Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame

  it began to walk down the pier and we followed it.

  it ate a hot dog and bun right out of the hands of

  a little girl. then it leaped on the merry-go-round

  and rode a pinto, it fell off near the end and

  rolled in the sawdust.

  we picked it up.

  grop, it said, grop.

  then it walked back out on the pier.

  a large crowd followed us as we walked along.

  it’s a publicity stunt, said somebody,

  it’s a man in a rubber suit.

  then as it was walking along it began to breathe

  very heavily, it fell on its

  back and began to thrash.

  somebody poured a cup of beer over its head.

  grop, it went, grop.

  then it was dead.

  we rolled it to the edge of the pier and pushed it

  back into the water. we watched it sink and vanish.

  it was a Hollow-Back June Whale, I said.

  no, said the other guy, it was a Billow-Wind Sand-Groper.

  no, said the other expert, it was a Fandango Escadrille

  without stripes.

  then we all went our way on a mid-afternoon in August.

  wax job

  man, he said, sitting on the steps

  your car sure needs a wash and wax job

  I can do it for you for 5 bucks,

  I got the wax, I got the rags, I got everything

  I need.

  I gave him the 5 and went upstairs.

  when I came down 4 hours later

  he was sitting on the steps drunk

  and offered me a can of beer.

  he said he’d get the car the next

  day.

  the next day he got drunk again and

  I loaned him a dollar for a bottle of

  wine, his name was Mike

  a world war II veteran.

  his wife worked as a nurse.

  the next day I came down and he was sitting

  on the steps and he said,

  you know, I been sitting here looking at your car,

  wondering just how I was gonna do it,

  I wanna do it real good.

  the next day Mike said it looked like rain

  and it sure as hell wouldn’t make any sense

  to wash and wax a car when it was gonna rain.

  the next day it looked like rain again.

  and the next.

  then I didn’t see him anymore.

  a week later I saw his wife and she said,

  they took Mike to the hospital,

  he’s all swelled-up, they say it’s from the

  drinking.

  listen, I told her, he said he was going to wax my

  car, I gave him 5 dollars to wax my

  car.

  he’s in the critical ward, she said,

  he might die…

  I was sitting in their kitchen

  drinking with his wife

  when the phone rang.

  she handed the phone to me.

  it was Mike. listen, he said, come on down and

  get me, I can’t stand this

  place.

  I drove on down there, walked into the

  hospital, walked up to his bed and

  said, let’s go Mike.

  they wouldn’t give him his clothes

  so Mike walked to the elevator in his

  gown.

  we got on and there was a kid driving the

  elevator and eating a popsicle.

  nobody’s allowed to leave here in a gown,

  he said.

  you just drive this thing, kid, I said,

  we’ll worry about the gown.

  Mike was all puffed-up, triple size

  but I got him into the car somehow

  and gave him a cigarette.

  I stopped at the liquor store for 2 six packs

  then went on in. I drank with Mike and his wife until

  11 p.m.

  then went upstairs…

  where’s Mike? I asked his wife 3 days later,

  you know he said he was going to wax my car.

  Mike died, she said, he’s gone.

  you mean he died? I asked.

  yes, he died, she said.

  I’m sorry, I said, I’m very sorry

  it rained for a week after that and I figured the only

  way I’d get the 5 back was to go to bed with his wife

  but you know

  she moved out 2 weeks later

  an old guy with white hair moved in there

  and he had one blind eye and played the French Horn.

  there was no way I could make it with

  him.

  some people

  some people never go crazy.

  me, sometimes I’ll lie down behind the couch

  for 3 or 4 days.

  they’ll find me there.

  it’s Cherub, they’ll say, and

  they pour wine down my throat

  rub my chest

  sprinkle me with oils.

  then, I’ll rise with a roar,

  rant, rage—

  curse them and the universe

  as I send them scattering over the

  lawn.

  I’ll feel much better,

  sit down to toast and eggs,

  hum a little tune,

  suddenly become as lovable as a

  pink

  overfed whale.

  some people never go crazy.

  what truly horrible lives

  they must lead.

  father, who art in heaven—

  my father was a practical man.

  he had an idea.

  you see, my son, he said,

  I can pay for this house in my lifetime,

  then it’s mine.

  when I die I pass it on to you.

  now in your lifetime you can acquire a house

  and then you’ll have two houses

  and you’ll pass those two houses on to your

  son, and in his lifetime he acquires a house,

  then when he dies, his son—

  I get it, I said.

  my father died while trying to drink a

  glass of water. I buried him.

  solid mahogany casket. after the funeral

  I went to the racetrack, met a high yellow.

  after the races we went to her apartment

  for dinner and goodies.

  I sold his house after about a month.

  I sold his car and his furniture

  and gave away all his paintings except one

  and all his fruit jars

  (filled with fruit boiled in the heat of summer)

  and put his dog in the pound.

  I dated his girlfriend twice

  but getting nowhere

  I gave it up.

  I gambled and drank away the money.

  now I live in a cheap front court in Hollywood

  and take out the garbage to

  hold down the rent.

  my father was a practical man.

  he choked on that glass of water

  and saved on hospital

  bills.

  nerves

  twitching in the sheets—

  to face the sunlight again,

  that’s clearly

  trouble.

  I like the city better when the

  neon lights are going and

  the nudies dance on top of the

  bar

  to the mauling music.

  I’m under this sheet

  thinking.

  my nerves are hampered by

  history—

  the most memorable concern of mankind

  is the guts it takes to

  face the sunlight again.

  love begins at the meeting of two

  strangers. love for the world is

  impossible. I’d rather stay in bed

  and sleep.

/>   dizzied by the days and the streets and the years

  I pull the sheets to my neck.

  I turn my ass to the wall.

  I hate the mornings more than

  any man.

  the rent’s high too

  there are beasts in the salt shaker

  and airdromes in the coffeepot.

  my mother’s hand is in the bag drawer

  and from the backs of spoons come

  the cries of tiny tortured animals.

  in the closet stands a murdered man

  wearing a new green necktie

  and under the floor,

  there’s a suffocating angel with flaring nostrils.

  it’s hard to live here.

  it’s very hard to live here.

  at night the shadows are unborn creatures.

  beneath the bed

  spiders kill tiny white ideas.

  the nights are bad

  the nights are very bad

  I drink myself to sleep

  I have to drink myself to sleep.

  in the morning

  over breakfast

  I see them roll the dead down the street

  (I never read about this in the newspapers).

  and there are eagles everywhere

  sitting on the roof, on the lawn, inside my car.

  the eagles are eyeless and smell of sulphur.

  it is very discouraging.

  people visit me

  sit in chairs across from me

  and I see them crawling with vermin—

  green and gold and yellow bugs

  they do not brush away.

  I have been living here too long.

  soon I must go to Omaha.

  they say that everything is jade there

  and does not move.

  they say you can stitch designs in the water

  and sleep high in olive trees.

  I wonder if this is

  true?

  I can’t live here much longer.

  laugh literary

  listen, man, don’t tell me about the poems you

  sent, we didn’t receive them,

  we are very careful with manuscripts

  we bake them

  burn them

  laugh at them

  vomit on them

  pour beer over them

  but generally we return

  them

  they are

  so

  inane.

  ah, we believe in Art,

  we need it

  surely,

  but, you know, there are many people

  (most people)

  playing and fornicating with the

  Arts

  who only crowd the stage

  with their generous unforgiving

  vigorous

  mediocrity.

  our subscription rates are $4 a year.

  please read our magazine before

  submitting.

  deathbed blues

  if you can’t stand the heat, he says, get out of the

  kitchen. you know who said that?

  Harry Truman.

  I’m not in the kitchen, I say, I’m in the

  oven.

  my editor is a difficult man.

  I sometimes phone him in moments of doubt.

  look, he answers, you’ll be lighting cigars with ten dollar

  bills, you’ll have a redhead on one arm and a blonde

  on the other.

  other times he’ll say, look, I think I’m going to hire

  V.K. as my associate editor. we’ve got to prune off

  5 poets here somewhere. I’m going to leave it up

  to him. (V.K. is a very imaginative poet who believes I’ve

  knifed him from N.Y.C. to the shores of Hawaii.)

  look, kid, I phone my editor, can you speak German?

  no, he says.

  well, anyhow, I say, I need some good new tires, cheap.

  so you know where I can get some good new tires, cheap?

  I’ll phone you in 30 minutes, he says, will you be in

  in 30 minutes?

  I can’t afford to go anywhere, I say.

  he says, they say you were drunk at that reading

  in Oregon.

  ugly gossips, I answer.

  were you?

  I don’t

  remember.

  one day he phones me:

  you’re not hitting the ball anymore. you are hitting the

  bottle and fighting with all these

  women. you know we got a good kid on the bench,

  he’s aching to get in there

  he hits from both sides of the plate

  he can catch anything that ain’t hit over the wall

  he’s coached by Duncan, Creeley, Wakoski

  and he can rhyme, he knows

  images, similes, metaphors, figures, conceits,

  assonance, alliteration, metrics, yes

  metrics like, you know—

  iambic, trochaic, anapestic, spondaic,

  he knows caesura, denotation, connotation, personification,

  diction, voice, paradox, rhetoric, tone and

  coalescence…

  holy shit, I say, hang up and take a good hit of

  Old Grandad. Harry’s still alive

  according to the papers. but I decide rather than

  getting new tires to get

  a set of retreads instead.

  charles

  92 years old

  his tooth has been bothering him

  had to get it filled

  he lost his left eye 40 years

  ago

  —a butcher, he says, he just wanted to

  operate to get the money. I found out

  later it coulda been

  saved.

  —I take the eye out at night, he says,

  it hurts. they never did get it right.

  —which eye is it, Charles?

  —this one here, he points,

  then excuses himself. he has to get up and

  go into the

  kitchen, he’s baking cookies in the oven.

  he comes out soon with a

  plate.

  —try some.

  I do. they’re

  good.

  —want some coffee? he asks.

  —no, thanks, Charles, I haven’t been sleeping

  nights.

  he got married at 70 to a woman

  58. 22 years ago. she’s in a rest home now.

  —she’s getting better, he says, she recognizes me.

  they let her get up to go to the bathroom.

  —that’s fine, Charles.

  —I can’t stand her damned daughter, though, they think

  I’m after her money.

  —is there anything I can do for you, Charles? need

  anything from the store, anything like

  that?

  —no, I just went shopping this morning.

  his back is as straight as the wall and he has the

  tiniest pot

  belly. as he talks he

  keeps his one eye on the tv set.

  —I’m going now, Charles, you got my phone number?

  —yeh.

  —how are the girls treating you, Charles?

  —my friend, I haven’t thought about girls for some

  years now.

  —goodnight, Charles.

  —goodnight.

  I go to the door

  open it

  close it

  outside

  the smell of freshly-baked cookies

  follows me.

  on the circuit

  it was up in San Francisco

  after my poetry reading.

  it had been a nice crowd

  I had gotten my money

  I had this place upstairs

  there was some drinking

  and this guy started beating up on a fag

  I tried to stop him

>   and the guy broke a window