and Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker
and we fought in dream trenches with our dream rifles
and had dream
bayonet fights with the dirty
Hun…
and those movies, full of drama and excitement,
about good old World War One, where
we almost got the Kaiser, we almost kidnapped him
once,
and in the end
we finished off all those spike-helmeted bastards
forever.
the young kids now, they don’t build model warplanes
nor do they dream fight in dream rice paddies,
they know it’s all useless, ordinary,
just a job like
sweeping the streets or picking up the garbage,
they’d rather go watch a Western or hang out at the
mall or go to the zoo or a football game, they’re
already thinking of college and automobiles and wives
and homes and barbecues, they’re already trapped
in another kind of dream, another kind of war,
and I guess it won’t kill them as fast, at least not
physically.
it was wrong but World War One was fun for us
it gave us Jean Harlow and James Cagney
and “Mademoi selle from Armentières, Parley-Voo?”
it gave us
long afternoons and evenings of play
(we didn’t realize that many of us were soon to die in
another war)
yes, they fooled us nicely but we were young and loved it—
the lies of our elders—
and see how it has changed—
they can’t bullshit
even a kid anymore,
not about all that.
now
I had boils the size of tomatoes
all over me
they stuck a drill into me
down at the county hospital,
and
just as the sun went down
every day
there was a man in a nearby ward
he’d start hollering for his friend Joe.
JOE! he’d holler, OH JOE! JOE!…!
COME GET ME, JOE!
Joe never came by.
I’ve never heard such mournful
sounds.
Joe was probably working off a
piece of ass or
attempting to solve a crossword puzzle.
I’ve always said
if you want to find out who your friends are
go to a mad house or
jail.
and if you want to find out where love is not
be a perpetual
loser.
I was very lucky with my boils
being drilled and tortured
against the backdrop of the Sierra Madre mountains
while that sun went down;
when that sun went down I knew what I would do
when I finally got that drill in my hands
like I have it
now.
society should realize…
you consult psychiatrists and philosophers
when things aren’t going well
and whores when they are.
the whores are there for young boys and old
men; to the young boys they say,
“don’t be frightened, honey, here I’ll put it
in for you.”
and for the old guys
they put on an act
like you’re really hooking it home.
society should realize the value of the
whore—I mean, those girls who really enjoy their
work—those who make it almost an
art form.
I’m thinking of the time
in a Mexican whore house
this gal with her little bowl and her rag
washing my dick,
and it got hard and she laughed and I
laughed and she
kissed it, gently and slowly, then she walked over and
spread out
on the bed
and I got on and we worked easily, no effort, no
tension, and some guy beat on the door and
yelled,
“Hey! what the hell’s going on in there?
Hurry it up!”
but it was like a Mahler symphony—you just don’t
rush
it.
when I finished and she came back, there was
the bowl and the rag again
and we both laughed; then she kissed it
gently and
slowly, and I got up and put my clothes back on and
walked out—
“Jesus, buddy, what the hell were ya doin’ in
there?”
“Fuckin’,” I told the gentleman
and walked down the hall and down the steps and stood
outside in the road and lit one of those
sweet Mexican cigarettes in the moonlight.
liberated and human again
for a mere $3, I
loved the night, Mexico and
myself.
the souls of dead animals
after the slaughter house
there was a bar around the corner
and I sat in there
and watched the sun go down
through the window,
a window that overlooked a lot
full of tall dry weeds.
I never showered with the boys at the
plant
after work
so I smelled of sweat and
blood.
the smell of sweat lessens after a
while
but the blood-smell begins to fulminate
and gain power.
I smoked cigarettes and drank beer
until I felt good enough to
board the bus
with the souls of all those dead
animals riding with
me;
heads would turn slightly
women would rise and move away from
me.
when I got off the bus
I only had a block to walk
and one stairway up to my
room
where I’d turn on my radio and
light a cigarette
and nobody minded me
at all.
the tragedy of the leaves
I awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead,
the potted plants yellow as corn;
my woman was gone
and the empty bottles like bled corpses
surrounded me with their uselessness;
the sun was still good, though,
and my landlady’s note cracked in fine and
undemanding yellowness; what was needed now
was a good comedian, ancient style, a jester
with jokes upon absurd pain; pain is absurd
because it exists, nothing more;
I shaved carefully with an old razor
the man who had once been young and
said to have genius; but
that’s the tragedy of the leaves,
the dead ferns, the dead plants;
and I walked into a dark hall
where the landlady stood
execrating and final,
sending me to hell,
waving her fat, sweaty arms
and screaming
screaming for rent
because the world had failed us
both.
the birds
the acute and terrible air hangs with murder
as summer birds mingle in the branches
and warble
and mystify the clamor of the mind;
an old parrot
who never talks,
sits thinking in a Chinese laundry,
disgruntled
forsaken
celibate;
/> there is red on his wing
where there should be green,
and between us
the recognition of
an immense and wasted life.
….y 2nd wife left me
because I set our birds free:
one yellow, with crippled wing
quickly going down and to the left,
cat-meat,
cackling like an organ;
and the other,
mean green,
of empty thimble head,
popping up like a rocket
high into the hollow sky,
disappearing like sour love
and yesterday’s desire
and leaving me
forever.
and when my wife
returned that night
with her bags and plans,
her tricks and shining greeds,
she found me
glittering over a yellow feather
seeking out the music
which she,
oddly,
failed to
hear.
the loner
16 and one-half inch
neck
68 years old
lifts weights
body like a young
boy (almost)
kept his head
shaved
and drank port wine
from half-gallon jugs
kept the chain on the
door
windows boarded
you had to give
a special knock
to get in
he had brass knucks
knives
clubs
guns
he had a chest like a
wrestler
never lost his
glasses
never swore
never looked for
trouble
never married after the death
of his only
wife
hated
cats
roaches
mice
humans
worked crossword
puzzles
kept up with the
news
that 16 and one-half inch
neck
for 68 he was
something
all those boards
across the windows
washed his own underwear
and socks
my friend Red took me up
to meet him
one night
we talked a while
together
then we left
Red asked, “what do you
think?”
I answered, “more afraid to die
than the rest of us.”
I haven’t seen either of them
since.
The Genius of the Crowd
There is enough treachery, hatred,
violence,
Absurdity in the average human
being
To supply any given army on any given day.
AND The Best At Murder Are Those
Who Preach Against It.
AND The Best At Hate Are Those
Who Preach LOVE
AND THE BEST AT WAR
—FINALLY—ARE THOSE WHO PREACH
PEACE
Those Who Preach GOD
NEED God
Those Who Preach PEACE
Do Not Have Peace.
THOSE WHO PREACH LOVE
DO NOT HAVE LOVE
BEWARE THE PREACHERS Beware The Knowers.
Beware
Those Who
Are ALWAYS
READING
BOOKS
Beware Those Who Either Detest
Poverty Or Are Proud Of It
BEWARE Those Quick To Praise
For They Need PRAISE In Return
BEWARE Those Quick To Censure:
They Are Afraid Of What They Do
Not Know
Beware Those Who Seek Constant
Crowds; They Are Nothing
Alone
Beware
The Average Man
The Average Woman
BEWARE Their Love
Their Love Is Average, Seeks
Average
But There Is Genius In Their Hatred There Is Enough Genius In Their Hatred To Kill You, To Kill
Anybody.
Not Wanting Solitude
Not Understanding Solitude
They Will Attempt To Destroy Anything
That Differs
From Their Own
Not Being Able
To Create Art
They Will Not
Understand Art
They Will Consider Their Failure
As Creators
Only As A Failure
Of The World
Not Being Able To Love Fully
They Will BELIEVE Your Love
Incomplete
AND THEN THEY WILL HATE
YOU
And Their Hatred Will Be Perfect
Like A Shining Diamond
Like A Knife
Like A Mountain
LIKE A TIGER
LIKE Hemlock
Their Finest
ART
German bar
I had lost the last race big
somebody had stolen my coat
I could feel the flu coming on
and my tires were
low. I went in to get a
beer at the German bar
but the waitress was having a fit
her heart strangled by disappointment
grief and loss.
women get troubled all at once,
you know. I left a tip
and got out.
nobody wins.
ask Caesar.
the snow of Italy
over my radio now
comes the sound of a truly mad organ,
I can see some monk
drunk in a cellar
mind gone or found,
talking to God in a different way;
I see candles and this man has a red beard
as God has a red beard;
it is snowing, it is Italy, it is cold
and the bread is hard
and there is no butter,
only wine
wine in purple bottles
with giraffe necks,
and now the organ rises, again,
he violates it,
he plays it like a madman,
there is blood and spit in his beard,
he wants to laugh but there isn’t time,
the sun is going out,
then his fingers slow,
now there is exhaustion and the dream,
yes, even holiness,
man going to man,
to the mountain, the elephant, the star,
and a candle falls
but continues to burn upon its side,
a wax puddle shining in the eyes
of my red monk,
there is moss on the walls
and the stain of thought and failure and
waiting,
then again the music comes like hungry tigers,
and he laughs,
it is a child’s laugh, an idiot’s laugh,
laughing at nothing,
the only laugh that understands,
he holds the keys down
like stopping everything
and the room blooms with madness,
and then he stops, stops,
and sits, the candles burning,
one up, one down,
the snow of Italy is all that’s left,
it is over: the essence and the pattern.
I watch as
he pinches out the candles with his fingers,
wincing near the outer edge of each eye
and the room is dark
as everything has always been.
for Jane: with a
ll the love I had, which was not enough:
which was not enough:
I pick up the skirt,
I pick up the sparkling beads
in black,
this thing that moved once
around flesh,
and I call God a liar,
I say anything that moved
like that
or knew
my name
could never die
in the common verity of dying,
and I pick
up her lovely
dress,
all her loveliness gone,
and I speak
to all the gods,
Jewish gods, Christ-gods,
chips of blinking things,
idols, pills, bread,
fathoms, risks,
knowledgeable surrender,
rats in the gravy of 2 gone quite mad
without a chance,
hummingbird knowledge, hummingbird chance,
I lean upon this,
I lean on all of this
and I know:
her dress upon my arm:
but
they will not
give her back to me.
notice