Page 11 of New Poems Book 3


  lawns, palm trees, circular driveways, children,

  churches, a supermarket, etc.

  I dug into the earth.

  MOTH TO THE FLAME

  Dylan Thomas, of course, loved it all: the applause, the

  free booze, the receptive ladies, but it was

  all too much for him

  and he finally wrote less than

  one hundred poems—

  but he could recite almost every one

  of them

  beautifully

  from memory

  and whether to recite or drink or copulate

  soon became his only

  concern.

  sucker-punched by his own vanity

  and the accolades of fools,

  he pissed on the centuries

  and they

  pissed

  back

  all over

  him.

  7 COME 11

  things never get so bad

  that we can’t remember

  that maybe they were

  never so good.

  we swam upstream

  through all those rivers of

  shit—

  no use drowning

  now

  and

  wasting all that

  gallant and stupid

  fight.

  upstream through it all

  to end up

  sitting here

  in front of this machine

  with

  cigarette dangling

  and

  drink at hand.

  no glory more than this

  doing what has to be done

  in this small

  room

  just to stay alive and to

  type these words with

  no net below

  3 million readers holding their breath

  as I stop

  reach around

  and scratch my

  right

  ear.

  PUT OUT THE LIGHT

  some individuals have an excessive

  fear of death they say that Tolstoy was

  one such

  but that he worked it out

  by finding Christ.

  whatever works,

  works.

  it’s not really necessary

  to tremble in the gloom among

  flickering wax candles.

  in general, most people don’t

  think too much about

  death,

  they are too busy fighting

  day to day

  for

  survival.

  when death comes

  it’s not so hard for them—

  weary and worn as they are—

  so they just toss it in,

  leave

  almost as if on a

  vacation.

  to go on

  living is so much

  harder.

  most, given a choice

  between eternal life or

  death,

  will always choose

  the latter.

  which proves

  that

  most people are

  much wiser

  than we

  know.

  FOXHOLES

  yes, 1 know there should be a

  God.

  I remember that

  during World War II there was a

  saying: “there are no atheists in

  foxholes.”

  of course, there were, but I

  suppose not very

  many.

  yet

  the fear of death

  does not always

  compel everyone into accepting a blind

  commonly-held

  belief.

  for those few atheists

  in foxholes perhaps god and

  the war both

  held very little real

  meaning

  no matter what

  the majority

  demanded.

  CALM ELATION, 1993

  sitting here looking at the small wooden gargoyle sitting on my

  desk, it’s a chilly night but the endless rains have stopped

  and I am suspended somewhere between Nirvana

  and nowhere, realizing that I’ve thought too much

  about fate and death and not enough about something sensible,

  like putting some polish on my old shoes. I need more

  sleep but I have this horrible habit of sitting

  up here until dawn, listening to the sirens and the other

  sounds of the night; I should have been one of

  those old guys sitting in a watchtower looking out

  to sea.

  the gargoyle, which looks something like myself, seems

  to say, “you got that right, Henry.”

  this town is drying out, the drunks in

  the bars are talking about the endless rain, about what

  happened to them in the rain, they are full of

  rain stories.

  and now the new president is going to be

  inaugurated and he’s so damn young I could

  be his grandfather, still, he doesn’t seem a bad

  chap but he’s sure inherited a fucking mess.

  well, we’ll see about him and about me and finally

  about you.

  and what about you, little gargoyle, looking at me.

  it’s only January but you’ll be surprised at

  the hells and joys that await us,

  how we are both going to have to

  endure the bad parts and the galling but

  necessary trivial things: a man can

  damn near perish for failure to pay a gas

  bill, get a tooth pulled or replace a leaking

  valve stem on a tire.

  there’s so much crap to be attended to, like it

  or not.

  some just give it all up and go wild

  in some corner;

  I don’t have the guts for that—yet.

  ah, gargoyle, it’s such a puzzle, you’d think

  there’d be more flash, more lightning, more

  miracle but if there is, we are going to have

  to create it ourselves, me, you, others.

  meanwhile, as I said, the whole town is

  drying out and that’s about all we can hope for

  at the moment.

  but we are girding up, pumping our spiritual

  muscles, waiting here in the dream.

  that’s better than not waiting at all, that’s better

  than tossing it in.

  “you got that right, Henry,” the gargoyle seems to say.

  I get a chill, put on a large black sweater,

  sit here, wiggle my toes.

  there is something beautiful about this room.

  sometimes it’s just so perfect, being

  alive,

  sometimes,

  especially while watching a small wooden gargoyle hold

  up its oversized head and stick out its tongue while

  half

  laughing

  now.

  PART 4.

  why do we kill all those christmas trees just

  to celebrate one birthday?

  I HAVE THIS NEW ROOM

  I have this new room where I sit alone and it’s much like all

  the rooms of my past—old mail and papers, candy wrappers, combs, magazines,

  old newspapers and other accumulated trash is scattered about.

  my disorder was never chosen, it just arrived and then it

  stayed.

  there’s never enough time to get things

  right—there are always breakdowns, losses, the hard mathematics of

  confusion and

  disarray.

  we are harrangued by these trivial tasks

  and then there are those other days when it becomes

  impossible even to pay
a gas bill, to answer threats from

  the IRS or call the termite man.

  I have this new room up here but my problem is the same as always: my

  lifelong failure to live peacefully with either the female or the

  universe, it all gets so painful, all so raw with self-abuse,

  attrition, re-

  morse.

  I have this new room up here but I’ve lived in similar rooms in many

  cities. now with the years shot suddenly away, I still sit as determined as ever,

  feeling no different than I did in my youth.

  the rooms always were—still are—best at night: the yellow glow of

  the electric light while thinking and writing. all I’ve ever needed

  was a simple retreat from the galling nonsense of the world.

  I could always handle the worst if I was sometimes allowed

  the briefest respite from the nightmare,

  and the gods, so far, have allowed me

  that.

  I have this new room up here and I sit alone in this floating, smoky, crazy

  space, I am content in this killing field, and my friends, the walls

  embrace me anew.

  my heart can’t laugh but sometimes it smiles

  in the yellow light: to have come this far to

  sit alone

  again

  in this new room up here.

  WRITING

  you begin to smile

  all up and down

  inside

  as the words jump

  from your fingers

  and onto the keys

  and it’s like a

  circus dream:

  you’re the clown, the lion tamer,

  you’re the tiger,

  you’re yourself

  as

  the words leap

  through hoops of fire,

  do triple somersaults

  from trapeze to

  trapeze, then

  embrace the

  Elephant Man

  as

  the poems keep coming,

  one by one

  they slip to

  the floor,

  it’s going hot and good;

  the hours rush past

  and then

  you’re finished,

  move toward the bedroom,

  throw yourself upon the bed

  and sleep your righteous sleep

  here on earth,

  life perfect at last.

  poetry is what happens

  when nothing else

  can.

  HUMAN NATURE

  it has been going on for some time.

  there is this young waitress where I get my coffee

  at the racetrack.

  “how are you doing today?” she asks.

  “winning pretty good,” I reply.

  “you won yesterday, didn’t you?” she

  asks.

  “yes,” I say, “and the day before.”

  I don’t know exactly what it is but I

  believe we must have incompatible

  personalities. there is often a hostile

  undertone to our conversations.

  “you seem to be the only person

  around here who keeps winning,”

  she says, not looking at me,

  not pleased.

  “is that so?” I answer.

  there is something very strange about all

  this: whenever I do lose

  she never seems to be

  there.

  perhaps it’s her day off or sometimes she works

  another counter?

  she bets too and loses.

  she always loses.

  and even though we might have

  incompatible personalities I am sorry for

  her.

  I decide the next time I see her

  I will tell her that I am

  losing.

  so I do.

  when she asks, “how are you doing?”

  I say, “god, I don’t understand it,

  I’m losing, I can’t hit anything, every horse

  I bet runs last!”

  “really?” she asks.

  “really” I say.

  it works.

  she lowers her gaze

  and here comes one of the largest smiles

  I have ever seen, it damn near cracks

  her face wide open.

  I get my coffee, tip her well, walk

  out to check the

  toteboard.

  if I died in a flaming crash on the freeway

  she’d surely be happy for a

  week!

  I take a sip of coffee.

  what’s this?

  she’s put in a large shot of cream!

  she knows I like it black!

  in her excitement,

  she’d forgotten.

  the bitch.

  and that’s what I get for lying.

  NOTATIONS

  words like wine, words like blood, words

  out of the mouths of past loves dead.

  words like bullets, words like bees, words for the

  way the good die and the bad live on.

  words like putting on a shirt.

  words like flowers and words like wolves and

  words like spiders and words like hungry

  dogs.

  words like mine

  gripping the page

  like fingers trying to climb

  an impossible mountain.

  words like a tiger raging in the

  belly.

  words like putting on my shoes.

  words shaking the walls like fire and

  earthquake.

  the early days were good, the middle days

  were better, now is

  best.

  words love me.

  they have chosen me,

  separated me from the

  pack.

  I weep like Li Po

  laugh like Artaud

  write like Chinaski.

  DEMOCRACY

  the problem, of course, isn’t the Democratic System,

  it’s the

  living parts which make up the Democratic System.

  the next person you pass on the street,

  multiply

  him or

  her by

  3 or 4 or 30 or 40 million

  and you will know

  immediately

  why things remain non-functional

  for most of

  us.

  I wish I had a cure for the chess pieces

  we call Humanity …

  we’ve undergone any number of political

  cures

  and we all remain

  foolish enough to hope

  that the one on the way

  NOW

  will cure almost

  everything.

  fellow citizens,

  the problem never was the Democratic

  System, the problem is

  you.

  KRAZNICK

  I met Kraznick in the post office

  and like in any place of dull

  toil and human suffering it was

  the weird and the deformed

  and the witless who always

  buddied-up to me.

  Kraznick talked continually about

  how great he was. he was, apparently, great

  at everything his mind was great.

  his spirit was noble, he would surely write

  the great American novel

  or play, he loved

  Beethoven, hated fags, he was good

  with his fists, he said, but what he

  was really best at, greatest at, was

  sex. he could handle the women!

  actually, Kraznick didn’t look too bad

  from a distance. but I seldom saw him from

  a distance, or if I did he would be

  rushing tow
ard me (he punched in an

  hour later). we clerks would be

  sitting on our stools sticking the

  letters and here he would come:

  “hey, man! I really caught some great head

  today! she was a real pro! I was

  sitting at Schwab’s having a coffee

  and a doughnut and …”

  Kraznick would then talk to me for hours.

  when I got off work my whole body would be

  stiff with the pain of listening. I

  could barely walk or steer my car.

  I’ll keep this short. I got out of

  the post office. Kraznick stayed

  on.

  I’m not certain it was Kraznick but one day

  I was at the racetrack and it looked like

  him. he was leaning against a girder and

  every now and then he would shudder, the

  Racing Form rattled in his hands. I moved

  off quickly. a guy like that could go off at

  3 to 5 and still fall over the

  rail.

  HUNGARIA, SYMPHONIA POEM #9

  by Franz Liszt

  yes, I know that I write many poems but it’s not

  because of ambition, it’s more or less just something

  to do

  while I live out my life

  and

  if I have to write one hundred bad poems to get one good

  one

  I don’t feel that I’m wasting my time

  besides

  I like the rattle of the typewriter, it sounds so professional

  even when

  nothing

  is really happening.

  writing is all I know how to do and

  I much prefer the music of great classical

  composers so

  I always listen to them while I’m typing

  (and when I finally write a good poem

  I’m sure they have much to do with

  it).

  I am listening to a composer now who is taking me completely

  out of this world and suddenly

  I don’t give a damn if I live or die or pay the

  gas bill on time, I

  just want to listen,

  I feel like hugging the radio to my chest so

  that I can be part of the

  music, I mean,

  this actually occurs to me and I wish I could capture

  what I am hearing

  and write it

  into this poem

  now

  but I can’t,

  all I can do is sit and listen and type small

  words as he makes his grand

  immortal

  statement.

  now the music is finished and I stare

  at my hands

  and the typewriter is

  silent

  and suddenly I feel both

  much better

  and far

  worse.

  CLUB HELL, 1942

  the next bottle was all that