wrong and only realize that two weeks
later;
or how your boyfriend screwed you from
behind as you raced his motorcycle;
or how she gave you a blow job at
midnight as you drove her car
somewhere through the Arizona desert.
the personal would be all right if it was
better told
but all these little poems
are just like listening to
somebody blowing wind your way
from the next
barstool.
which reminds me:
there was this night when I was sitting
in a bar and …
HOW TO GET AWAY?
things have never been
good
and they don’t intend to
get better,
and the curious thing
is
that the same horrors that
plagued you in childhood
continue
in different ways,
with different faces
that speak
with the same
voice, the same
complaints, the same
hatreds,
the same cruel
demands:
how easily these faces
grow angry
over the slightest
triviality
and how
joyless, how
consistently, grimly,
joyless these faces
are, it’s as if your father
or some implacable enemy
had come back now
with another
face, now more
vengeful
than ever.
must we go to the grave
having been
forever followed
by vengeful
faces?
THE DIFFICULTY OF BREATHING
small
unnerving occurrences
keep
coming up
one
after the other:
haphazard
dumb
accidents of
freakish
chance—
the tiring tasks
that are part
of our routine
and the
sundry other
ever-recurring
annoyances—
all these
inevitable
small defeats
and sorrows
rub and push
continually
up against
the
moments
the days
the years
until
one almost
wishes
almost
begs for
a larger
more meaningful
destiny.
I can
almost understand
why
people
leap
from
bridges.
I even
understand
in part those
people who
arm themselves
and
slaughter their
friends and innocent
strangers.
I am
not exactly
in sympathy
with them
and I decry
their reckless behavior
but I can
understand
the
ultimate
undeniable
persistent
force of
their
misery.
the horrific violent
failure
of any one
of us
to live properly
says to me that
we are all equally
guilty
for every human
crime.
there are
no
innocents.
and if there is
no
hell,
those who coldly
judge these
unfortunates
will
create
one for us
all.
HELP WANTED AND RECEIVED
I’m stale sitting here
at this typewriter, the door open on my
little balcony when suddenly there is a roar in the sky,
Bruckner shouts back from
the radio and then the rain comes down glorious and violent,
and I realize that
it’s good that the world can explode this way
because now
I am renewed, listening and watching as
droplets of rain splash on my wristwatch.
the torrent of rain clears my brain and my
spirit
as
a long line of blue lightning splits
the night sky.
I smile inside, remembering that
someone once said, “I’d rather be lucky than good,” and I quickly
think, “I’d rather be lucky and good”
as tonight
as Bruckner sets the tone
as the hard rain continues to fall
as another blue streak of lightning
explodes in the sky
I’m grateful that for the moment I’m
both.
HEART IN THE CAGE
frenzy in the marketplace.
cities burn.
the world shakes and calls for
democracy.
democracy doesn’t work.
Christianity doesn’t work.
nor Atheism.
nothing works but the gun
and the man on
top.
the centuries change and
Man remains the
same.
love buckles and dissolves:
hatred is the only
reality
on continents and in
rooms of two
people.
nothing works but the gun
and the man on
top.
all else is
meaningless.
frenzy in the marketplace.
cities burn
to be rebuilt to
burn again.
democracy doesn’t work.
Christianity doesn’t work.
nor Atheism.
it’s just the gun,
the gun and the man on
top.
PLACES TO DIE AND PLACES TO HIDE
not a chance.
nothing.
put your shoes on,
take them off.
ride a bicycle through a park in Paris.
read the great works of our time.
nothing.
watch the trapeze artist fall to his death.
no chance.
blink your eyes, scratch your nose.
nothing.
sit in the dentist’s chair and stare into the face of God.
nothing.
watch the 6 horse break from the gate like a cannonball.
no chance,
the 8 horse has its number.
no chance in Vegas.
no chance in Monte Carlo.
no chance here in Southern California.
no hope at the North Pole.
put your shoes on,
take them off.
nothing.
the windows shine in the black morning
a Chinese Jew shivers in the frost.
I bury my father in a green cloak.
no chance.
I can’t endure the odds but I must.
it’s inbred,
I’m stuck.
there are my shoes under the bed.
look at them.
cold, dead with laces.
no chance.
the sadness roars, leaps at the walls.
one of my cats stares at something unseen.
I smile, nod.
nothing.
nothing new.
I rip the cellophane off my cigar.
nothing happens.
all of civilization collapses like a mighty wave.
a moth tentatively enters the room.
the music stops.
POEM FOR THE YOUNG AND TOUGH
yes, it’s true—I’m mellowing.
in the old days
to cross my room you’d have to
step around and between
discarded trash and empty
bottles but
now the trash is
packed neatly into
sturdy garbage cans;
also I’m a good citizen, I save
my bottles for the city of Los
Angeles to
recycle
and I haven’t been in a drunk
tank for a good ten
years.
boring, isn’t it?
but not for me as I now
stay in at night,
listen to
Mahler and watch the walls
dance;
as a newly mellow recluse that’s good enough
for me.
so I’m turning the streets back over
to you,
tough guy.
OW
whenever I see a photo of myself
I think,
Jesus Christ, look at that ugly
bloated
whale of a fish!
no wonder I had such a problem
getting them
from the couch to the
bedroom
and had to get
myself
drunk
before attempting
it.
MY DOOM SMILES AT ME—
there’s no other way:
8 or ten poems a
night.
in the sink
behind me are dishes
that haven’t been
washed in 2
weeks.
the sheets need
changing
and the bed is
unmade.
half the lights are
burned-out here.
it gets darker
and darker
(I have replacement
bulbs but can’t get them
out of their cardboard
wrapper.) Despite my
dirty shorts in the
bathtub
and the rest of my dirty
laundry on the
bedroom floor,
they haven’t
come for me yet
with their badges and
their rules and their
numb ears. oh, them
and their caprice!
like the fox
I run with the hunted and
if I’m not the happiest
man on earth I’m surely the
luckiest man
alive.
HEY, KAFKA!
tonight,
in this very dark
night,
looking out the window
at the lights in the
harbor,
there’s very little to
think about or
do.
I smile, looking at
my hands—
I always had small
hands.
now
day by day
they seem to be
growing
larger.
is it some type of terrible
disease?
alone in the room
I laugh
loudly
at the thought of
my hands
growing so
LARGE
that they can’t
fit all of me
into my
casket.
what a delightful frightening
thought!
“what’s wrong with this
son of a bitch? his
hands are the size of
his body!”
then
I forget all that and
look out at the lights
again.
A STRANGE VISIT
20 years ago when
I was a starving writer
a lady in a gold Cadillac
pulled up outside my humble place
got out and
knocked on the door.
she was well dressed,
smiling,
really beautiful.
she sat on my couch
and I poured her a drink
as she said,
“I am the Queen of
Rats in a woman’s
body.”
“you look great,”
I said
“I have come to invite you to live
with us
in Rat Kingdom.
the world is going to end
with a bang
soon and all that will be left
will be Rats and a few
roaches.
we admire you and I have come
to invite you to join us
before it’s too late.”
“come on,” I said, “let’s go
into the bedroom and talk it
over.”
“you’re being frivolous,” she
said. “I’m asking you seriously if you will
join our Kingdom of
Rats.
will you?”
“have another drink,” I
replied, “and I’ll think it
over.”
she got up then, walked to the
door, opened it, walked out.
I stood at the window,
watched her get into her
gold Cadillac and drive
off.
20 years ago
I thought it was someone’s
idea of a feeble
joke.
now, I am no longer so
sure.
sometimes I think I should have
left with her.
other times
I am sure that I
did.
1970 BLUES
what I need, what I really need is
a blue dog with green eyes or
a fish that smiles like the Mona Lisa.
what I need, what I really need is
to never ever hear the Blue Danube Waltz
again
or to have to watch a baseball game on tv
like a slow chess match moving toward death.
what I need, what I really need is
to dream the decent dream
and I don’t mean the church or god
I mean just looking up some day
and seeing one human face midst
the billions of strangled dying sun
flowers.
what I really need, what I really need is
to laugh the way I used to laugh
because in this cage
there is nothing to do
nowhere to go.
what I need, what I really need is
to confront the walls
and to get ready for that motherfucker
Death
almost with a sense of
glee.
why?: because I would be
getting away from
you.
who?
you: rat with eyes like a
woman.
SNOW WHITE
now continues
the slow retreat, still tabulating the wounds, the
escapes, the mutilated years.
there was always something in the way, something wrong,
there was never
enough.
now continues
the slow retreat,
pa
cking age as an extra, no peace, even now.
you pluck a hair and find it to be white as
snow.
the slow retreat, no trumpets here, backing into it,
you can only wonder, did you put up a good fight?
or was it all just
a stupid joke?
we can only hope not.
now continues
the slow retreat, backing into it, going back until
finally
you reach the beginning
and can no longer be
found.
SOUR GRAPES
it’s over for me, he said, I’ve lost it.
maybe you never had it, I said.
oh, I had it, he said.
how did you know you had it?
one knows, he said, that’s all.
well I never had it, I told him.
that’s too fucking bad, he said.
what is? I asked.
too fucking bad you never had
it, he answered.
I don’t feel bad that I never had
it, I said.
I understand, he said, now go
away and leave me alone.
suit yourself, I said, and slid one
barstool down.
he just sat there staring into his
drink.
I don’t know what he had lost but if
I never had it and he had lost it,
then it seemed we were in the same
boat.
I decided
some people make too damned
much of everything and
I finished my drink and walked
out of there.
FENCING WITH THE SHADOWS
really feeling old sometimes,
pushing to get off of the couch,
puffing as I tie my shoes.
no, not me,
Jesus, please not me!
don’t
put me in a fucking walker next,
plodding along.
somehow, I couldn’t abide
that.
I light a cigar,
feel better.
at least I can still make it to the track
every day they’re running, slam
my bets in.
keeps the heart warm and the
brain hustling.
I still drive the side streets
in the meanest parts of
town,
gliding down back alleys, peering
around,
always curious.
I’m still crazy,
I’m all right,
and I’m in and out of the doctor’s
office, for this, for that, joking with
the nurses.
give me a few pills and I’m all
right.
got a refrigerator up here
in my writing room
stocked with cold ones.
the fight is still on.
I may be backed into a corner but I’m
snarling in the dark.
what’s left?
the redemption and the glory.
the last march of summer.
try to put me in a walker now and I’ll
kick your ass!
meanwhile, here’s another cold one,
and another.
it will be a while before I
see you at the finish line,