coming
up the walk.
then there was only silence
so I took a hit of my
drink and typed
some more.
suddenly there was a
crash and
the breaking of
glass
and
a large rock
rolled
across the rug
and stopped
just next to
where I was
sitting.
I heard high heels
running back
down the walk,
then
the sound
of a car
starting,
then
driving off with
a
roar.
a pane of glass was
missing
from the
front door.
Sandra phoned
two nights later.
“how are you doing?”
“fine.”
“why don’t you ask me
how I’m
doing?”
“o.k., all right, how
are you
doing?”
“YOU ROTTEN SON OF
A BITCH!” she
screamed and
hung up.
however
this time
there was somebody
there with me.
“who was that?”
she asked.
“a voice from the
past.”
“oh, well,
may we continue with
our
interview?
what is the principal
inspiration for your
poetry?”
“fucking.”
“what?”
“FUCKING,” I repeated
loudly,
then walked over
and
refilled her shaking
drink.
INTO THE WASTEBASKET
my father liked to pretend he
would some day be wealthy,
he always voted Republican
and he told me that
if I worked hard
every day of my life that
I would be amply
rewarded.
on those occasions
when my father had a
job he worked hard, he
worked so hard that nobody
could stand him.
“what’s the matter with that
man? is he crazy?”
my father was a sweating
red-faced
angry
man
and it seemed that the
harder he tried
the poorer he
became.
his blood pressure
rose
and his heartbeat was
irregular.
he smoked Camels and
Pall Malls and
half-full packs were scattered
everywhere.
he was asleep by
8 p.m. and up at
5 a.m. and
he tended to scream at and
beat his wife and
child.
he died early.
and after his funeral
I sat in the bedroom of his empty
house
smoking his last pack of
Pall Malls.
he believed that there was
only one formula, one way:
his.
it wasn’t shameful for him to
die, it was his unbending attitude
toward life
that bothered me
and I spoke to him
about it once
and told him
that life was just
rather sad and
empty
and all we could hope
for
was to enjoy a few moments
of peace and quiet
amidst the
turmoil.
“you just sit on your
ass,” he replied, “you and
your mouth!
well, I say the answer is
‘a good day’s
work for a good day’s
pay!’”
come to think of it,
if I was unhappy
it wasn’t completely
my father’s fault
and after I smoked the last
Pall Mall cigarette
in that last pack
I threw it away
and then
he too was finally
gone
for
good.
IT’S OVER AND DONE
sensibly adorned with its iron cross
the red fokker sails my brain
and
as my father opens a door from hell and screams my name
up from below
I know that it is time to
accept what is true:
while there can be no reconciliation
between us
to carp about old wounds is a stupid waste of the heart.
sensibly adorned with its iron cross
the red fokker flies away
and disappears over Brazil
and I close my eyes
as
the light fails in the eye of the falcon,
and the useless anger of the living
for the dead
is
lost
forever.
NICE GUY
I broke his bank, totaled his car and slept with
his wife.
of course, everybody was sleeping with his
wife but a nicer guy you never
met.
T.K. Kemper played a couple of years with
the Green Bay Packers
then a bad knee got him.
he went into automotive repair,
did very good work.
he was a
lousy card player though; we’d get him
drunk and take it all from
him,
his wife lurking in the background, her tits
hanging out.
T.K. Kemper.
big, big guy.
hands like hams.
honest blue eyes.
give you the shirt off his back.
give you his back if he could.
one night after work he saw two punks
snatch a purse from an old
lady.
he ran after them trying to get that purse
back.
he was gaining on them when
one of the punks turned, had a gun, fired
5 shots.
he was a big, big guy.
he caught all 5 shots, hit the pavement
hard, didn’t move.
there was a good crowd at the funeral.
his wife cried.
my friend Eddie consoled her,
then took her home and fucked
her.
T.K. Kemper.
bad knee.
good heart.
he was not meant for this indifferent world.
only with supreme luck did he last
29 years.
FEET TO THE FIRE
June, late night, common pain like a rat trapped in
the gut, how brave we are to continue walking through this terrible
flame
as
the sun stuns us
as a dark flood envelops us as
we go on our way—
filling the gas tank, flushing toilets, paying bills—as we
float in our pain
kick our feet
wiggle our toes
while listening to inept melodies
that float in the air
as the agony now eats the soul.
yes, I think we’re admirable and brave but we should ha
ve
quit
long ago, don’tcha
think?
yet
here we sit
uncorking a new
bottle and listening to
Shostakovitch.
we’ve died so many times now that we can only wonder why we still
care.
so
I pour this drink for
all of us
and
pour another
for
myself.
THE POETRY GAME
the boys
are playing the poetry game
again
putting down
meaningless lines
and
passing them off as art
again.
the boys
are on the telephone
again
writing letters
again
to the publishers and
editors
telling them
who to edit and who to
publish.
the boys
know that either you
belong or you
don’t.
there’s a way to do it
you see
and
only a few know how to
do it
the right way.
all the others
are out
and
if you don’t know
who’s out
or
who’s in
well
the boys
will tell you
again.
the boys
have been around a
long time:
for a couple of
centuries
at least.
and before some of
the old boys
die
they pass their wisdom on
to the younger
boys
so they can put down
meaningless lines
and
pass them off as art
again.
THE FIX IS IN
children in the school yard, the horrors they must
endure as they are first shaped for life to come and then
handed a hopeless future consisting of:
false hope
cheap patriotism
minimum-wage jobs
(or no
job at all)
mortgages and car payments
an indifferent government—
the days, nights, years all finally pointing to the
dissolution of any possible
chance.
as I wait in the car wash for my automobile
I watch the children in the school yard to the west
playing at recess.
then a little old man waves a
rag and whistles.
my car is
ready.
I walk to my car, tip the old
fellow: “how’s it
going?”
“o.k.,” he answers, “I’m hoping for it to
rain.”
just then the school bell rings and the children stop
playing and troop into the large brick
building.
“I hope it rains too,”
I say as I climb in and drive
away.
PHOTOS
I have a photo of Baron Manfred Von Richthofen
standing with his buddies
and there’s his fighter plane in the background
and further down on the wall
there’s a photo of a red
three-winged fokker in
flight.
the few people who come into this
room (where I
work at night)
have seen these things
but don’t say
anything.
that’s o.k.
but between you and me
things like that
got me through a childhood
that was less than
pleasant.
after that, it was then up to
me.
but I still don’t mind having old
friends
like this
still hanging around.
TONIGHT
so many of my brain cells eaten away by
alcohol
I sit here drinking now
all of my drinking partners dead,
I scratch my belly and dream of the
albatross.
I drink alone now.
I drink with myself and to myself.
I drink to my life and to my death.
my thirst is still not satisfied.
I light another cigarette, turn the
bottle slowly, admire
it.
a fine companion.
years like this.
what else could I have done
and done so well?
I have drunk more than the first
one hundred men you will pass
on the street
or see in the madhouse.
I scratch my belly and dream of the
albatross.
I have joined the great drunks of
the centuries.
I have been selected.
I stop now, lift the bottle, swallow a
mighty mouthful.
impossible for me to think that
some have actually stopped and
become sober
citizens.
it saddens me.
they are dry, dull, safe.
I scratch my belly and dream of the
albatross.
this room is full of me and I am
full.
I drink this one to all of you
and to me.
it is past midnight now and a lone
dog howls in the
night.
and I am as young as the fire that still
burns
now.
A VISITOR COMPLAINS
I
“hey, man,” he said, “I liked your poems better when you were
puking and living with whores and hitting the bars and ending
up in the drunk tank and getting into alley fights.”
then
he went on to talk about and read his own down-to-earth
poems.
II
what some poets and pundits don’t realize is how ridiculous it is
to cling forever to the same subject
matter.
in time the whores wear thin: their hard
vision, their curses, their tiny endearments become more than
deadly.
and as for puking you can soon get too much of
that
especially when it leads to a stinking bed in the
charity ward.
and as for alley fights I was never too good a
warrior, I was only seeing if I had a touch of courage—
I found some, and finding that, there was no further need to
explore.
I mean, you can describe a harsh lifestyle in your poems but sooner
or later you will find it’s time to move on. if you hang on
too long the subject matter gets thin and tiresome and, yes,
I still love my booze but
I can pass on the whores, the bars and the drunk tanks without feeling that
I have sold my god-damned soul down the bloody dung-filled
river.
some pundits would be delighted if my poems again found me
in some skid row alley with
face bashed in and the flies swarming the emptiness of me.
some pundits
need Van Gogh madness and Mozart suffering to feed on
or
Dostoevsky with his back to the firing wall.
some pundits consider misfortune t
o be the
only viable art –
form.
as for Van Gogh, Mozart, Dostoevsky, etc.
I say that they did neither choose nor welcome their
pain and suffering.
III
of course, I didn’t tell this to my poet-visitor
he was too busy
belching and farting and woofing and poofing
gurgling the libations I offered him
as he read me his own exploits in the almighty
gutter
which were hardly believable
and bordered on farce.
that loud voice
those hairy eyebrows
that delight in personal misfortune—
as if living badly was a triumph and
a very proud
accomplishment.
his feet planted flat upon my floor
he gave me the gut-pain he claimed was so very
necessary and
grand.
BESIEGED
you see, this wall is green and that wall is
blue and the 3rd wall has eyes and
the last wall is crawling with angry famished
spiders.
no, that wall is a sheet of frozen water
and the other is one of melting wax
and the 3rd frames my grandmother’s face
and from the 4th spills the bones of my father.
outside is the city, the city outside, a thing that
creeps to the call of bells and lights,
the city is an open grave,
so I never dare to venture forth but
rather remain and hide within
disconnect the phone
lower the shades and
cut the
lights.
the city is more cruel than the walls
and finally the walls are all we have
and
almost nothing is
far better than
nothing at
all.
THE NOVICE
early one morning, during the Depression,
in the railroad yard, when I was 20 years old,
I walked alone along the Union Pacific tracks.
I was apprehensive as
on the first day on that job
I walked to where we all checked in.
3 dark figures stood in the way
expressionless faces
legs spread a bit;
as I got closer one of them grabbed his crotch
the other 2 leered;
I walked quickly up to them and
at the last moment they parted.
I walked past them
stopped and
turned: “I’ll take on any one of you
one at a time.
anybody
want to try it now?”
nobody moved
nobody spoke
I walked over
found my timecard in the rack and
punched in.
the foreman came over
his face even uglier than mine.
he said: “listen, we do our work around here
we don’t want any trouble-makers.”
I went to work.
later while I was scrubbing down a boxcar
with water and an oakite brush