desire

      but like a bastard I was probably lying to myself

      I probably wanted everything everything

      but now at 45

      having lived with a dozen women and loving none

      I was now crazy, finished. as she

      drove me through the hills everything screamed inside of

      me, and I kept saying as we drove along

      (to myself, of course)

      fucker, it will pass,

      everything passes,

      it’s all a joke

      a joke on you,

      forget it, think of dead dogs dead things think of

      yourself: unwanted, broke, simple, a supposed poet writing of

      deep things, but you can’t really write about anything except

      YOURSELF. isn’t it true? isn’t it true? you are a prick,

      a self-centered jackass only wanting an easy way out? you crave

      money, grandstands full of applause, recognition and a book

      of poems that will still be admired in the year 2,179.

      you are a

      shit-yellow screaming jackal: you ain’t gonna make it and

      you might as well get used to it

      now.

      we drove up to the little hotel

      and the poor jackass poet said,

      “may I say goodbye?” it was

      like a bad movie, only it wasn’t a movie:

      I could understand Dos’s Crime and Punishment

      I could understand the moon leaning across a bar on skid row

      and asking for a drink, but I couldn’t understand anything about

      myself,

      I was murdered, I was shit, I was a tentful of dogs,

      I was poppies mowed down by machine-gun fire

      I was a hotshot wasp in a web

      I was less and less and still reaching for

      something, and I thought of her corny remark

      a night or so ago:

      “you have wounded eyes.”

      corny, of course, but anything that comes from a real

      woman is not corny

      and I thought of her decent paintings of people and things

      reaching wanting wanting

      and like a shell-shocked Jap surrounded by heroic

      American troops

      I kissed her

      goodbye.

      “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it good for you,”

      she said. “I wasn’t ready, I guess.”

      “no, it was my fault,”

      I told her.

      I walked into the little hotel in that

      small town (from where they took you to the train

      via bus) and I got lost, shit, I got lost,

      I couldn’t find the ticket office, up and

      down steps

      in and out of doors

      tears again finally

      like a bad movie again, and

      finally I found the ticket agent

      and went through the business

      of buying a ticket.

      I went and sat in the lobby and

      I looked up from my ticket

      and there she was.

      “what are you doing here?” I asked.

      “I saw you all hunched up and sad and cold.

      I kept thinking of you.”

      the bus to the train was late, everything was

      late, so she drove me around town meanwhile and I had to go through the

      whole thing again with her.

      and I knew that even the proper words would never do

      the trick. I was dirty, dirt, I looked like dirt,

      I was dirty, dirty dirt. I just wanted to get inside of her,

      stay there, I was nothing but a cunt-wanter and

      I was broke. I couldn’t spell, I didn’t even know about using

      2 or 3 forks at dinner, I didn’t know anything about Harvard or

      diplomas or 50 grand a year, and she knew that all that

      was true: I had been kicked around for too long, I no longer

      knew the way up or out or even wanted to know: I was destined for

      failure.

      I said goodbye again

      sucking up all that was left of her into the

      little that was left of

      me. I said, “don’t look for me again. fuck it.

      we are all lost. goodbye, goodbye.”

      she was great. she drove off. I watched that last flash

      of her go around the corner and disappear and

      then I walked back into the hotel lobby.

      they were chummy, 5 or 6 assholes still sitting and

      waiting there.

      2 were doctors. another was the possessor of something great

      and important. they all had wives. it was beginning to

      snow.

      we all climbed into the bus to go to the

      train. I was already numb,

      numb again,

      numb

      again

      again and again,

      numbness and pain swelling in

      me—just like in the good

      old times.

      the Mexican drove down the road and almost stripped the

      gears.

      the comfortable people made comfortable jokes

      about weather and things

      but I sat mostly silent

      saying a word or so when necessary

      a word or so

      trying to hide from them the fact that I was a fool

      and feeling terrible

      and the small hills began to be covered with snow

      slowly things became white

      slowly things became whiter

      and I knew that it all would finally pass

      and thank the good grace of the good God,

      my years and time were running

      out; we drove on and on,

      past little villages and both good things and

      bad things were happening to the

      people in those villages to
    o,

      but I still was nothing

      but arms and ears and eyes and maybe there’d be

      either some good luck for me or

      more death tomorrow.

      bewitched in New York

      the lady was the most unfaithful and terrible I had

      ever encountered and I knew it and she knew it and she was

      both ugly and beautiful at the same time and the

      two of her just sat there on the window

      ledge of that open hotel window

      in New York City on

      one of the hottest days of all time, no

      air-conditioning, no fan, we sweated and

      suffered and waited for something

      to happen.

      I was drunk, she was on drugs, we had just

      concluded a slippery bit of

      copulation and afterward she said, “you son-of-a-bitch,

      we’re stuck here in hell!”

      “good,” I said.

      then I saw her fall out of the window, we

      were four floors up, I heard the scream,

      her body was gone.

      then it was back, she was sitting on the

      window ledge again. “did you see that?” she

      asked. “I fell out of the window!”

      “good,” I said.

      “but somehow I pulled myself back in!” she

      said.

      “good,” I said.

      “is that all you can say?” she asked.

      “‘good’?”

      “I can say that I think you’re a witch or a devil

      and that your window act just now proves

      it.”

      I felt that by falling out she had lifted my

      spirits and then she had deliberately dashed

      them by climbing back

      in.

      “so I’m a witch or a devil, huh? well, no more

      ass for you!”

      “good,” I said.

      sometimes you live and stay with a woman and have no

      real idea why.

      with her I knew: it was the simple, fascinating,

      unrelenting mystery and terror of

      her self.

      don’t worry, baby, I’ll get it

      he saw her in a liquor store

      and it shook him

      shook shook shook

      like shark meat alive still in sunlight flopping.

      he hurled his eyes at her,

      a miracle, he heard her talking to him,

      she was funny, she made him laugh, she made him feel like

      all the doors were open for him.

      it was easy. she went back to his place with him.

      they talked. it was easy. she was a glorious fuck. they

      fucked 3 times. she

      stayed.

      “Smaltz,” they phoned him from work the next day,

      “what ya doin’, ya didn’t come

      in! we got the Granger-Wently order to get

      out: 45 six-foot squeegees and 90 gallons of

      ultramarine Day-Glo!”

      “I’m busy,” he said, and they replied,

      “we can get a shipping clerk

      anywhere!” he hung up, turned her over and

      fucked her

      again.

      it wasn’t the same as with the others:

      every time he finished he felt he wanted more.

      as she took the trip to the bathroom it seemed as if he

      hadn’t yet really had her, and anything she put on,

      a newspaper hat, a pair of his socks, she looked

      glorious, funny funny, hell, she made him feel good,

      everything she said, shit, was a

      joke. she’d put that body up against his every morning and

      say, “ah, don’t go ta work, Eddie baby, stay wit me!”

      “I can’t go to work, sweets, I don’t have no job,” he’d say,

      and they’d go at it

      again.

      so the day came: no rent, no coffee, no wine, no

      cigarettes. the landlord stated: one more day;

      get it up or get it out—!

      “shit, I thought you knew what you were doing,”

      she told Smaltz. it was the first time she wasn’t

      funny.

      “don’t worry, baby, I’ll get it,” he told

      her, and they went one last good one.

      lucky, he had the .32. he thought, liquor store, no, I’ll get the

      big stuff, she’s got it

      comin’, she’s for me, mine, paper hat, all that

      shaking, god, nothing like

      it.

      he tried the bank. the big gray one nearby.

      he went in. he was ready: .32, paper bag, the note:

      “a stickup. quiet and you don’t die. no buttons. put money in

      bag. I am desperate and will kill. please let us both live.”

      she emptied the drawer into the bag. he saw it:

      lots of hundreds, fifties. sweet mother. a trip to Paris.

      the bank clerk looked good too. he’d like to fuck

      her. anybody would.

      he was almost at the door

      when he sensed she’d tripped the button right

      away. they’d even cleared the

      crowd. the guard at the door was easy—

      he was so fat Smaltz couldn’t miss:

      he dropped like a putty freak.

      outside he saw the squad car;

      the thing was driving along the wrong side of

      the street—how could they do that?—

      keeping even as he was running,

      and firing at his ass,

      coming close; he ran up an alley, dead end,

      but he caught a freight elevator

      at the bottom, “move it up! MOVE IT UP!”

      he shouted at another freak

      but the freak just stood there

      looking at the .32, and he shot the freak,

      nothing else to do,

      and he was working at the handles, trying to

      close the doors

      when they got there, fired at him,

      fired into that cheap tin elevator; he couldn’t get off a

      return shot. they got him, took the paper bag out of his

      hand.

      the next night she was sleeping with the owner of a

      hardware store, Harry, a good solid income, 2 fingers

      missing from his right hand—hunting accident in Indiana,

      1938.

      you could get another shipping clerk

      anywhere.

      the telephone message machine

      is one of the world’s greatest

      inventions.

      seldom do I pick up the phone

      to interrupt the

      message

      and speak directly to the

      caller.

      and I hardly ever phone

      anybody

      these days

      nor did I in the

      past

      unless it was some new girlfriend

      who had me by the

      balls.

      and she never had an

      answering machine

      just pills

      unpaid bills

      neglected children

      many pressing needs

      and an utterly overvalued sense of her

      self,

      especially by

      me.

     
    that nice girl who came in to change the sheets

      I met her when she came in to

      change the sheets.

      St. Louis.

      she told me: you’re sick.

      and I said:

      yes, I’m sick.

      and she said:

      you need something to drink

      I came to change the sheets

      but you need something to drink

      give me some money and

      I’ll come back with something to

      drink.

      so

      I gave her the money

      not knowing her

      but she came back with something to

      drink.

      she sat in a chair and I

      stayed in bed and we drank

      silently.

      and then we began to talk

      and then we laughed a little

      and I began to feel better and she

      looked better

      and I said:

      I didn’t think you’d come back

      and she said:

      hell, I work here.

      and I said:

      o, that’s why you came

      back.

      and she said:

      no, that’s not why I came back.

      and

      I liked that.

      I hardly remember how it happened

      but we were soon both in bed

      smoking cigarettes and drinking

      beer

      out of those heavy quart

      jugs.

      there seemed no hurry.

      and then it began to

      work. I don’t know how it worked

      but it was all right. we

      fucked.

      and she got up and closed the windows to the south

      and said:

      that’s what’s killing you

      those gas fumes coming up from the avenue

      that

      and the drinking. at least we can get you

      away from the gas fumes.

      we laughed and then she got back in bed and we

     
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