The Pleasures of the Damned

  all the women was cryin’

  and though they was moanin’

  other men’s names

  I just know they was cryin’

  for me (poor critters)

  and though I’d slept with all a them,

  I’d forgotten

  in all the big excitement

  to tell ’em my name

  and all the men looked angry

  but I guess it was because the kids

  was all being impolite

  and a throwin’ tin cans at me,

  but I told ’em not to worry

  because their aim was bad anyhow

  not a boy there looked like he’d turn

  into a man—

  90% homosexuals, the lot of them,

  and some guy shouted

  “let’s send him to hell!”

  and with a jerk I was dancin’

  my last dance,

  but I swung out wide

  and spit in the bartender’s eye

  and stared down

  into Nellie Adam’s breasts,

  and my mouth watered again.

  Scarlet

  I’m glad when they arrive

  and I’m glad when they leave

  I’m glad when I hear their heels

  approaching my door

  and I’m glad when those heels

  walk away

  I’m glad to fuck

  I’m glad to care

  and I’m glad when it’s over

  and

  since it’s always either

  starting or finishing

  I’m glad

  most of the time

  and the cats walk up and down

  and the earth spins around the sun

  and the phone rings:

  “this is Scarlet.”

  “who?”

  “Scarlet.”

  “o.k., get it on over.”

  and I hang up thinking

  maybe this is it

  go in

  take a quick shit

  shave

  bathe

  dress

  dump the sacks

  and cartons of empty

  bottles

  sit down to the sound of

  heels approaching

  more an army approaching than

  victory

  it’s Scarlet

  and in my kitchen the faucet

  keeps dripping

  needs a washer.

  I’ll take care of it

  later.

  like a flower in the rain

  I cut the middle fingernail of the middle

  finger

  right hand

  real short

  and I began rubbing along her cunt

  as she sat upright in bed

  spreading lotion over her arms

  face

  and breasts

  after bathing.

  then she lit a cigarette:

  “don’t let this put you off,”

  and smoked and continued to rub the

  lotion on.

  I continued to rub the cunt.

  “you want an apple?” I asked.

  “sure,” she said, “you got one?”

  but I got to her—

  she began to twist

  then she rolled on her side,

  she was getting wet and open

  like a flower in the rain.

  then she rolled on her stomach

  and her most beautiful ass

  looked up at me

  and I reached under and got the

  cunt again.

  she reached around and got my

  cock, she rolled and twisted,

  I mounted

  my face falling into the mass

  of red hair that overflowed

  from her head

  and my fattened cock entered

  into the miracle.

  later we joked about the lotion

  and the cigarette and the apple.

  then I went out and got some chicken

  and shrimp and french fries and buns

  and mashed potatoes and gravy and

  cole slaw, and we ate. she told me

  how good she felt and I told her

  how good I felt and we ate

  the chicken and the shrimp and the

  french fries and the buns and the

  mashed potatoes and the gravy and

  the cole slaw too.

  a killer

  consistency is terrific:

  shark-mouth

  grubby interior with an

  almost perfect body,

  long blazing hair—

  it confuses me

  and others

  she runs from man to man

  offering endearments

  she speaks of love

  then breaks each man

  to her will

  shark-mouthed

  grubby interior

  we see it too late:

  after the cock gets swallowed

  the heart follows

  her long blazing hair

  her almost perfect body

  walks down the street

  as the same sun

  falls upon flowers.

  prayer in bad weather

  by God, I don’t know what to

  do.

  they’re so nice to have around.

  they have a way of playing with

  the balls

  and looking at the cock very

  seriously

  turning it

  tweeking it

  examining each part

  as their long hair falls on

  your belly.

  it’s not the fucking and sucking

  alone that reaches into a man

  and softens him, it’s the extras,

  it’s all the extras.

  now it’s raining to night

  and there’s nobody

  they are elsewhere

  examining things

  in new bedrooms

  in new moods

  or maybe in old

  bedrooms.

  anyhow, it’s raining to night,

  one hell of a dashing, pouring

  rain….

  very little to do.

  I’ve read the newspaper

  paid the gas bill

  the electric co.

  the phone bill.

  it keeps raining.

  they soften a man

  and then let him swim

  in his own juice.

  I need an old-fashioned whore

  at the door to night

  closing her green umbrella,

  drops of moonlit rain on her

  purse, saying, “shit, man,

  can’t you get better music

  than that on your radio?

  and turn up the heat…”

  it’s always when a man’s swollen

  with love and everything

  else

  that it keeps raining

  splattering

  flooding

  rain

  good for the trees and the

  grass and the air…

  good for things that

  live alone.

  I would give anything

  for a female’s hand on me

  tonight.

  they soften a man and

  then leave him

  listening to the rain.

  melancholia

  the history of melancholia

  includes all of us.

  me, I writhe in dirty sheets

  while staring at blue walls

  and nothing.

  I have gotten so used to melancholia

  that

  I greet it like an old

  friend.

  I will now do 15 minutes of grieving

  for the lost redhead,

  I tell the gods.

  I do it and feel quite bad

  quite sad,

  then I rise

&n
bsp; CLEANSED

  even though nothing is

  solved.

  that’s what I get for kicking

  religion in the ass.

  I should have kicked the redhead

  in the ass

  where her brains and her bread and

  butter are

  at…

  but, no, I’ve felt sad

  about everything:

  the lost redhead was just another

  smash in a lifelong

  loss…

  I listen to drums on the radio now

  and grin.

  there is something wrong with me

  besides

  melancholia.

  eat your heart out

  I’ve come by, she says, to tell you

  that this is it. I’m not kidding, it’s

  over. this is it.

  I sit on the couch watching her arrange

  her long red hair before my bedroom

  mirror.

  she pulls her hair up and

  piles it on top of her head—

  she lets her eyes look at

  my eyes—

  then she drops the hair and

  lets it fall down in front of her face.

  we go to bed and I hold her

  speechlessly from the back

  my arm around her neck

  I touch her wrists and hands

  feel up to

  her elbows

  no further.

  she gets up.

  this is it, she says,

  eat your heart out. you

  got any rubber bands?

  I don’t know.

  here’s one, she says,

  this will do. well,

  I’m going.

  I get up and walk her

  to the door

  just as she leaves

  she says,

  I want you to buy me

  some high-heeled shoes

  with tall thin spikes,

  black high-heeled shoes.

  no, I want them

  red.

  I watch her walk down the cement walk

  under the trees

  she walks all right and

  as the poinsettias drip in the sun

  I close the door.

  I made a mistake

  I reached up into the top of the closet

  and took out a pair of blue pan ties

  and showed them to her and

  asked “are these yours?”

  and she looked and said,

  “no, those belong to a dog.”

  she left after that and I haven’t seen

  her since. she’s not at her place.

  I keep going there, leaving notes stuck

  into the door. I go back and the notes

  are still there. I take the Maltese cross

  cut it down from my car mirror, tie it

  to her doorknob with a shoelace, leave

  a book of poems.

  when I go back the next night everything

  is still there.

  I keep searching the streets for that

  blood-wine battleship she drives

  with a weak battery, and the doors

  hanging from broken hinges.

  I drive around the streets

  an inch away from weeping,

  ashamed of my sentimentality and

  possible love.

  a confused old man driving in the rain

  wondering where the good luck

  went.

  she comes from somewhere

  probably from the belly button or from the shoe under the

  bed, or maybe from the mouth of the shark or from

  the car crash on the avenue that leaves blood and memories

  scattered on the grass.

  she comes from love gone wrong under an

  asphalt moon.

  she comes from screams stuffed with cotton.

  she comes from hands without arms

  and arms without bodies

  and bodies without hearts.

  she comes out of cannons and shotguns and old victrolas.

  she comes from parasites with blue eyes and soft voices.

  she comes out from under the organ like a roach.

  she keeps coming.

  she’s inside of sardine cans and letters.

  she’s under your fingernails pressing blue and flat.

  she’s the signpost on the barricade

  smeared in brown.

  she’s the toy soldiers inside your head

  poking their lead bayonets.

  she’s the first kiss and the last kiss and

  the dog’s guts spilling like a river.

  she comes from somewhere and she never stops

  coming.

  me, and that

  old woman:

  sorrow.

  The High-Rise of the New World

  it is an orange

  animal

  with

  hand grenades

  fire power

  big teeth and

  a horn of smoke

  a colored man

  with cigar

  yanks at

  gears and the damn thing never gets

  tired

  my neighbor

  ….n old man in blue

  bathing trunks

  ….n old man

  a fetid white obscene

  thing—

  the old man

  lifts apart some purple flowers

  and peeks through the fence at the

  orange animal

  and like a horror movie

  I see the orange animal open its

  mouth—

  it belches it has teeth fastened onto a giraffe’s

  neck—

  and it reached over the fence and it gets the

  old man in his blue

  bathing trunks

  neatly

  it gets him

  from behind the fence of purple flowers

  and his whiteness is like

  garbage in the air

  and then

  he’s dumped into a

  shock of lumber

  and then the orange animal

  backs off

  spins

  turns

  runs off into the Hollywood Hills

  the palm trees the

  boulevards as

  the colored man

  sucks red steam

  from his

  cigar

  I’ll be glad when it’s all

  over

  the noise is

  terrible and I’m afraid to go and

  buy a

  paper.

  car wash

  got out, fellow said, “hey!” walked toward

  me, we shook hands, he slipped me 2 red

  tickets for free car washes, “find you later,”

  I told him, walked on through to waiting

  area with wife, we sat on outside bench.

  black fellow with a limp came up, said,

  “hey, man, how’s it going?”

  I answered, “fine, bro, you makin’ it?”

  “no problem,” he said, then walked off to

  dry down a Caddy.

  “these people know you?” my wife asked.

  “no.”

  “how come they talk to you?”

  “they like me, people have always liked me,

  it’s my cross.”

  then our car was finished, fellow flipped

  his rag at me, we got up, got to the

  car, I slipped him a buck, we got in, I

  started the engine, the foreman walked

  up, big guy with dark shades, huge guy,

  he smiled a big one, “good to see you,

  man!”

  I smiled back, “thanks, but it’s your party,

  man!”

  I pulled out into traffic, “they know you,”

  said my wife.

  “sure,” I said, “I??
?ve been there.”

  Van Gogh

  vain vanilla ladies strutting

  while van Gogh did it to

  himself.

  girls pulling on silk

  hose

  while van Gogh did it to

  himself

  in the field

  unkissed, and

  worse.

  I pass him on the street:

  “how’s it going, Van?”

  “I dunno, man,” he says

  and walks on.

  there is a blast of color:

  one more creature

  dizzy with love.

  he said,

  then,

  I want to leave.