The Pleasures of the Damned

  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