to do with
anything.
especially with writing.
but people keep asking foolish
questions,
don’t
they?
BORN AGAIN
this special place of ourselves
sometimes explodes in our
faces.
I got a flat on the freeway yesterday,
changed the right rear wheel on the
shoulder,
the big rigs storming by,
slamming the sky
against my head and
body.
it felt like I was clinging to the
edge of the earth,
30 minutes late for the first
post.
but strangely, something
about the experience
was very much like emerging reluctantly
a second time
from my
mother’s womb.
CARD GIRLS
at the prizefights
between each round a card girl
climbs up into the ring
holding up a card to
indicate the number of the next
round.
the yowling of the men is
hardly to be
believed.
here were brave fighters
putting their lives and guts
on the line
and the crowd responds much more
enthusiastically
to female
ass.
why not give the crowd just one
card girl after another and
forget all about the fighters?
then those men could simply sit and
fantasize about having one
of those card girls
all to himself
in his bedroom.
he then would not have
to deal with such things
as PMS, relatives, self-love,
ambition, the fact that she
was only a bundle of intestine and
other sundry parts, or remember that
card girls must be faithfully and
continually adored
for the beauty they had never
earned.
yes, give them each a card girl
forever shaking her butt,
each man with a card girl
in his bedroom forever
fucking her forever
bang bang bang
nothing but that—
no fights, no farts, no
dark nights, no cousins, no mothers,
no other lovers, no pregnancies, no
madness while gradually growing
old, no toothaches, no snoring,
no dull endless tv nights,
just one perfect card girl for each
man,
bang, bang, bang,
sperm and endless desire and the dream
forever, one card girl for each
horny man, forget the fighters,
forget everything
else!
yeah.
I left while the last fight
was still in progress,
the 6 card girls
sitting in their folding
chairs, their faces
somehow looking
more beautiful than ever
but
mirroring a horror to
come.
outside as I moved to
my car
the night was clear and crisp and
real.
well, I thought, maybe you’re
just too old to understand.
I smiled at that as I slid
my key into
the car
door.
IT’S NEVER BEEN SO GOOD
it isn’t mentioned
too often
but in the old West
many men were simply shot in
the back.
this matter of bravely facing
each other
in the street
and drawing their guns
was
rare.
the best shooter was
usually
the one who
pulled his gun and
fired first
while the other was
having a drink
or eating
or playing cards
or bedded down with
a lady
or
otherwise
occupied.
“dead men don’t talk,”
they used to
say.
in the new West
things haven’t changed
at all
just the weaponry:
now they can get in 17 or 18
or
more
shots in the back
quicker than you can say
holy
shit.
GOADING THE MUSE
this man used to be an
interesting writer,
he was able to say brisk and
refreshing things.
at the time
I suggested to the editors and
the critics that he was one to
be watched
and also that he had hardly yet been
noticed
and that he certainly should now be
noticed.
this writer used some of my
remarks as blurbs for his
books, which I didn’t
mind.
all of his publications were little
chapbooks, 16 to 32
pages,
mimeographed.
they came out at a
rapid rate,
perhaps three or four a
year.
the problem was that each
chapbook seemed a little weaker
than the one that preceded
it
but he continued to use my old
blurbs.
my wife noticed the change
in his writing
too.
“what’s happened to his
writing?” she asked me.
“he’s doing too much of it, he’s
pushing it out, forcing it.”
“this stuff is bad, you ought to
tell him to stop using your
blurbs.”
“I can’t do that, I just wish he
wouldn’t publish so much.”
“well, you publish all the
time too.”
“with me,” I told her, “it’s
different.”
yesterday I received another of his
little chapbooks
with his delicate dedication scrawled
on the title page.
this latest effort was totally
flat.
the words just fell off the
page,
dead on
arrival.
where had he gone?
too much ambition?
too much just doing it for the sake
of doing it?
just not waiting for the words to
pile up inside and then
explode of their own
volition?
I decided then I should take a whole week
off,
be on the safe side,
just shut the computer down,
forget the whole damned silly
business
for awhile.
as I said, that was
yesterday.
THE WAVERING LINE
I don’t know where they come from,
the veterans’ home probably.
they’re old, mostly bald, tanned, macho but
somehow sexless.
the sex drive is no longer a part
of the equation as
they sit at the track in the sun,
arguing abo
ut their bets, talking and
laughing.
sometimes between races they
discuss sports: which is the best?
the best baseball team? the best
hockey team? the best basketball or
football team? amateurs and
professionals are discussed, and then
who’s the best player at each
position?
they often become angry and shout
at one another.
they wear tired clothing, greys and
browns, they wear heavy shoes and
each sports a large wristwatch,
and while other men only
slightly younger than themselves still must
fight for survival
in the arena of daily existence
they sit about and argue
whether the screen pass is still
an effective offensive weapon in professional
football.
they bet, first gathering in front of the
window, arguing, making last minute
adjustments, then one of them bets for
all of them.
after the races end each
evening they leave,
a wavering line,
some stumbling a bit as if
they were tripping over their own
feet.
now they look worn and done,
defeated.
“shit, this god-damned place, catch
me here again and you can belt-whip me
until I sing Dixie!”
“yeah, sure, Marty, you’ll be back tomorrow.”
“naw. fuck this place!”
the next afternoon they are all back,
somehow they’ve found a small supply of
new money—they will pool it and their brains
and do it all over again today.
they are suddenly serious, studying their
Racing Forms.
they bet the first two races and things go
wrong. the conversation jumps angrily from
horses to sports and the screaming
begins:
“YEAH, YOU KNOW WHAT? I’LL BET YOU
NEVER HEARD OF CRAZYLEGS
HIRSCH!”
“I SAW HIM, MAN! I SAW HIM PLAY!”
“YEAH? WELL, I SAW JIM THORPE!”
“YEAH? YOU SAW JIM THORPE JUST LIKE YOU
GOT LAID LAST NIGHT!”
“YEAH, I NOTICE YOU CAN HARDLY SIT DOWN TODAY!
DID YOU GET LAID LAST NIGHT?”
“I’LL KNOCK YOUR GOD-DAMNED HEAD OFF!”
the combat never evolves and that’s all well
and good, for they are fine fellows, we
need them like we need the Sierra Madre mountains
choking behind us in the smog, like we need
Willie Shoemaker legging it up on just
one more winner, and we need them to help us
forget all the things that haven’t worked out for us
in the past, especially all the bad bets
what counts is to endure, what counts
is not to remember that the whole western slope
of the U.S.A. is going to fall into the Pacific Ocean
one day soon
and that there was never any real need to cultivate your
garden or to send your daughter to
Radcliffe.
I like to watch those fellows, they are
like a Broadway musical, only it’s not
Guys and Dolls it’s Guys and Guys, they
are all fine fellows, the wavering line of
them, and even the most beautiful woman in the
world would mean nothing to them
because they have learned the hard way
that that kind of thing only
exists for other people, and there’s
just no use wondering how things got that way or
why.
I watch the best Broadway musical
every day from the best seat in the
house and I am the author and the critic and the
audience and sometimes I’m on stage
too.
THE ROAD TO HELL
if only there were more magic people
to help us get through
this strange life.
surprisingly there are a few.
the problem being that often
their magic doesn’t hold up
for long
mainly
because they begin to
think it’s because
they are special
when really
it’s almost an off-hand thing
like some damned crazy unearned
gift.
and when the magic people
begin to misuse their
prowess
begin to use it
in the wrong ways
then
it
vanishes
and
that’s a
LAW
and
it’s one of the most
unalterable laws
of the gods and the
universe
and there is
nothing sadder
or more
frightening
than the once-gifted ones
still trying to work their
magic
for the
crowd
which never offers,
but only
accepts,
mercy.
CRUCIFIXION
now we must select with extreme caution our lovers,
water, foodstuffs and even our invisible
air.
it is a very careful time.
our politicians consider ways to dismantle
the worldwide stockpile of bombs
all too late, of course, since it only takes one fool to
push one button
somewhere.
we draw close together, frightened, searching for a return
to a safe
womb.
but we must have been wrong for too long. the asylums overflow and spill their
detritus into our streets
and where our leaders once spoke wisely
they now speak gibberish—
they stop, then continue, look about, addled,
substituting insane slogans for real
speech.
this is the price we now pay: we can’t go
back, we can’t go forward and we hang helpless, nailed to a
world
of our own
making.
BARFLY
Jane, who has been dead for 31 years,
never could have
imagined that I would write a screenplay of our drinking
days together
and
that it would be made into a movie
and
that a beautiful movie star would play her
part.
I can hear Jane now: “A beautiful movie star? oh,
for Christ’s sake!”
Jane, that’s show biz, so go back to sleep, dear, because
no matter how hard they tried they
just couldn’t find anybody exactly like
you.
and neither can
I.
PART 2.
bone-dead sorrows
like starfish washed ashore.
THOUGHTS WHILE EATING A SANDWICH
we demand that our leaders possess
a certain clever charm, a certain mild wisdom, but no madness,
at least not madness at its
best.
maybe the energy is just not there anymore, maybe
not only is the air polluted, maybe the brain has been
poisoned, maybe the human spirit has been
diluted down to a dim imitation of
itself
until anybody who appears half-right half-the-time is
almost always accepted as our new
hero-leader.
it is more and more difficult—no, it’s just damned
impossible—to accept and admire those who are
deemed great in our time.
they all
are suspect
they all seem to lack:
nobility
originality
intelligence
honesty
and especially that which is most needed:
a simple, good heart.
just bones and more bones
bleaching in the sun.
they say that nothing is wasted:
either that
or
it all is.
NOTHING’S FREE
got this letter
where she wrote:
I’m not going to do the obvious and
throw in a photo
but don’t worry
I’ve got a BODY
and the face
is not so bad
either.
anyhow, I really admire
your books although
I just discovered them
recently.
you see I am
only 18 years old but
I’d like to be your
secretary
kind of keep house for you
answer the phone
all that
and just room and board
would do—
no salary
and
I wouldn’t ask you
for sex
unless you asked me
first …
you can be sure
I tossed that letter
into the
trash can
right away.
WHAT BOTHERS THEM MOST
Sandra used to phone me almost
nightly.
“what are you doing?”
“nothing.”
“you mean, you aren’t with
anybody yet?”
“no.”
“why not?”
“who needs it?”
(I hang up)
they simply never understand,
do they,
that sometimes solitude is
one of the most beautiful things
on earth?
(then the phone rings again,
a few nights later)
“well, are you with anybody yet?”
“no.”
“why don’t you ask me if I’m
with somebody?”
“are you with somebody?”
“not now, but I’ve been going out
with Tim.”
“Tim’s a good guy, tell him
I said ‘hello’.”
(I hang up)
I found my nights to be perfectly
pleasant and the day as pleasant
too.
I typed and laughed my ass
off
then strapped it back on and
typed some
more.
one night
while I was
typing and
laughing my ass off
I heard high heels