behind
and this small creature who knows me so well
crawls all through and over me
Lazarus Lazarus
and I am not ashamed
warrior slammed through by hours and years of
waste
love is like a bell
love is like a purple mountain
love is like a glass of vinegar
love is all the graves
love is a train window
she knows my name.
all the love of me goes out to her (for A.M.)
cleverly armed with arguments to the Pope
I make my way among the non-electric people
to seek reasons for my death and my living;
it is a charming day for those who like the days—
for those who wait upon the night
as I do, then day is shit and shit is for
sewers,
and I open the door of a tiny cafe
and a waitress in dark blue
walks up as if I had ordered her.
“3 pheasants legs,” I tell her,
“the back of a chicken and 2 bottles of fair French
wine.”
she leaves
twitching in her blue
and all the love of me goes out to her
but there is no way,
and I sit looking at the plants
and I say to the plants, with my mind,
can’t you love me?
can’t something happen here?
must the sidewalks always be sidewalks, must the generals
continue to laugh in their dreams,
must it always continue to be
that nothing is true?
I look to my left and see a man picking his nose;
he slides the residue under a
chair; quite true, I think, there’s your
truth, and there’s your love:
snot hardening under a chair during
hot nights when hell comes up and simply
spits all over
you.
plants, I say, can’t you?
and I break off part of an elephant leaf
and the whole ceiling splits apart
heaven is a stairway down,
the waitress walks up and says,
“will that be all, sir?”
and I say, “yes, thank you, that is
enough.”
an answer to a critic of sorts
a lady will perhaps meet a man
because of the way he writes
and soon the lady might be suggesting
another way of writing.
but if the man loves the lady
he will continue to write the way he does
and if the man loves the poem
he will continue to write the way he must
and if the man loves the lady and the poem
he knows what love is
twice as much as any other man
I know what love is.
this poem is to tell the lady that.
the shower
we like to shower afterwards
(I like the water hotter than she)
and her face is always soft and peaceful
and she’ll wash me first
spread the soap over my balls
lift the balls
squeeze them,
then wash the cock:
“hey, this thing is still hard!”
then get all the hair down there—
the belly, the back, the neck, the legs,
I grin grin grin,
and then I wash her . . .
first the cunt, I
stand behind her, my cock in the cheeks of her ass
I gently soap up the cunt hairs,
wash there with a soothing motion,
I linger perhaps longer than necessary,
then I get the backs of the legs, the ass,
the back, the neck, I turn her, kiss her,
soap up the breasts, get them and the belly, the neck,
the fronts of the legs, the ankles, the feet,
and then the cunt, once more, for luck . . .
another kiss, and she gets out first,
toweling, sometimes singing while I stay in
turn the water on hotter
feeling the good times of love’s miracle
I then get out . . .
it is usually mid-afternoon and quiet,
and getting dressed we talk about what else
there might be to do,
but being together solves most of it,
in fact, solves all of it
for as long as those things stay solved
in the history of woman and
man, it’s different for each
better and worse for each—
for me, it’s splendid enough to remember
past the marching of armies
and the horses that walk the streets outside
past the memories of pain and defeat and unhappiness:
Linda, you brought it to me,
when you take it away
do it slowly and easily
make it as if I were dying in my sleep instead of in
my life, amen.
2 carnations
my love brought me 2 carnations
my love brought me red
my love brought me her
my love told me not to worry
my love told me not to die
my love is 2 carnations on a table
while listening to Schoenberg
on an evening darkening into night
my love is young
the carnations burn in the dark;
she is gone leaving the taste of almonds
her body tastes like almonds
2 carnations burning red
as she sits far away
now dreaming of china dogs
tinkling through her fingers
my love is ten thousand carnations burning
my love is a hummingbird sitting that quiet moment
on the bough
as the same cat
crouches.
have you ever kissed a panther?
this woman thinks she’s a panther
and sometimes when we are making love
she’ll snarl and spit
and her hair comes down
and she looks out from the strands
and shows me her fangs
but I kiss her anyhow and continue to love.
have you ever kissed a panther?
have you ever seen a female panther enjoying
the act of love?
you haven’t loved, friend.
you with your little dyed blondes
you with your squirrels and chipmunks
and elephants and sheep.
you ought to sleep with a panther
you’ll never again want
squirrels, chipmunks, elephants, sheep, fox,
wolverines,
never anything but the female panther
the female panther walking across the room
the female panther walking across your soul;
all other love songs are lies
when that black smooth fur moves against you
and the sky falls down against your back,
the female panther is the dream arrived real
and there’s no going back
or wanting to—
the fur up against you,
the search is over
as your cock moves against the edge of Nirvana
and you are locked against the eyes of a panther.
the best love poem I can write at the moment
listen, I told her,
why don’t you stick your tongue
up my
ass?
no, she said.
well, I said, if I stick my tongue
up your ass first
then will you stick your tongue
up my
&nb
sp; ass?
all right, she said.
I got my head down there
and looked around,
I opened a section,
then moved my tongue forward . . .
not there, she said,
o, hahaha, not there, that’s not
the right place!
you women have more holes than
swiss cheese . . .
I don’t want you
to do
it.
why?
well, then I’ll have to do it
back and then at the next party
you’ll tell people I licked your ass
with my tongue.
suppose I promise not to
tell?
you’ll get drunk, you’ll
tell.
o.k., I said, roll over,
I’ll stick it in the
other place.
she rolled over and I stuck my tongue
in that other place.
we were in love
we were in love
except with what I said at
parties
and we were not in love
with each other’s
assholes.
she wants me to write a love poem
but I think if people
can’t love each other’s
assholes
and farts and shits and terrible parts
just like they love
the good parts,
that ain’t complete love.
so as far as love poems go
as far as we have gone,
this poem will have to
do.
balling
balling
balling like the mule
balling like the ox
balling balling balling
balling like the pigeons
balling like the pigs
how does one become a flower
pollinated by the winds and the bees?
balling at midnight
balling at 4 a.m.
balling on Tuesday
balling on Wednesday
balling like a bleeding bull
balling like a submarine
balling like a taffy bar
balling like the senseless cavity of doom
balling balling balling,
I plunge my white whip in
feeling her eyes roll in glory,
o balls, o trumpet and balls
o white whip and balls, o
balls,
I could go on forever balling
on top
on bottom
sideways
drunk sober sad happy angry
balling,
an intensity of admixture:
2 souls stuck together
spurting . . .
balling makes everything better.
those who do not ball do not know.
those who cannot ball are half-dead.
those who cannot find somebody to ball are in hell.
I sleep with my balls in my hand so nobody will steal them.
may the entire air be clean with flowers and trees and bulls.
may some of the justice of our living be the song of the body.
may each of our deaths and half-deaths be as easy as
possible now.
meanwhile, o balls, o balls, o bells, o balls of bells, bells
of balls, o balls balling balls o balling balls of mine and
yours and theirs and them and ours forever and the day
tonight and Tuesday Wednesday of the crying grave, I love
you
ladies, I love you.
hot
she was hot, she was so hot
I didn’t want anybody else to have her,
and if I didn’t get home on time
she’d be gone, and I couldn’t bear that—
I’d go mad . . .
it was foolish I know, childish,
but I was caught in it, I was caught.
I delivered all the mail
and then Henderson put me on the night pickup run
in an old army truck,
the damn thing began to heat halfway through the run
and the night went on
me thinking about my hot Miriam
and jumping in and out of the truck
filling mailsacks
the engine continuing to heat up
the temperature needle was at the top
HOT HOT
like Miriam.
I leaped in and out
3 more pickups and into the station
I’d be, my car
waiting to get me to Miriam who sat on my blue couch
with scotch on the rocks
crossing her legs and swinging her ankles
like she did,
2 more stops . . .
the truck stalled at a traffic light, it was hell
kicking it over
again . . .
I had to be home by 8, 8 was the deadline for Miriam.
I made the last pickup and the truck stalled at a signal
½ block from the station . . .
it wouldn’t start, it couldn’t start . . .
I locked the doors, pulled the key and ran down to the
station . . .
I threw the keys down . . . signed out . . .
“your god damned truck is stalled at the signal,
Pico and Western . . .”
. . . I ran down the hall, put the key into the door,
opened it . . . her drinking glass was there, and a note:
sun of a bitch:
I wated until 5 after ate
you don’t love me
you sun of a bitch
somebody will love me
I been wateing all day
Miriam
I poured a drink and let the water run into the tub
there were 5,000 bars in town
and I’d make 25 of them
looking for Miriam
her purple teddy bear held the note
as he leaned against a pillow
I gave the bear a drink, myself a drink
and got into the hot
water.
smiling, shining, singing
my daughter looked like a very young Katharine Hepburn
at the grammar school Christmas presentation.
she stood there with them
smiling, shining, singing
in the long dress I had bought for her.
she looks like Katharine Hepburn, I told her mother
who sat on my left.
she looks like Katharine Hepburn, I told my girlfriend
who sat on my right.
my daughter’s grandmother was another seat away;
I didn’t tell her anything.
I never did like Katharine Hepburn’s acting,
but I liked the way she looked,
class, you know,
somebody you could talk to in bed
with an hour and a half before going to
sleep.
I can see that my daughter is going to be a most
beautiful woman.
someday when I get old enough
she’ll probably bring me the bedpan with a most
kindly smile.
and she’ll probably marry a truckdriver with a very
heavy walk
who bowls every Thursday night
with the boys.
well, all that doesn’t matter.
what matters is now.
her grandmother is a great hawk of a woman.
her mother is a psychotic liberal and lover of life.
her father is a drunk.
my daughter looked like a very young Katharine Hepburn.
after the Christmas presentation
we went to McDonald’s and ate, and fed the sparrows.
Christmas was a week away.
we were less worried about that than nine-tenths
of the town.
that’s class, we both have class.
to ignore life at the proper time takes a special wisdom:
like a Happy New Year to
you all.
visit to Venice
we took a walk along the shore at Venice
the hippies sitting waiting on Nirvana
some of them flogging bongos,
the last of the old Jewish ladies waiting to die
waiting to follow their husbands so long gone,
the sea rolled in and out,
we got tired and stretched out on some lawn
and my 8 year old daughter ran her fingers through
my beard, saying, “Hank, it’s getting whiter and
whiter!” I laughed straight up into the sky, she was
so funny. then she touched my mustache, “It’s getting
white too.” I laughed again. “How about my eyebrows?”
I asked. “There’s one there. It’s half white and half
red.”
“yeah?” “yes.”
I closed my eyes a moment. she ran her fingers through my
hair. “But there’s no white in your hair, Hank. Not one
hair is white . . .”
“No, here by the right ear,” I said, “it’s starting.”
we got up and continued our walk to the car.
“Frances has all white hair,” she said.
“Yes,” I said, “but it’s those 5 long white hairs that
hang from her chin that don’t look too well.”
“Is that why you left each other?”
“No, she claimed I went to bed with another woman.”
“Did you?”
“Look how high the sky is!”
the sea rolled in and out.
“She won’t get any men to kiss her with those 5 white hairs
on her chin.”
“But she does!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Well, not too many . . .”
“50,000?”
“Oh, no . . .”
“5?”
“Yes, 5. One man for each hair.”
we got back into the car and I drove her back to
her mother.
love poem to Marina
my girl is 8
and that’s old enough to know